Raise the gas tax?

   It used to be that our gas spikes were caused by Middle Eastern countries cutting back on production.  Our present price spike however is caused by the lessening of the pandemic with life getting back to normal and the Russians invading Ukraine.  This week as I was filling up (the first time in 2 weeks) it was nice to see some of the price rise had dropped.  Next to me was a person filling up a very large truck ( not the one pictured but about that size).    He had been filling up a few minutes before me and he still wasn't full before I was done.  I can only guess how large his gas tank was but I am sure it was largely because his miles per gallon was so low.  The average vehicle driven today is more likely to be a truck than a car unlike 30 or 40 years ago.  Because of that increased size, the cost of a new vehicle is now $45,000.  Our relatively cheap gas has only encouraged Americans to drive cars much bigger than in Europe where the price of gas can be double what we pay.  Maybe now is the time to raise the gas tax to encourage people to buy more efficient vehicles rather than stop the gas tax.  Better yet maybe a tax on fuel-inefficient vehicles could be distributed as a rebate to persons buying fuel-efficient vehicles.  It would be like a carbon tax. All-electric cars would get the highest rebate.  Maybe I could then afford a Tesla!

     This answer to the recent price increase has been viewed very differently by conservatives and liberals.  Conservatives mainly want to increase drilling for oil and liberals want to move away from fossil fuels to renewable forms of energy.  The conservative response is only a short-term answer that ignores the climate crisis.  Conservatives are good at looking long-range at our debt problem but have a problem looking beyond today's gas price when it comes to the climate change problem.