Critique for Julia Anderson

Gas tax, as a mean of price control for gas, is an effective way to adjust supply
and demand in gas. As price goes up, people decrease gas consumption and
therefore price of gas will go down. Then demand of gas may go up again but
will maintain at a certain level as the price reaches equilibrium. Because of the
tax control, gas demand can be controlled and consumers get less hurt by the
increasing crude price as they lessen their dependence on gas.

As far as raising price and using part of the tax revenue to pay for roads damage,
I think it makes perfect sense to me. Gas is a necessity and a large portion of
gas demand won’t change because of the raising price. Therefore, there is no
worry for the huge drop of gas consumption, which has no effect on collecting
money for road maintenance.

One of the New York Times articles mentioned that two
senators have called for a 25 cent rise in the federal gasoline tax to pay for road
and bridge construction and maintenance and debt reduction. They suggest that
10 cents of the increase go toward paying down the debt, and the rest toward
transportation infrastructure. This indicates that a significant portion of tax income
will be used to cover debts, which will help the economy to recover.

As far as the job loss, I wonder how the statement “Initial losses of over 154,000
jobs by the end of 2011, not only in the energy sector but across the whole
economy” is deduced. I can’t this huge shock to employment rate because of
25 cents increase in gas. Meanwhile, raising gas tax creates job opportunities
as part of tax income is used for road maintaintence. If we want the economy
to rebound, we must increase investment in our transportation system. We are
faced with the decision of paying now, or paying even more later. Every $1 spent
now to keep a road in good condition prevents spending $6-$14 to rebuild the
road once it has deteriorated. There are other alternatives the government can
use to support small business, using the gas tax income. Therefore, I think the
actually effect of gas tax is not as server as mentioned in the second article you
quoted.