Why not raise gas prices?

There are clear benefits to high gas prices including local jobs and industry. All of the governments stated goals are met. So why not tax gas to raise prices?

Because the stated goals are a sham front designed to cover the naked adherence to financial bases of resource consuming corporate agendas. Like Bush/Cheney's Iraq war and coastal drilling there is little incentive to try and meet stated goals of transit usage and PM10 reduction. Instead the government will come up with ploys to keep the nonsense in place. An example is natural gas in the late '80s, electric cars in the 90s, and now hydrogen cars. Each has been deffered after years of government handouts and the existing model of Exxon Chevron Bush Cheney continues to sail along without alternatives.

The most recent such sham is tolls instead of a gas tax. Bush knows that tolls will be opposed and offers them out there so that an uneven policy can develop which may dumped somewhere down the line if gas prices decline enough for people to drive again. The opposition to raising gas prices is forwarded as a populist agenda as if people actually prefer income taxes or sales taxes or whatever other tax is not being discussed.

So why do they do it even when as Toyota and GM show bad earnings and inventory on the shelf its clearly not in their best interest to oppose a gas tax? Because it isn't Toyota and GM but the board and CEO of these groups that are the bad guys who labor in a "free market" but where the rules are stacked in favor of the business they think they know how to do. They feel they are too old to compete, in a new market of Nissan electrics and Picken's natural gas, and they are right. These companies need to restructure and get new management and that's not what they are about. What they are about is running the company into the ground on the model where they pay themselves millions in bonuses while the companies and pension plans sink.

This is where the rules of resources usage and sustainability clash in the 21st century. The old model of gas consumption and Iraq wars are going up against a supply shortage as consumption increases. These CEOs can no more avoid it then avoid the drift of consumers toward more fuel efficient cars. Ideally, for humans on this planet, fossil fuels would stay in the ground for a time in the future when we go through global cooling when they can be used to increase the green house effect.

Sustainability curriculums need to look at models of resource usage that are able to cap depletion at rates beneficial to future generations. That price cap is the challenge of our time. Until then the only model is one where people like the CEO of Toyota can grandstand on the Prius while rolling out Tacoma gas hogs for profitability. And politicians will similarly grandstand on gas prices rolling out hydrogen cars and tolls instead.