In the course of this campaign season many questions have been raised about the character of the various candidates for public office. We are sure to hear much more about their personal integrity and the veracity of specific claims they make. The test I recommend is simple: It asks whether a person who is seeking to lead us has the courage to come clean with the American people and tell one and all that we must take a bitter medicine--namely, that we must impose a hefty tax on oil. He or she can soften the blow by listing all the good things that would follow from such a tax, but would have to add that we also must give up on our romance with the automobile.
Before I list the obvious reasons (often enumerated by Tom Friedman in numerous columns in The New York Times) that such a tax is vital, I may as well come clean myself: I cannot find a single politician running for major office, who passes this basic test - whether or not they have a chance to make it. Indeed, most of the major candidates talk quite a bit about various tax cuts (or "incentives") they would introduce; designed to get Americans to use more Ethanol, buy hybrid cars, and other wise go 'green'. These may be all good ideas, but they are not going to get the job done, not by a long shot. A tax on oil is crucial both to discourage the use of oil and to finance other goodies.
A five dollar tax on every oil barrel would enhance our security by reducing our dependency on our enemies and adversaries. It would reduce the shiploads of scores upon scores of billions of dollars the United States is now sending each month to Putin's Russia, to Ahmadinejad's Iran, to the mother of all 9/11 terrorists Saudi Arabia, and other such good friends. These nations, in turn, use the oil funds to counter US policies overseas, to shore up their regimes at home, to purchase arms, and -- in Iran's case -- to finance terrorists groups.
Also, the higher costs of oil will encourage the development of alternative, renewable sources of energy and curtail global warming. In other words, a five-dollar tax will do wonders for the environment. To ensure that the poor can afford to purchase heating fuel and gasoline, some of the resulting tax revenues should be dedicated to provide energy stamps to those in need, so that they could purchase oil at reduced costs.
In addition, the scores of billions such a tax would generate can be used--take your pick and mix--to reduce the deficit, to finance social programs, or to make Social Security whole, among other goodies.
What is particularly distressing about the across-the-board failure of our politicians to tell the truth to the voters--to explain why a tax on oil is essential and overdue--is that it does not take nearly as much courage as it at first seems. A good part of the tax will, in effect, be paid by the oil producing countries, because there are limits to the ability of oil producers to pass the tax burden along to the consumers.
I guess at the end of the day one has to hold one's nose and vote for someone. They are not making this choice easy.
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Amitai Etzioni is Professor of International Relations at the George Washington University and, most recently, the author of Security First: For A Muscular, Moral Foreign Policy (Yale University Press, 2007)