[north]

Gas is very heavily taxed in Europe as are new cars, much more than in the US. Canada is somewhere in the middle.

Ironically Europe uses the free market to influence car purchases while in the US the government uses heavy regulation. The European approach has been to place heavy taxes on fuel and larger engines sizes and let the economic pressure of those taxes drive customers to smaller more efficient cars. In the US regulations were enacted like CAFE to force car makers to design cars that customers would otherwise not buy. Both systems have their pros and cons.

Personally I think we should have lower income taxes but place steep import taxes on oil to properly fund our roads, reduce foreign energy imports (especially from our enemies in the Muslim world), support domestic energy production and reduce overall energy usage.

I remember something Reagan said before he was President in one of his weekly radio messages; basically he said that left and right both agreed that taxing things we want to discourage such as smoking reduces activity in that area so why in heck do we tax working income? Why not tax things that are bad for us like buying oil from people who take the money we give them and use it to blow us up?

Sorry for the rant!