We import too much oil.
We have to borrow billions every year to keep the government running.
So why not put in a new policy that rewards consumers for buying more gasoline that will be subsidized by the government through additional borrowing?
It sounds crazy, but that’s the idea that Senators McCain and Clinton are promoting. They want to eliminate the federal gasoline tax for the summer. It will save consumers 18 cents a gallon but will cost the Treasury billions. This will encourage everyone to load the kids into the SUV and drive to the shore this summer. Of course the kids will have the extra billions added to their future tax burden, or subtracted from their Social Security benefits down the road.
This is a very disappointing proposal from my man John and just the kind of short-term political expediency I expect from Mrs. Clinton. Senator Obama is against it, but he has his hands full trying to deal with his former pastor, so issues of substance may have to wait.
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Back when gasoline was in the $2 range, some farsighted thinkers wanted to tack on taxes to drive the price up. The taxes would subsidize alternative energy development and keep that price differential we are now forced to pay out of the hands of profiteers and oil exporting countries, which is a source of revenue for terrorists and countries which oppose us. As we can see, American politicians generally feel legislation like this is political suicide. After all, GWB has made it his policy not to let guns interfere with butter. I can't help but feel our leaders either think we are soft and/or gasoholics and are selling us short. If they can't address this issue, we are dead in the water.
Subsidize gasoline and ethanol; now that's what's called a farsighted energy policy. Everyone gets to eat our seed corn. Fire sale on deck chairs on the Titanic.
As long as the deck chairs are on sale, I'll take two.
Eliminating the federal tax on gas for the summer simply speeds up the transer of American wealth to the middle east. This was the substance of Tom Friedman's column this morning. Not only has McCain embraced the Bush notion of tax cuts being the panacea for all ills, he seems to be embracing Bush's "market based" health care proposal. This is just another wayt to make the insurance industry wealthier and more powerful (if that's actually possible). McCain seems to be absolutely bereft of anything that could be called a fresh idea. Is he simply pandering to the Republican base or is he just intellectually lazy?
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