Gas taxes are a use tax and you are correct, it taxes those people who don’t work and drive around all day doing nothing. When you raise taxes on those who have income and property (income taxes and property taxes), you put the tax burden on an a select group of the population.
I can find ways to be more efficient in how and when I drive if gas taxes cause the price of gas to get to a point where I say enough. In other words, I have my own price elasticity where I say enough.
Even worse, the income and property taxes raised are in part funding a group that is increasingly distinct and separate from those paying those taxes. NJ is seeing a battle now between often childless “makers” squaring off against breeding “takers” about school funding (about 75% of our sky-high property taxes); this battle is increasingly drawn along racial lines as well as class, and the working taxpayers are fleeing rather than just accept slaving away for others’ kids...