Taxing Gasoline Tiaxing Gasoline  
AN INCREASE IN the gasoline tax is the right first step toward a national fuel policy. Such a tax would provide a double benefit. It would encourage conservation of oil, at a time when our imports are rising and Arab atatesmen are hinting at imposing oil embargoes again. At the same time a higher gasoline tax would raise the v new revenues needed to make possible a reduction in federal income and payroll taxes for the families on the bottom 'half of the economic ladder, who have been most seriously hurt by inflation.</br></br>It is essential to begin reducing our dependence on foreign oil immediately. As a matter of sane social values, it is clearly better to make the largest reductions in gasoline than to make them in the other oil products Û¢ÛÓ like home heating oil, or the industrial fuels on which jobs depend. And sharply higher excise tax on gasoline ÛÓ unlike most of the other conservation proposals now under discussion ÛÓ could be put in place quickly with immediate effect. The Federal Energy Administration is right to push the idea, and the White House is right to listen carefully. It is dismaying to hear a succession of senators dismiss it out of hand.</br></br>The most prevalent reason for opposing the tax is that it would be too hard on the poor. But poor families use very little gasolineÛÓless than one third as much as the average. According to a report by the Washington Center for Metropolitan Studies. It would cost relatively little to rebate the tax increase to those poor families who depend on cars for their livelihoods.</br></br>Over the past six months the United States has attempted to talk oil prices down through international negotiation. Unfortunately, it has not worked. Our quiet diplomacy has been rewarded with a series of large increases in world prices. The most visible of them was delivered at the middle of last month, when the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries held its quarterly meeting in Vienna. In reply. President Ford and Secretary of State Kissinger publicly warned the oil exporting countries that these continuous increases were generating serious economic trouble for the entire world, trouble from which the OPEC countries themselves would not necessarily be spared. Since then, Kuwait has raised its effective price and Venezuela has raised taxes sharply.</br></br>Under these circumstances, how ought the United States respond? There is only one answer that makes any real sense for us and for the rest of the industrial world.