P-I Editorial Board: Raise the Federal Gas Tax

Yesterday's lead editorial in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer makes the case for a higher federal gas tax, arguing that a hike of up 50 cents per gallon could be necessary. The rationale?

A federal gas tax increase of 50 cents or more would assure that there will be a market for new technologies.

Unpacked, this means that paying 50 cents a more for regular gas will make people a little more inclined to investigate alternatives. Those alternatives may still be more expensive than conventional gasoline-powered cars, but they'll be a bit less expensive.

And this seems obviously true. There are three caveats for Washington state consumers, though:
1) Inevitably, a gas tax will hit low-income families hardest. In the state that already has the most regressive tax system in the nation, this is no small concern.
2) From a different fairness perspective: as a nation, we've spent the entire Interstate Age encouraging people to live a spread-out lifestyle focused on the automobile. Cheap gas and free highways have made suburbanization happen. Suddenly hiking the gas tax amounts to pulling the rug out from under folks for who living in the suburbs is currently affordable. Nothing less forever, and people have to have known this, but it's still worth remembering that some low-income people would have to uproot because of such a change.
3) All you have to do is read the headlines this week to know that people are quite sensitive about gas prices. This means there's probably a cap on how high gas taxes can go before people start saying no. And if the feds impose a new 50 cent tax, that will make it much harder for Washington lawmakers to find political support for an additional state gas tax. In this light, Washington policymakers should be keeping an eye on federal activity on this front so they can stay in front of the federal trend.

You don't have to have a pessimistic view of human nature to believe that the only way humans are gonna reduce their reliance on fossil fuels is if you just beat them over the head with a (metaphorical) stick of this kind. It's simply too easy, even at $4 a gallon, for most people to maintain their car-centric lifestyle. So the P-I is probably right in their call for a higher gas tax.

But Washington policymakers should start thinking fast about whether such a move would paint the state's already-distorted fiscal structure further into a corner.