Given that a good part of our deficit arises from funding a war to keep the oil flowing and a military establishment to do the same, perhaps we should impose the county's cost of keeping the oil flowing on the oil we import. Why not annually add up the costs of maintaining our presence in the oil regions and maintaining shipping lanes, and any other imported oil related costs we can think up, divide that cost by the barrels of oil we import from overseas, and impose that cost on each barrel of oil we import by sea.

This would immediately balance the budget. It would also increase the cost of oil and gas, which would lead to a decrease in our use of oil and gas and less need to spend tremendous amounts of resources to keep the oil flowing. It would make alternative fuels (and alternative lifestyles) more economically competitive and perhaps move the country from our suicidal dependence on fossil fuels. As less money flowed to oil exporters, they would have less funding to fuel their tribal conflicts. And we would spew less pollution into an overloaded atmosphere.

Is it politically possible to tax imported oil and raise the cost of gasoline and heating fuel? I don’t know the answer to this, but were I a politician, I would argue that reducing the amount of oil we import is the only way every American citizen can fight terrorism. Our economic power is our greatest asset – which we apparently are too spoiled to bring to bear against our enemies. I would gladly pay three times the current price of gas to end the oil blackmail we are subject to and to move the economy to a sustainable future.

Randy Keller
Bishop, CA