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WORD COUNT
660
MAY 21, 2008
GAS TAX POLITICS –
PRETENDERS’ DELIGHT – by Donald Kaul
I’ve always said that
there are few things more powerful than a bad idea whose time had come,
but I’m beginning to have my doubts.
The bad idea, the very bad idea---the really, truly bad idea---of this
Presidential campaign season is the so-called “gas-tax holiday,” first
proposed by John McCain then echoed by Hillary Clinton. It would lift
the 18.4-cent-a-gallon federal tax on gasoline for the summer in the
name of giving suffering motorists relief from skyrocketing fuel costs.
As bad ideas go that is at the very top of the list, which is why I,
cynic that I am, thought it would carry Sen. Clinton to a rousing
victory in Indiana and perhaps even North Carolina.
Flash. It didn’t. Not only did it fail to give her a big victory,
there is evidence that it helped her lose. Exit interviews in Indiana
found that voters dismissed the gas-tax holiday as political pandering
and irrelevant to the problem of high fuel costs. In other words, they
acted like intelligent voters. Gee, what will they think of next?
Sen. Clinton’s opponent, Barak Obama, had argued that the proposed
measure was “a gimmick” that would save motorists a quick $30 over the
course of the summer while costing the cash-strapped highway fund $9
billion. Voters bought that argument.
I don’t expect Ms. Clinton to let the issue go easily, however. With
Hillary, nothing is easy.
Clinton says she’d replace the lost tax money by hitting the oil
companies with an “excess profits” tax. McCain, who doesn’t believe in
taxes, says he’d pay for the holiday by cutting out “hundreds of
millions of dollars of pork-barrel projects.” You know, like bridges,
roads and schools.
Actually, the gas-tax holiday is a much worse idea than even Obama let
on.
In the first place, good luck in trying to get a tax on the oil
companies through Congress. The oil companies own Congress, or enough
of it to ensure favorable tax legislation. And as far as McCain’s
pork-barrel cutting goes, I thought he was going to use that money to
finance his tax cuts for rich people. There’s only so much pork to go
around and, anyway, Congress isn’t about to let go of its share of the
porker.
In the second place, even if you did get a tax on oil companies, they
would certainly pass along the higher tax to consumers, keeping gas
prices where they are. We don’t have a gas-price police in this
country. If we did, there’d be more people in jail. The politicians’
rationale for this utterly feckless response to a real national problem
was explained with shocking candor by Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida, who
is trying to get his state to cut 10 cents from the state’s gas tax for
two weeks in July. The Republican Mr. Crist, told the New York Times:
“If experience with such gas tax holidays is any guide, drivers would
save less than politicians suggest. But that is not necessarily the
point. It’s about trying to serve the people and trying to understand
and have caring, compassionate hearts for what they’re dealing with at
the kitchen table.”
Oh brother. That’s right up there with a doctor saying it’s his job is
to give his patients sugar pills to convince them he has their best
interests at heart and is helping them, even though he’s not doing a
damn thing for them.
Perhaps the low point in Mrs. Clinton’s campaign---which has not lacked
for low points---took place just before the Indiana-North Carolina
elections. George Stephanopoulos asked her to name a single economist
who thought the gas-tax holiday was a good idea.
Puffing up like an adder, she answered: “I’m not going to put my lot
with economists.”
Thus joining a long line of know-nothing Presidential
candidates---George Wallace, Ross Perot, George Bush---who scorned
“pointy-headed intellectuals.”
For all her flaws, I thought she belonged in better company than that.
--
Don Kaul is a
two-time Pulitzer Prize-losing Washington correspondent who, by his own
account, is right more than he's wrong. Email:
dkaul2@earthlink.net -- A photo of Donald Kaul is available
CLICK HERE
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