Another Stupid Gas Gimmick

Joe Klein of Time Magazine starts his editorial in the same way that any con man softens up his mark: with flattery.

A wonderful thing happened in Washington last week. Both political parties tried to bribe the American people past their anger over high gasoline prices, and the public response was a collective guffaw. The Republicans' $100- rebate bribe ... received most of the ridicule. But the Democrats were equally craven, proposing a two-month "holiday" from the 18(cent)-per-gal. federal gasoline tax. This is not to suggest that we have suddenly become a nation of policy connoisseurs with a well-honed sense of energy wonkery. But Americans do have a well-honed sense of baloney when they hear it. Which suggests that there might be an opportunity for political honesty, and for leadership, on this issue.

Having congratulated his readers for their willingness to listen to honesty, does Klein ask why neither party spoke of an outright repeal of the federal gasoline tax? No. Does he ask why both parties are pushing the notion that it is the government's job to regulate prices? No. Does he ask why nobody is preparing Americans to expect the government to give out fewer handouts in return for lower taxes? No.

Instead, Klein offers his vision of more government interference with our daily lives as the solution -- and not even to the increased price of petroleum products, but to our "addiction" to the use of fossil fuels -- and hopes you "Americans" will fail to notice that he's grabbing at your freedom.

Well, I noticed, and here are a few quick questions I have regarding Klein's high-tax "answer".

[W]e've had a tripling of the oil price per barrel, from about $20 when George W. Bush took office to more than $70 now, and U.S. driving habits haven't changed significantly. Gasoline at $4 per gal. might get the job done, but that could have a very disruptive effect on the economy. How to minimize the disruption? By sending every last penny raised through new energy taxes right back to the public.

Why hasn't Klein bothered to examine -- as this American has -- any of the foreign or domestic reasons
for this price increase, and whether anything -- like fighting our current war more ruthlessly, protecting foreign assets of American energy companies, or abolishing environmental regulations -- might be done about it? Why does he treat this price hike as if it is a bolt from the blue, a message from God, as it were, that more taxation is needed?

What's even more absurd about Klein's proposal is that he simultaneously offers it as a means of discouraging fossil fuel usage and as a means of "cutting" other taxes. But if his plan succeeds, won't other taxes have to be raised -- since, apparently, every government program is sacred and cannot be cut? He does basically admit this later on, but almost as an aside.

So why does he even bother to write this editorial? We get the motive and the explanation in one paragraph.

If we use taxes to discourage antisocial behavior like smoking, we could also use taxes to discourage driving a Hummer at 90 m.p.h. on the interstate. If we use tax breaks to encourage positive social behavior like contributing money to charity, we could use tax breaks to encourage energy conservation by softening the impact of new energy taxes for those who can least afford to pay more at the pump. Economists ranging from New York Times columnist Paul Krugman on the left to N. Gregory Mankiw -- former head of George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers -- on the right have endorsed the general concept of a revenue-neutral tax shift. In 1999, Mankiw suggested lowering income tax rates 10% with the proceeds from a 50(cent)-per-gal. gas tax. His argument was that middle class people do most of the driving and income tax paying, so the tax shift would be a fair trade. [bold added]

If your sunglasses and your wristwatch are worth about the same amount of money, is a mugger who "shifts" to stealing the glasses instead of the watch giving you a "fair trade". I didn't think so, either. The same goes for "tax shifts".

Klein is a leftist, and the left is fascinated with the idea of the government as an agent of social engineering. The left likes taxation no less, but since Republicans have stopped being the party of small government -- except for not wanting to be caught raising taxes -- Klein knows that both the left and the right agree that the government is entitled to your money. So he packages his brilliant idea in such a way that numerically dominant, but ideologically bankrupt Republicans can see it was a way to charge higher taxes while not appearing to. He tosses the bone of social engineering to his pals on the left, not that they really need to be told to back this one.

So Klein correctly sees that our rights are ripe to be violated in an impending orgy of de facto bipartisanship in Washington, but this is only part of why Klein makes his pitch. Yes, the paragraph appeals to politicians, but remember whom he flatters at the beginning (and again at the end) of the article: us, the "Americans". Note that Klein cites a behavior that most of us disdain, smoking, and one that most value, donating to charity. And note that the government already discourages the one with taxes and encourages the other through tax breaks. Note further that most people, if they do not actually support such government action, fail to take it seriously enough as a threat to their rights. The only "trade" Klein proposes to us is that we stop thinking of the money that the government is taking from our pockets and the freedoms it is steadily eroding, and start thinking -- like him -- of what we want other people to be doing, and how nice it would be if Uncle Sam could make them do it.

Back in the earliest days of our nation's independence, the motto "Mind your own business" was popular. Meddlesome social engineers like Joe Klein are hoping that you will forget it, and the fact that when you support government interference in the affairs of others, you are visiting government interference upon your own. In other words, Joe Klein flatters you as an "American", but hopes that you aren't really an American after all.

The energy debate has revealed to Americans the fact that politicians in both parties are out of ideas. People like Klein are hoping to capitalize on this revealation by pretending that there is no alternative to a paternalistic state, that there are no other ideas to be had. But this country was founded upon an alternative idea: that man has inalienable rights which the government should protect. We can take Klein's advice and fail to notice, as he hopes we do, that it will make us even less free than we are now. Or we can decide to quit asking the government to do everything for us by forcing others to do our bidding. We can become a nation of aspiring dictators or a nation of free men. That has always been our fundamental choice. I prefer the latter.

Mind your own business, Mr. Klein.

-- CAV