I basically agree with raising the gas tax and cutting other taxes to compensate. I wouldn't support immediately raising it by $1/gallon, but something like 10 cents each year for the next 10 years would be workable. Taxes of some form are a necessary evil, and gas taxes have the virtue of correcting negative externalities.
Yeah, that's the solution, let's use the tax code to modify people's behavior ... works every time.
TD, it appears you're OK with the concept, but only to a certain point.
That's fine, but it immediately triggers the old, tired "slippery slope" argument.
To wit: a dollar is too much right now, but how about 50 cents this year, 75 cents next year, then a dollar and then a dollar 25?
My point is actually this: a tax, at any level, by definition goes to the government.
To support your position, I'd have to believe that the government could do more and better problem-solving if only it had more of your money and mine.
That might actually be the Republican take (in the current administration) but it doesn't strike me as conservative.
It DOES strike me as the kind of incremtalism that, in recent years, has enjoined free citizens from everything from medium-rare hamburgers and eggs over easy, to restrictions on who may own a firearm for protection and where in the great outdoors one might light a cigarette.
None of these things happened all at once, but slowly over years.
How much harm are you willing to do to the American economy to solve a problem that the free market will solve without you?
When pumped oil exceeds a certain price, shale, bio, nuclear and hydrogen will move in to fill any void.
In the meantime, the government enjoys quite enough of my earnings.