Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2003 14:42:19 -0500 From: Charles Komanoff <kea at igc.org> Subject: Bush econ adviser urged higher gas tax
A letter published in the New York Times in November 2001 urged a gasoline tax hike as a means to reduce U.S. oil consumption.
No news there, except that the writer, N. Gregory Mankiw, professor of economics at Harvard, was nominated Wednesday to head the President's Council of Economic Advisers.
The letter is full of hedging, but the sentiment is fairly clear.
Not that Mankiw's view will make a particle of difference, but it's fun plucking items like this from the memory hole.
-- CK (playing Winston Smith yet again)
------------------------------------------------ THE NEW YORK TIMES Nov. 27, 2001 To The Editor:
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ("Better Gas Mileage, Greater Security," Op-Ed, Nov. 24) may be right that reduced gasoline consumption should be a national goal. But I disagree with his proposal for how to achieve it.
Command-and-control solutions like the corporate average fuel economy, or CAFE, standards, are rarely the best approach to correcting decisions made in a free market. Such regulation not only is intrusive but also gives insufficient incentive to car makers once the standard is met and gives no incentive for car owners to drive less.
It would be better to use a corrective tax, like the tax on gasoline. A higher gasoline tax could be coupled with lower income taxes. Politically this should be a win-win proposition, for it would appeal to Democratic environmentalists and Republican supply-siders, as well as those who believe that dependence on foreign oil is a threat to national security.
N. GREGORY MANKIW Cambridge, Mass., Nov. 24, 2001 The writer is a professor of economics at Harvard University.