General Motors CEO Wants Higher Gas Prices

Rory Cooper / June 07, 2011

If General Motors CEO Dan Akerson had anything to say about it, you would be paying a dollar more a gallon for gas. Yes, with $4/gallon prices hitting consumers in a tough economy, Akerson told the Detroit News: “You know what I’d rather have them do — this will make my Republican friends puke — as gas is going to go down here now, we ought to just slap a 50-cent or a dollar tax on a gallon of gas.”

Akerson, 61, was appointed CEO of GM last fall, having previously served as an Obama-appointed member of the board. He has been critical of the Obama Administration on several issues, including fuel economy standards, but now has discovered something in common: a love of high gas prices. He, like President Obama and Energy Secretary Steven Chu, believes that higher gas prices will force taxpayers to buy more fuel-efficient (and usually more expensive) vehicles.

In 2008, Secretary Chu said: “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.” And it was President Obama who told CNBC in 2008 that he preferred a “gradual” increase in gas prices. Obama and Chu know that only when matched dollar-for-dollar will Americans choose alternative energy sources that are much more expensive today. Since the already heavily-subsidized alternative energy sources are not getting cheaper, the only solution is to make cheap energy more expensive. (more…)