Where to get the money...

The aftermath of the go-go years, including the cost of rescuing our financial institutions as well as car companies, the cost of shoring up social security and medicare, plus that of the stimulus package, will weigh heavily on the US economy and many fear it might bring us down to our knees. There's a solution though that would offset this outpouring of public money that no one has even had the guts to mention. As I suggested back in December, the government should move to tax gasoline by progressively adding an extra dollar per gallon over the course of one year.

No one would really “feel” it and it would behoove all of us to seriously conserve. As I have said then, such a tax - if applied across the board from gasoline to diesel, all the way to jet fuel - could produce one extra trillion in yearly revenue, would stimulate fuel-efficient vehicles, conservation, mass-transit solutions, and pull us out of the ditch we've been parked ourselves into. Later on, as these extraordinary expenditures are mopped up, that money could be use to seriously develop alternative renewable energy sources. Dear government, can you please show us some courage and act on this idea?