I don't think that would work very well. First, because the effect might be slight, as we would reduce spending by taxing people. Sure, the reduction in spending from increased taxation would be smaller than the increase in spending from increased government spending (as not all the taxed wealth would be spent in the first case - some of it would have been saved). We would still get a net increase in spending, but borrowing would be even better from that point of view.

And it would look a bit silly if we increased taxes and doled out the money to the member states just to see them cut the same taxes with the same money. Then we're not really getting any traction. We could of course say that the new money couldn't be used for tax cuts, but I think that would make it even harder to get a program like this down the throat of the member states.

Also, I don't think we want to make this a leftist "soak the rich"-thing, because then it would never get support from the center-right, which is a prerequisite for any realistic solution. We can soak the rich later, but our first priority one must be to stop mass unemployment in Europe.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.