Project Patriot Tax

From Time magazine this week :

"The real reason so many Americans hate gas taxes is that they see them. The government can eat away at your life with payroll taxes, but because they are usually deducted before you get to see your paycheck, you don't notice. But the price of gas is broadcast on big placards across the country. When it goes up, eyebrows rise a notch. But that's a good thing! The government has to tax you somehow. Isn't it better to shift taxation to places where people notice it, so they can demand accountability? The gas tax is therefore a win-win conservative-liberal."

He just forgot to call it the "Patriot Tax." And that he'd read Tom Friedman make the same point in his New York Times column 6 months earlier.