Different people wrote (sorry, I lost the attributions, but I make my point
in general, not to refute any particular person)"

If you want to decrease the consumption of gas in the US, you need to
provide incentives for people using energy efficient transportation.
The
most effective way is the increase the cost of gas. All Europeans
countries

tax the hell out of gas, to keep consumption down.

They tax the hell out of gas to keep a socialist lifestyle going while
hiding the true costs.

Also, the public transit is great.

It may or may not be used to fund unnecessary "socialist" government
programs. I'm not here to argue that.

But, having been in Europe for over 5 months over the past few years, and
having driven from the tip of Italy to northern Norway and from the
Netherlands to far east side of Slovakia, I'd have to say they have a very
strong interest in keeping automobile use and fuel consumption down as much
as they can for AIR POLLUTION and TRAFFIC CONGESTION reasons. Have you
driven in the traffic or breathed the air in urban Europe lately???

Those reasons, in and of themselves, are valid reasons for society -
collectively through their political system - to take control through means
such as fuel and vehicle taxes and funding decent mass transit through, yes,
user's fees and taxes. To me, it is entirely reasonable for European
countries -as well as some localities and states in the US - to do this and
it has nothing to do with socialism. Socialism might be another reason, but
these stand alone as reasonable and valid, imho.

Cam