As much as I believe a gas/oil tax would provide many benefits, I also recognize that it won't happen. On September 12, 2001, we as a nation focused our attention on a single purpose. We were as receptive as we ever would be to sacrifice and radical changes in order to track down the killers behind September 11th. Gas prices were above the historical lows of the 1990s 1 , but nobody considered them painful. Even if they had, the surge of anger and determination following these attacks would have made us all willing. Had Bush proposed such a tax and explained its benefits, Americans would have embraced it, as it would have given the average American a real and meaningful way to contribute.
Instead, nearly 5 years of governmental incompetence and malfeasance have destroyed any semblance of national consensus. The last few years of gasoline price increases have made people fearful of future increases. Raising gas prices from $3/gallon freaks people out while doing it from a base of $1.30/gallon (October 2001) would have been perfectly fine. Even if gas prices decline to those levels again 2 , they would have to remain low for an impossibly long time before people would be willing to raise the taxes 3 .
People are just too skittish about gasoline prices, and they won't soon forget. They don't realize that the era of cheap oil is permanently over. They're too attached too their past lifestyle, unwilling to accept that it is gone forever. We had the opportunity to address this problem without too much pain, so we could meet an inevitable future on our own terms, and even postpone it. Instead, Bush and Congress blew a singular opportunity to create a smooth transition and kill several birds with a single stone. The future is still coming, but now we will be dragged forward kicking and screaming.