Instead, the new gas taxes will be called carbon taxes – which makes it easier to shame-silence objections to them. This is an important tactical consideration for the Left especially because gas taxes are already the most regressive taxes on a necessity extant. Only a handful of things – like cigarettes – are taxed more punitively and disproportionately.

But most people don't smoke – and no one has to.

Driving is different – even if you don't. Because someone else has to. Like the guy who drives the truck that brings your food to the store and practically everything else you need to live.

The delivery cost of which is reflected in the cost to you.

Plus the cost of making what's delivered – almost all of which involves energy and almost all of that involves gasoline.

An increase in gas taxes – technically, motor fuels taxes, encompassing diesel fuel as well as gasoline –  is therefore a hard sell, politically, when you're a politician posturing as a "progressive." Like Mayor Pete Buttigieg, for instance – who is now fief underlord of the president selected by the Left to lord it over the entire country.

He wants a gas tax – but got his chain yanked recently for saying so. So it is necessary to say something else.