Oh, and while I am on the topic of taxes, I meant to give this a bit of a go. Another tax that should be raised is the gas tax. Oh, stop whining…really…driving in the U.S. is cheap. It really would be painless.

The folks at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy give us a very long, detailed and fact-based argument about the gas tax. It’s got cool graphs and everything. It argues for a reform. And here’s the key nugget:

The cost of this reform for the average driver would have been fairly modest.  The gas tax rate today would be 29 cents per gallon—or 10.6 cents higher than where it currently stands.  This increase would have been phased-in gradually, with the tax rate increase in most years amounting to less than 1 cent per gallon.  That 10.6 cent tax increase would cost the average driver $4.66 per month in 2013. [emphasis added]

Peanuts.