Remember how truckers and trucking firms wept and wailed about how the gasoline tax had to be cut to help them survive back when gasoline was over $1.30 per litre in Canada and about $4/gallon in the US?
Maybe now that gasoline prices are the lowest they have been for the past four or five years, these same firms will support an increase in the gasoline tax?
Oh? It's not symmetrical?
Didn't think so...
Note: Both Becker and Posner think it would not be a good idea to raise the gasoline taxes right now, given that the US economy is in a recession. Becker, however, prefers a gas tax increase to a tightening of gasoline efficiency standards:
"Although neither higher gas taxes nor tougher fuel-efficiency standards are desirable at this time, higher taxes would be preferable to tougher standards."
And Posner supports a petroleum tax once it is clear we are emerging from the current depression.
Me? I prefer driving our minivan to driving our smaller car on my commutes, and gasoline is so cheap nowadays that I am seriously thinking of doing so on a regular basis.
"People respond to incentives..."
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