New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman writes his column today in the format of an imaginary conversation between Saddam Hussein and the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. Discussing the American presidential campaign, Mr. Chavez is said to say, in a sentence that appears to reflect Mr. Friedman's thinking: "If either of these candidates was a real leader he would be telling Americans that they actually need to push energy conservation immediately, by raising gas taxes and aggressively reducing their dependence on us."
Well, for one thing, as a Spanish speaker, Mr. Chavez would understand the subjunctive tense and would have said, "If either of these candidates were a real leader. . . ." More substantively, though, what a bundle of contradictions there is here, notwithstanding the fact that Mr. Friedman is writing in his own column and not in one of the newspaper's editorials. For one thing, the Times has been bemoaning the fact that a flawed transition to deregulation has caused some spikes in energy prices in California. You don't see those articles praising the higher prices for encouraging conservation and a reduction in dependence on foreign oil. Is the principle here that the Times likes higher energy prices only if they are the result of taxes and not the result of deregulation? For another thing, the Times has opposed oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and off other stretches of pristine coastline. If reducing dependence on foreign oil is as important as Mr. Friedman suggests, why the opposition to developing domestic sources? For another thing, the lead editorial in today's Times judges Al Gore's economic plan by how it helps "families most in need." The gas tax Mr. Friedman proposes would presumably affect the poor as much, if not more than, the rich -- as a percentage of income, a ten-cent-a-gallon gas tax hurts a commuter earning $25,000 a year more than it would hurt a million-dollar-a-year investment banker.
Maybe Mr. Friedman's next column will propose a system in which drivers would enter their social security numbers at the gasoline pump and then automatically would be charged a sliding tax based on their annual income and whether the gas they would be using came from America or from overseas. If the gas came from America, the tax would be higher if the gas came from an area that the Times previously regarded as a pristine environmental jewel.
Gore's Gas: While we are constructing the Times's ideal energy tax, we could also insert a discount for energy that comes from Occidental Petroleum, the company that is the source of a hefty chunk of Al Gore's family fortune. An article on page one of today's Times about George W. Bush's campaign lets a Gore spokesman get away with attacking Mr. Bush for his ties to "the big oil industry" without mentioning the Gore stake in Oxy Pete.