I think the Democrats should heed Friedman's wise and learned advice, except ask for a $2 a gallon tax instead! ;-)

“There are no easy answers' but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right.” - Ronald Reagan (1964 Republican Convention)

I presume Friedman lives in DC, NYC, or some other large urban area with tax-payer supported mass transit, so he won't be paying that tax, will he? A true liberal, he doesn't think about the consequences of his plan to the rest of the country, or to people who actually work for a living. And, like many libs, he doesn't think deeply enough to realize that he'll wind up paying it anyway, in the form of higher prices for everything that has to be transported to his little island.

BTW, what do all those who want to find some alternate source of fuel right now, instead of drilling, expect people to do with all the cars that are now on the road? I don't mean the folks who can afford to [possibly] convert their engines to the new fuel, I mean the other 99% of us.

Chai

“A liberal is a man who will give away everything he doesn’t own.” —Frank Dane

No one is talking about what we really need, which is a strategy that
combines radical innovation and creating the market incentives for
that, conservation and radical energy efficiency.

Evil Bush locked away the 100 mpg carburetor!

So what ?most care are fuel injected, now.

Typical science-free blathering IDIOT

Try 20 bucks a gallon? No alternatives EXIST.. That you like.

Atomic powered cars will work, dig up a permit for that!

Liberals62%

IranianUranium

This is just another example of how out of touch the elitist media is. These people are making ungodly amounts of money, and to them  $4.50 for a gallon gas is a fraction of their income. Therefore higher gas prices has a fraciton of the impact on them as it does on the average person. Because of their extrodinarily high incomes they cannot even imagine what the average American goes through. They say they do, but they have no clue.  Higher gas prices are relative, and they seem unable grasp that simple concept.

FRIEDMAN: What is his energy plan?

The Bush energy plan should be obvious to everyone by now; to build new nuclear power plants and to (re)start development of domestic oil opportunities. It's working, isn't it?

The Friedman energy policy, as stated above, would be to, first of all, to strangle the domestic fossil fuel industry, to strangle the national economy, and then, try to fix it all with heretofore not-yet-ready-for-prime-time technologies, and no doubt a great depression would ensue.

The tax on gas makes sense, but only if the consumer has an alternative. When it comes to economic policy, you only close a door when you want the consumer to walk through a different exit; but if you don't have an exit, it just imprisons people in the room.

At the moment, let's face it, there is no alternative. Therefore, taxing energy won't bring any behavioral change, because there's nothing to change to. All it will do is leave the same behavior in place, only more expensive. And that extra money won't be going to researching alternative fuels -- it'll simply go to the government.

Second, this tax assumes that every individual in the economy will cut back on their use of energy at an equal rate. That's a fantasy. Poor people will have to cut back immediately, and most drastically. Rich people won't have to cut back until they really, really have to, but poor people will feel the effect immediately. More than likely, poor people will turn to the government for help, and that will provoke a disastrous social cycle.

The stupidest assumption of all is that "the scientists" will invent some magic fuel alternative, just as soon as they get all that extra money. That's logically equivalent to the myth that they would have already invented a solution, but we simply haven't put enough pressure put on them. This is the "hit the computer" method of fixing problems. Technological breakthoughs aren't that predictable. Given that a useful alternative fuel would make the inventor a fortune beyond Bill Gates, it's foolish to think that no one ever "bothered" to invent one before only because we're oil-addicted. That's fantasy.

Maybe a small tax will force consumers to streamline their driving, but that can only go so far. More than likely, in a few years, the technological advances will come in small steps. The tax incentives, then, would have to come in proportionately small steps. But a whopping gas tax right now is not smart. Trust me, I work with computers ... smacking them doesn't help.

Once again a fellow traveler in Vieira declines to ask what Friedman drives (yeah I'm sure he went to a Toyota dealership yesterday /s) or the recent gargantuan house he built to the contrary of his stated belief of global warming.

Once again we have a liberal that states the obvious in noting that an established industry is generally always resistant to competition while supporting the insanity of phasing out the discovery and production of fossil fuel and switch to feasable alternatives that simply don't exist. People of all political persuasions would love to have viable alternative sources of energy but making presumptions that we can cut discovery/production of oil in order to spur alternatives is very simply insane.

Friedman's a hypocrite and an elitist whom, if I may throw a cheap shot, doesn't miss an opportunity to consume food sources that have been grown, harvested, shipped, refined due to the energy discovered, refined and delivered by the fossil fuel industry.

Wow, nice spurs there, cowgirl! Ride that fat ass bull!

But seriously folks, Tommy F's plan is not nearly radical enough. I think it could be improved by adding this to the pump warning labels:

"Before pumping, customers must drink the first six ounces of gas prior to inserting the dispensing nozzle into the vehicle."

Drill and drill now! Nukes and nukes now! Windmills and windmills now! Solar and solar now! Conserve and conserve now! Am I missing something with this way of thinking? This country needs a plastic surgeon to replace all the elected boobs!

Hey Thomas, if you're so desperate for an alternative source, start your own alternative energy company and create one. You don't have to wait for government to add a $1.00 tax before you do so, nor do you need the Saudi's permission. And neither does anyone else.

By the way, the only thing killing wind and solar is wind and solar. They are inefficient, impractical solutions. What are we going to do, put sails on our cars now? People like to call fossil fuels old technology. If using fossil fuels is old technology, what the hell is using windmills called?

Not saying this is the answer either but something to look into. http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/downs2.htm

Let's just get our cars stoned, if it is true I am all for it. There has to be more than one way to skin a cat.

Fuzz

There is nothing worse than stupid people with the mindset that they're smarter than everyone else ala Tommy Freidman.