Good luck convincing Americans of "taxing the shit out of" gas. From reading news accounts in my Google news alerts, plus the always superb stories edited into the DrumBeats, I know that already, at these extremely low prices, the "average" American driver is not happy. From what I can gather the majority consensus seems to be "why are these prices so high?" (Of course, they're not, as the last gas-price post eloquently shows). One lacking critical intelligence but fully loaded on cornucopian idealism quickly comes to the conclusion, as I like to repeat a lot, that either:

"They're gouging us, this isn't fair!"

Or it's the tired saw "It's the government's fault!"

Both actually kind of true, if you play with the semantics a bit. Profits and "gouging" is really just a meaningless lawyer's debate, and the other defense mechanism is simply imaginative thinking, something we Americans excel at. It is as much the entire society's fault as it is the government's. It is illustrative of how bankrupt the entire political spectrum is. Given the American Idol/MTV mode of intellectual discourse we have amongst the masses in the US, taxing gas would make 'em a lot more unhappy--not to mention upsetting the oil companies, our cultural viceroys.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with you. It is just political suicide for whoever attempts it.

[edit: "If you were to spend the money (that has been pi$$ed away in Iraq) on a good cause, what would you spend it on and how much impact would it make?" Answer: 435000000000/300000000 ... I would have given every American $1450. That's how you buy votes! Seriously though, there is a lot that half a trillion could be used for, paying down the debt, Manhattan/Apollo energy program, etc etc.]