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These are frightening times for the American people. The Middle East is in turmoil. Editorial columnists hold entire restaurants at gunpoint over arcane fiscal concerns. Traditional tools of monetary policy are utterly failing to — excuse me, if everyone could please stop screaming and cowering under tables for just a minute, I’m talking here. Please. Thank you.
This nation is at a crossroads. Funding for desperately needed infrastructure projects has dried up. Public transit is chronically understaffed, despite demand being higher than ever. And this is why Congress must index the federal gasoline tax to inflation, or I swear to whatever God may be that I will murder every single man, woman and child in this Applebee’s Bar and Grille.
Congress last increased the federal gas tax in 1993 to 18.4 cents per gallon. Since then, its purchasing power has decreased by 33 percent, putting a great deal of pressure on the Highway Trust Fund. Our elected officials must act now to preserve our entire transportation funding scheme. If not, in a few years our highways will look just like the heads of the patrons in this Applebee’s Bar and Grille: exploded. From being shot with a gun.
What’s that, restaurant manager? FBI on the phone? Give it here. All right, FBI. I’ll negotiate. But I want something up front. Just so we get that we’re not dicking around here. Give me a congestion pricing scheme in three of the nation’s top five cities, with a commitment to review these pilot programs as they develop, and maybe the kids walk out of here. Fine. Two cities out of five. But you’re breaking America’s efforts to wean itself off of its dependence on foreign oil, as well as my balls.
There’s an environmental aspect to all this. Our lower gas prices, as compared to most European nations, have resulted in a car-dependent and carbon-intensive culture. The gas tax is our single best tool to combat this. In fact, according to a 2008 report from the Brookings Institu—HEY! Hey. I see you reaching for that knife, man. Don’t be a hero. Don’t make me fire my gun twice in the air. All right, you asked for it.
Listen, I get it. I know that as soon as you walk into a restaurant and start raving about the importance of targeted excise taxes, people will assume you’re some kind of crazy psychopath. Especially if you take out a gun and start threatening to murder everyone. But I’m asking all of you to look beyond your prejudices and seriously consider the possibility that cheap fuel, like breathing, is something that will not necessarily last forever. We need to be ready.
Two paths lie before you, Congress. The first path is not easy. It will require compromise. It will require our leaders to put aside their partisan differences. In the end, however, this path will lead us to a healthier, more sustainable country. The second path is much, much easier, but if we choose that path, our children will have to deal with the menaces of congestion, climate change and bullets, specifically the bullets which I will discharge from my weapon into said children.
And that, dear reader, is a problem that all the cheap foreign oil in the world cannot solve.
