A New York Times poll reported today found that “Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to a higher federal gasoline tax, but a significant number would go along with an increase if it reduced global warming or made the United States less dependent on foreign oil.”

Here are the most important results:

The problem, however, is that these results are partially artifacts of the polling process. Once voters hear arguments why a gas tax is a bad idea, these numbers will move back down.

Still, however, a gas tax is an economic necessity, so it seems like a good time to revive my idea of a Federal Reserve for gas taxes, which is designed to head off many potential objections from opponents:

We have a problem in this country: we use too much oil. It pollutes the air, increases global warming, and forces us to police the Middle East to ensure a stable energy supply, which has helped radicalize angry Arab youth. What’s the easiest way to reduce oil consumption? A gas tax, as Matthew Yglesias noted recently. Taxes cause some inefficiency, but shifting relative prices is a far more efficient and effective way to reduce oil consumption than government mandates. That’s why even conservatives like Greg Mankiw, the former top economist in the Bush White House, have supported it. Mankiw wrote a 1999 article in Fortune titled “Tax Gas Now!”, which argued that a gas tax paired with an income tax cut “may be the closest thing to a free lunch that economics has to offer.”

So what’s the problem? The public hates it, and politicians won’t go near it (Mankiw had to eat his words later). One reason is that the government’s commitment to ensuring that people get a fair deal from a gas tax is not credible. Politicians have every incentive to take the extra revenues and put them toward more pork while taking back the accompanying tax cut over time. So why not have an independent Federal Reserve-type board of economists that’s responsible for adjusting the tax cut to maximize fuel efficiency without creating economic dislocation? The board could also be responsible for creating a yearly tax rebate that could be administered separately from the normal income tax system. That way people would see the proceeds from the gas tax coming back to them in a transparent way.

If we’re going to make progress on reducing fuel consumption, we need a different approach. Why not this one?

Update 2/28: Matthew Yglesias comments at Tapped:

Noting widespread public opposition to the good idea of a higher gasoline tax, Brendan Nyhan seeks to revive his notion of a fed-esque board for gas taxes that would remove the subject from day-to-day political controversy and assure that gas taxes operate in a revenue-neutral manner with the revenue raised rebated by lowering other taxes. This is an ideal with some merits, though it’s not obvious to me it would be all that easier to implement politically than simply hiking the gas tax.

The other thing to consider is that barring a massive turnaround in public opinion, whereby the electorate decides that old people should be left to starve in the streets or get sick and die of treatable diseases, the current gap between federal spending and federal revenue is going to keep growing. At some point, Congress will respond to this by raising taxes, which will be politically unpopular. A gas tax increases might be a good way to accomplish some of that since conservatives regard that sort of thing as the least-bad way to enhance revenue. Revenue neutral tax reforms are the sort of thing you primarily want to think about when the revenue-spending relationship is on a sustainable track.

Quick response: Any tax increase proposal that starts with 12 percent support is doomed without some sort of different approach to implementation. It is true, as Yglesias points out, that a gas tax hike is one of the “best” tax increases. However, it’s also the most transparent to voters and one of the most regressive. The combination makes it politically explosive. That’s why a revenue neutral approach in which gas tax proceeds are legally sequestered and refunded to voters makes so much sense. It can address conservative concerns that gas taxes will be wasted on pork and liberal concerns that the poor will suffer disproportionately.

Redressing the long-run imbalance between federal revenues and expenditures will be difficult and politically painful even after the Bush upper-income tax cuts are rolled back. Making a gas tax part of that package will make the backlash all the worse. Let’s keep these problems separate.

Update 2/28: Ezra Klein (Ezra Klein and here) and Atrios have posted more thoughts on this – I’ll reply tomorrow…