Clinton-McCain gas tax holiday slammed as bad idea »
Posted By TechnologyExpert 5 months, 1 week ago in NewsA gas tax holiday proposed by U.S. presidential hopefuls John McCain and Hillary Clinton is viewed as a bad idea by many economists and has drawn unexpected support for Clinton rival Barack Obama, who also is opposed.
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TechnologyExpert5 months, 1 week ago
'Score one for Obama,' wrote Greg Mankiw, a former chairman of President George W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers. 'In light of the side effects associated with driving ... gasoline taxes should be higher than they are, not lower.'
Republican McCain and Democrat Clinton, who is battling Obama for their party's nomination, both want to suspend the 18.4-cents-per-gallon federal gas tax during the peak summer driving months to ease the pain of soaring gas prices. The tax is used to fund the Highway Trust Fund that builds and maintains roads and bridges.
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A 'holiday' would result in a 10B loss of revenue. Based on several economists I've heard, the 18 cents would be made up when supplies run dry as people drive more. We don't have enough refinery capacity or enough oil to handle it.
And, anyone remember that bridge collapse last year? The problem is, people want stuff - and don't want to pay for it. Someone has to pay for the infrastructure repair in this country.
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Lurch5 months ago
Obama actually voted for the same thing in Illinois and it failed miserably. The oil companies, as oil companies ALWAYS do, gauged the consumers the difference and just pocketed the money themselves.
Obama has experience and is telling it like it is. The other two are clowning for political points with the lemmings.
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TimALoftis5 months, 1 week ago
very bad idea...a very short term approach when America needs long term solutions.
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bamababy5 months, 1 week ago
Typical of Hillary Clinton, say anything, do anything to get the vote. This is a horrible idea and would have horendous effects on the already laging economy. Once again the intelligent candidate, Senator Obama, understands the totality of the situation and stands up for want he knows is the right thing to, or not to do, and doesn't cave in to the quick fix,put a bandaid on it, solution.
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Lurch5 months ago
> because he doesn't believe taxes should EVER be lowered in any way. It wouldn't fit his quasi-Marxist views.
Interestingly, the `Greatest Generation`, like Obama, would have been absolutely appalled and ashamed at how the Republicans are trying to spend, steal, and shirk the taxes onto their children`s and grandchildren`s generations because they are not old enough to fight for their own prosperity. Republicans are cowards who put their own fiscal and political greed above their own children and grandchildren.
No, Obama, just like the Greatest Generation, believes a truly great nation does not spend the future, it takes responsibility for its own actions and deeds.
The Bush/McCain agenda is to turn America into a full-blown fascist banana republic.
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nostalgia5 months, 1 week ago
I'd love to hear ONE candidate propose eliminating the Federal gas tax altogether.
Let the states collect the additional 18 cents/gal and handle all brifge/road repairs.
That would eliminate the Federal middleman and allow the states to prioritize the spending on repair/maintenance
Plus you wouldn't have Congress spending these dollars on usless projects
The Highway Trust Fund will run a negative balance sometime in 2009, yet the Congress and the President fail to make any substantive proposals that would alter this outcome. The Committee unhelpfully points out that the President didn't propose any new ideas, and then happily slices and dices a number of programs into 1,400 earmarks.
TCS has long maintained that earmarking is one of the problems that has led to this bleak outlook for the HTF. Lack of prioritization has been a huge problem for our nation's transportation program for many years now.
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nostalgia5 months, 1 week ago
When the money coming out of Washington is so thinly sliced, it spreads it out to too many projects for the trust fund to support. In addition, when transportation decisions are made based on political might (ie. earmarks) instead of on the nation's true transportation needs, the priorities still need to be funded.
It is no surprise that the Chair and Ranking of the Appropriations Committee (Reps. Obey (D-WI) and Lewis (R-CA)) and the Transportation-HUD subcommittee (Reps. Olver (D-MA) and Knollenberg (R-MI) were some of the biggest winners in this bill.
http://www.taxpayer.net/TCS/PressReleases/2007/...
Some of the pork:
$100,000 for the Murray Athletic Center at Elmira College
$250,000 for construction at the Walter Clore Wine and Culinary Center
$100,000 for the Wakely Lodge Resort, a golf course,
$81 million (admin request was $74.2 million) for the Center for Advanced Aviation System Development (CAASD), which is a project of the Mitre Corporation,
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nostalgia5 months, 1 week ago
$50,000 for the National Forest Recreation Association, for construction of a National Mule and Packers Museum in Bishop, CA
$250,000 for Downtown Roanoke (VA) for Infrastructure renovations for awnings of the historic market,
$100,000 for the Town of Boydton (VA) for development of the Walking Tour of Boydton
Give me a break! Why is the Federal gas tax paying for these projects
Take control out of Federal hands
They just can't resist pork
This was in the House FY08 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Related Agencies Appropriations bil
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