Doubling the current US price of petrol, from $4 a gallon, to $8 by way of a tax, could bring about all sorts of benefits… if you can overlook the negatives first that is.

Cheap gas is unfair. Driving creates huge social costs in the form of traffic, health-damaging pollution and global warming that aren’t suffered solely by the person buying the gasoline. Governments usually set up idiotic systems to offset such social costs (emissions trading, ethanol subsidies, taco truck regulations) instead of forcing individuals to pay for their own mess by adding a tax to remedy the imbalance. That kind of tax - the most fair kind, really - is called a Pigovian tax, and its use is why gas costs $8 to $10 a gallon in Europe, where they have fewer road deaths even though they drive like complete idiots.

In Australia we already have a fairly hefty fuel excise (about 45 per cent), and there has been talk recently about reducing it by five to ten cents. Is drastically increasing the fuel excise in fact the way to go though?

Would the long term benefits be worth the short to medium term hardship while we adapted to being less dependent on our cars? Hmm.