For crying out loud, raise the gas tax
Conservative economist Greg Mankiw has pushed the idea before: raise the gas tax, and offset this by reducing payroll taxes. So has conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, many times. He did it again last month.
I see a higher gas tax as one policy among many needed to reduce fossil fuel consumption and fund infrastructure investment; there’s little evidence that Krauthammer is interested in many of the others. And I’d rather take the opportunity to make payroll taxes a bit less regressive—by aiming cuts specifically at low-income earners—than simply reduce them across the board.
Still, with gas prices way down, there’s no question that doing exactly what Mankiw and Krauthammer say would be much better than simply not doing it. People would drive less and/or the Highway Trust Fund would have more to spend on crumbling infrastructure, and people’s larger paychecks could absorb the increase at the pump.
