Friedman Likes Dodd's Tax

Times columnist Tom Friedman just delivered a speech at the Personal Democracy Forum entitled “What happens when we all have a dog’s hearing,” about the saturation of communication technology in our lives. (As if to prove his point, the speech was delivered against an audio backdrop of blogger key-strokes.)

After reading his speech, he told the audience that he didn’t think the 2008 election cycle was a big leap forward, technologically speaking.

“So far, I don’t see this election, so far, as a quantum leap forward on the last one," he said. "When we think of what Dean did in terms of fund-raising. I don’t see that disruptive move in this election yet; somebody taking the technology and making really a disruptive move and everybody saying ‘I gotta do that.’”

The bright spot, he said, was that there at least one candidate campaign on a promise to raise taxes on some fuels:

“Chris Dodd finally said the t-word. He came out in favor of a carbon tax. And, um, that’s the good news. The bad news is, he’s the only one. You’d think one person running for President would just take a flier and say, ‘What the hell. Let's tell the truth. Okay, if we don’t our prices right, we’re never going to get off oil.'”