aFraidman of the day: $140 billion ‘Freedom Tax’ on gasoline

New York Times columnist Tom Friedman is giving Al Gore a run for his money in the Green Hypocrisy Derby.

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Friedman--known on this blog as aFraidman for ducking debate with Steve Milloy--called today for a $1-per-gallon tax on gasoline. This Orwellian "Freedom Tax," as aFraidman called it, would be used to...

...stimulate more investment in renewable energy now; ... stimulate more consumer demand for the energy-efficient vehicles that the reborn General Motors and Chrysler are supposed to make; and,... reduce our oil imports in a way that would surely affect the global price and weaken every petro-dictator.

The ever-compassionate aFraidman would allow rebates to the poor and elderly--as if such a rebate would somehow magically immunize these vulnerable groups from the higher costs the rest of us would pay and that would ripple throughout the economy. A year ago, $4-gas was choking Meals-on-Wheels services to the elderly and disabled around the country. Since we use about 385 million gallons of gas per day, aFraidman's "Freedom Tax" would collect about $140 billion per year--which would then be wasted on government-directed energy technology boondoggles. Remember U.S. Synfuels Corp.? And as to being subject to the whims of petro-dictators, about 44 percent of our oil supply comes from OPEC members. So would you rather have 44 percent of our oil supply controlled by foreign petro-dictators or 100 percent of our oil supply controlled by domestic green-dictators? The petro-dictators must sell their oil--if they want to stay in power. The greens don't want us using any oil at all, regardless of source. Also, as aFraidman's Freedom Tax would take American's out of their cars--a technology that has allowed Americans unprecedented freedom of mobility for more than 100 years--it would actually make us less free. Finally, Friedman, who authored the 2008 alarmist book Hot, Flat and Crowded, is married to a woman (Ann Bucksbaum) who is an heiress to a real estate and shopping mall fortune that was worth $3.2 billion in mid-2008. Although the family fortune was reduced by mismanagement and debt to a mere $116 million by December 2008, you can bet that Friedman's $9.3 million, 11,400 square-foot home on 7.5 acres in the tony Washington, D.C. suburb of Bethesda, Md is neither hot, flat, nor crowded. No wonder Friedman's aFraidman...