Oildummy.com

Senators John McCain and Hillary Clinton recently proposed a plan that likely resonates well with many potential voters, but is absolutely terrible.  They announced that they would like a summer-long, from Memorial Day to Labor Day I believe, holiday free from federal gas taxes.  Supposedly eliminating that 18 cent/gallon tax would help consumers at the pump.  It’s a load of crock though!

We are supposed to be slowly weaning ourselves from our enormous thirst for cheap oil, and here are two of our presidential candidates basically saying they are going to help us use more of it.  This reinforces a huge public notion that government can and should do something about the high gas prices.  Truth is, this is just political garbage that they desperately hope will reel in some undecided voters.

Taking away the federal tax would most likely just increase demand to the point where it was with the tax in place (Perhaps McCain and Clinton need macroeconomics 101 again?).  Then we are still at square one, with prices the same and no tax revenues coming in.  When the tax would be reapplied in September, prices would be even higher because of this stupid move.  Besides, our road infrastructure is crappy enough here in the States (Uhh, did they get the memo about the disaster in Minneapolis?).  How many billions of dollars in revenues would we lose that we desperately need to fix our roads?  Here’s a better idea: let’s actually raise the tax, and fund some alternative energy development with the revenues.  What do you think?  Do McCain and Clinton actually ignorant to believe this is a good idea, or is just a political ploy?