Tax Oil?

The following is my letter to the editor that appeared in the Santa Cruz Sentential June 15, 2010.

When I read Jeffrey Scharf's editorial on Sunday, I couldn't help but ask, what is it this guy smoking? Tax oil? One would hope with the rescission and high unemployment the government could come up with something other than making a necessity more expensive. It is well known that an oil tax, much like a VAT tax is the most oppressive tax one can lay the poor and middle class. You see, not only will an oil tax necessarily make gasoline skyrocket (ala cap and trade), it will increase the cost of every consumer item that needs to be transported, which is pretty much everything. America's reliance on automobiles has resulted in communities that are spread out and not as amendable to mass transit; many Americans drive 30-60 miles or more a day to work. Mr Scharf, how about we let this emergency go to waste and let cooler heads prevail? If the government would just get out of the way with it's tax and spending ways, American innovation would be able to take car of this problem. No problem has ever been solved by more taxes.

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