Long View – Oil Policy – Strategic Vulnerability?

The Power of Four Dollars, By Charles Krauthammer Townhall.com, June 6, 2008.

At $3 a gallon, Americans just grin and bear it, suck it up, and, while complaining profusely, keep driving like crazy. At $4, it is a world transformed.

The wholesale flight from gas guzzlers is stunning in its swiftness, but utterly predictable.

Unfortunately, instead of hiking the price ourselves by means of a gasoline tax that could be instantly refunded to the American people in the form of lower payroll taxes, we let the Saudis, Venezuelans, Russians and Iranians do the taxing for us — and pocket the money that the tax would have recycled back to the American worker.