My wife goes to the grocery store (12 miles each way) almost everyday to
get something that she forgot the previous day, so she could certainly
improve her trip planning. As a result of cheap gasoline, people are living
great distances from their workplace with commutes of over an hour being
common in many parts of the country. If gasoline was $5/gallon you would
see commute distances shorten, more telecommuting, smaller vehicles, better
trip planning.

The economic costs of doing all this are tiny and probably there is actually
a benefit. If there was simply a $4 tax on gasoline and an equivenenat tax
credit (transferable) for income taxes, there would be no net economic cost
and a huge incentive to use energy more efficiently. There would be
casualties in businesses catering to people traveling by auto but that is
about it.

Mike
MU-2



Mike - I don't agree with your statement that there are no economic
costs. The government bureacracy to administer a $4 dollar fuel tax
and process a $4 income tax credit would be enormous.

Also, I presume you would be in favor of refunding your $4 fuel tax to
lower income people who don't pay income tax or pay it at low marginal
rates? If not, then you are really looking at an additional tax on
middle/lower income people at $4 per gallon. If you are interested
in refunding the tax irrespective of taxable income, then you haven't
really caused anyone to change their driving habits - you've just
created a new government department to collect money and refund it to
the same people.

I like a lot of your ideas on this newsgroup. This one, though,
doesn't seem to be as practical as many of your other ones. John