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The EditorsMarch 16, 2016
Metro bus makes it way down 16th street in in downtown Washington, Wednesday, March 16, 2016. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Unveiled in February, President Obama’s proposed budget includes hundreds of billions of dollars of investments in transportation, from mass transit to self-driving cars. What may be most notable about the proposal, though, is the way he proposes to pay for them: with a $10 per barrel tax on oil.

Leaders in Congress have already called the proposal dead on arrival, but the idea should not be dismissed so quickly. Oil prices remain low, and economists tend to agree that a tax on oil is a smart idea. “There’s all sorts of bad stuff that goes along with oil that economists view as a kind of market failure,” said Gregory Mankiw, an economic adviser to George W. Bush and Mitt Romney. “And the simplest way of fixing a market failure is to tax the activity that’s causing these adverse side effects.”

These “adverse side effects” include climate change but also nuisances that may be easier for the general public to relate to, like congestion and car accidents. A tax on oil is an incentive to consider other modes of transportation. Rail travel, buses and, yes, even self-driving cars represent safer and more efficient ways to travel. Mr. Obama’s proposed budget also includes money for road improvements and repair (this is the United States, after all), but the amount no longer dwarfs investments in travel alternatives. It should be remembered, too, that better public transit is especially important for poor communities, where people do not have access to safe or reliable modes of transportation. Investments in public transit can be a way to fight climate change and serve people in need.

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John Walton
8 years ago
Would raise the materials cost of paving your driveway by 30%
Charles Erlinger
8 years ago
The thing about a tax on oil is that it is so regressive. What comes to my mind when I hear of such ideas is the yard men and women with their gas-guzzling pickups hauling a trailer loaded with mowers and blowers and shovels and hedge trimmers. These people usually don't live in the same suburbs where the landscaping work is, and at the same time they don't live next to the dumps where local laws and ordnances demand that landscaping trash and refuse be deposited. And what about the plumbers and electricians and painters and carpenters who can't possibly get to their jobs on public transportation while carrying their tools, equipment and materials? Almost all of these whom we meet almost daily are independent contractors who are operating on very thin margin, with, by the way, no benefits. The price of gas affects their daily lives in proportionately a much larger way than it might for you and me.
Robert O'Connell
8 years ago
Is the goal to raise money for spending that President Obama wants to pay for or to alter behavior? What would you think of taxing Catholics in the United States if a president wanted to alter behavior -- like further President Obama's imposition of contraception, abortions, planned parenthood (or to put an end to abusing children)?

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