It's a very progressive tax and will be extremely effective. Which is why the neo-Republicans have fought against it (despite it originally being an old-Republicans idea).
anything the government gets their greasy hands on instantly becomes the most inefficient and cost overrun thing on the face of the earth. Hasn't their track record proven it by far and large?
We need combustibles to become more expensive (because markets don't act well if the true cost is hidden) and government is actually the only entity that can do that, that has a chance of not bleeding us dry and creating bloodsucking monstrosity in the process.
The day-to-day stuff is generally more efficient: that's why the US's private healthcare system is extremely expensive when compared to the UK's public healthcare system (evan at times when the latter was properly funded).