I don’t typically quote a lot of Thomas Friedman here, but he’s got a column it today’s New York Times on one of my favorite subjects – the gas tax… I’ve said it before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again, but we desperately need a coordinated campaign for a gas tax in this country… At any rate, it looks as though Friedman agrees with me. And I really like the way he draws comparisons between our apparent willingness to sacrifice the lives of young Americans in the Middle East, and our refusal as a country to even consider the thought of paying another fifty-cents per gallon at the pump. Here’s a clip from his article:

…How about Denmark? Little Denmark, sweet, never-hurt-a-fly Denmark, was hit hard by the 1973 Arab oil embargo. In 1973, Denmark got all its oil from the Middle East. Today? Zero. Why? Because Denmark got tough. It imposed on itself a carbon tax, a roughly $5-a-gallon gasoline tax, made massive investments in energy efficiency and in systems to generate energy from waste, along with a discovery of North Sea oil (about 40 percent of its needs).

And us? When it comes to raising gasoline taxes or carbon taxes — at a perfect time like this when prices are already low — our politicians tell us it is simply “off the table.” So I repeat, who is the real tough guy here?

“The first rule of warfare is: ‘Take the high ground.’ Even the simplest Taliban fighter knows that,” said David Rothkopf, energy consultant and author of “Superclass.” “The strategic high ground in the world — whether it is in the Middle East or vis-à-vis difficult countries like Russia and Venezuela — is to be less dependent on oil. And yet, we simply refuse to seize it.”

According to the energy economist Phil Verleger, a $1 tax on gasoline and diesel fuel would raise about $140 billion a year. If I had that money, I’d devote 45 cents of each dollar to pay down the deficit and satisfy the debt hawks, 45 cents to pay for new health care and 10 cents to cushion the burden of such a tax on the poor and on those who need to drive long distances…

I am not sure what the right troop number is for Afghanistan; I need to hear more. But I sure know this: There is something wrong when our country is willing to consider spending more lives and treasure in Afghanistan, where winning is highly uncertain, but can’t even talk about a gasoline tax, which is win, win, win, win, win — with no uncertainty at all.

Given that we can’t seem to move forward with a public option in healthcare, in spite of the fact that approximately 75% of Americans polled consistently say that they want one available, I can’t see how we could possibly move forward with anything as unpopular as a gas tax… Of course, we could have done it after 9/11, when there was widespread consensus that we needed to do something bold and ambitious, but, being the short-sighted assholes that we are, we chose war for oil instead… And you know how well that went… So, absent another terrorist attack, or the sudden ascension of politicians that aren’t craven cowards, what can we do?

How do we get a gas tax passed?

Oh, speaking of politicians who won’t do what they need to, in the new issue of Time, reporter Daniel Okrent, writing about the tragedy of Detroit, places a lot of the blame at the feet of our Congressman, John Dingell. Here’s a clip:

…In 1956, when I was 8 years old, my Congressman was John D. Dingell. There are people in southeastern Michigan who are still represented by Dingell, the longest-serving member in the history of the House of Representatives. “The working men and women of Michigan and their families have always been Congressman Dingell’s top priority,” his website declares, and I suppose he thinks he has served them well — by resisting, in succession, tougher safety regulations, more-stringent mileage standards, relaxed trade restrictions and virtually any other measure that might have forced the American automobile industry to make cars that could stand up to foreign competition.

By so ably satisfying the wishes of the auto industry — by encouraging southeastern Michigan’s reliance on this single, lumbering mastodon — Dingell has in fact played a signal role in destroying Detroit. He was hardly alone; if you wanted to get elected in southeastern Michigan, you had to support the party line dictated by the Big Four — GM, Ford, Chrysler and their co-conspirator the United Auto Workers. Anything that might limit the industry’s income was bad for the auto industry, and anything bad for the auto industry was deemed dangerous to Detroit…

Even though I haven’t talked about it here in a while, I’m still bitter over the fact that Dingell, when he was Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, didn’t do more to create the kind of change that this country needed. Instead of using his then considerable strength in the House to champion causes that would have decreased global warming pollution and increased fuel efficiency, he expended his effort fighting reform on behalf of the Big 3 and their unions. (SUVs, after all, were where the profit was.) And that’s what bothers me. He could have been a truly great figure in American history. With his understanding of the auto industry, and his power, he could have led a revolution in green transportation that would have put Michigan back on the map. But, instead, he chose to fight against fuel efficiency and energy independence, and that’s what he’ll forever be known for – driving the last nail into the coffin of Detroit.