Indiana Holiday
By GAIL COLLINS
New York Times
Our question for today is: What does the debate over that cheesy plan for a gas tax holiday mean to the American voting public?
This all started with John McCain, who proposed suspending the 18.4-cent-per-gallon federal gas tax from Memorial Day to Labor Day in order to give regular hard-working Americans “a little relief.” In terms of rational policy-making, this is a little bit like announcing that you want to reduce tensions in the Middle East by drilling an enormous hole in Sweden.
Economists instantly pointed out that dropping the tax would cost the government around $9 billion, possibly add to the already obscene profits of the oil companies and do little or nothing to actually lower the price of fuel. Not to mention that it points us in the exact wrong direction on global warming and energy independence.
But, hey, nothing’s perfect.
McCain has taken to responding to criticism like this by saying that his proposal is not “the end of western civilization as we know it.” This is a little weird coming from the guy who spent the early primary season depicting Hillary Clinton’s attempt to get a million dollars for a Woodstock museum as a nuclear strike against the nation’s economic security.
(Continued here.)
New York Times
Our question for today is: What does the debate over that cheesy plan for a gas tax holiday mean to the American voting public?
This all started with John McCain, who proposed suspending the 18.4-cent-per-gallon federal gas tax from Memorial Day to Labor Day in order to give regular hard-working Americans “a little relief.” In terms of rational policy-making, this is a little bit like announcing that you want to reduce tensions in the Middle East by drilling an enormous hole in Sweden.
Economists instantly pointed out that dropping the tax would cost the government around $9 billion, possibly add to the already obscene profits of the oil companies and do little or nothing to actually lower the price of fuel. Not to mention that it points us in the exact wrong direction on global warming and energy independence.
But, hey, nothing’s perfect.
McCain has taken to responding to criticism like this by saying that his proposal is not “the end of western civilization as we know it.” This is a little weird coming from the guy who spent the early primary season depicting Hillary Clinton’s attempt to get a million dollars for a Woodstock museum as a nuclear strike against the nation’s economic security.
(Continued here.)
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