I did not even know it, but apparently I have been a Pigovian since my first year of eligibility to vote in presidential elections. It was 1980, and I backed John Anderson.1 The main plank in his campaign platform that I still remember 28 years later was a 50c/gallon gas tax. This was at a time when the nominal cost of a gallon of gasoline had just passed 50 cents (though the price in 2007 dollars was about $2.00).
Last October, in the WSJ, Greg Mankiw gave the case for a large (but gradual) increase in the gas tax, which he reprinted at his blog under the title, The Pigovian Manifesto.
John Anderson got 7% of the vote in the general election in 1980, and as far as I know no candidate who advocated a large increase in the gas tax has beaten that percentage since. As Mankiw concludes with:
don’t expect those vying for office to come around until the American people recognize that while higher gas taxes are unattractive, the alternatives are even worse.
Indeed. Count me in as a self-declared (and, in spirit, adult-lifelong) member of the Pigou Club, along with Mankiw, Al Gore, Alan Greenspan, Paul Volcker, Paul Krugman, Andrew Sullivan, Greg Easterbrook, Joe Stiglitz, Gary Becker, Nouriel Roubini, Arthur Laffer, and an evidently growing list of economists, pundits, and other social commentators. Are political scientists/orchardists welcome to the club?
- Not only with my vote, but as a petition coordinator in my city for his petition drive to get on the general-election ballot. [↩]
I believe that Ross Perot had a $.50 gasoline tax as a component of his economic proposals in the 1992 presidential election. Therefore his 19% in 1992 trumps Anderson’s 7% in 1980. Still, I think this is a valuable point as it seems unlikely a politician would espouse such a view in this current environment. Perhaps another candidate who could self-finance?
Seed planted by Baker — 25 January 2008 @ 20:02
In Canada in 1979 the minority government of Progressive Conservative Joe Clark introduced a budget whose most controversial measure was an 18 cent per gallon increase in the federal gasoline tax. The government lost a confidence motion, and lost in the ensuing federal election.
Seed planted by BKN — 25 January 2008 @ 20:28