{"id":15747,"date":"2008-06-03T10:30:04","date_gmt":"2008-06-03T14:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/15747.html"},"modified":"2008-06-03T10:30:04","modified_gmt":"2008-06-03T14:30:04","slug":"mccain-emphasizes-gas-tax-holiday-again-rails-against-elites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/mccain-emphasizes-gas-tax-holiday-again-rails-against-elites\/","title":{"rendered":"McCain emphasizes gas-tax holiday again, rails against ‘elites’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Honestly, it’s like deja vu all over again<\/a>. When the presidential campaign starts to resemble Groundhog Day:<\/p>\n

Right at the top of his remarks before taking questions from the Nashville crowd — where regular unleaded goes for about $3.85 — McCain said he wanted to discuss “what’s on everybody’s mind, the price of oil.”<\/p>\n

McCain said he was struck by the loud opposition by “the elites in this country.”<\/p>\n

“The hysterical reaction was a little bit funny,” he said. In Washington, McCain noted, “the wealthiest people live in Georgetown” and can walk downtown to work. By contrast, he said, the lowest-income workers live the furthest away. <\/p>\n

McCain explained that Barack Obama had called the plan “a gimmick”<\/p>\n

“Well, I’d like to have some more quote gimmicks to give low-income Americans some relief,” he jabbed back.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I keep thinking about an item<\/a> Time’s Joe Klein wrote about a month ago. Klein, a McCain admirer, predicted that McCain would avoid the cheap and pathetic style of campaigning we’re seeing now. McCain, Klein said, “sees the tawdry ceremonies of politics — the spin and hucksterism — as unworthy.” If he doesn’t, “McCain will have to live with the knowledge that in the most important business of his life, he chose expediency over honor. That’s probably not the way he wants to be remembered.”<\/p>\n

Klein was mistaken. McCain has seen the tawdry ceremonies of politics — the spin and hucksterism — and has come to believe that Americans are just dumb enough to fall for the con. McCain almost certainly knows that this gas-tax idea is ridiculous, and he has to realize that railing against the “elites” for acknowledging reality is a special kind of stupid.<\/p>\n

And yet, McCain peddles nonsense anyway, hoping voters won’t know the difference. That his proposal wouldn’t do anything to help low-income Americans, wouldn’t lower the price of gas, and would boost oil company profits seems entirely irrelevant. A confidence man in the middle of a scam can’t be bothered with reality — it only gets in the way of the deception.
\n
\nWe haven’t dealt with this issue in about a month, so by way of a refresher, let’s recall that no one could find an economist, anywhere, who thought a gas-tax holiday might actually help anyone other than oil executives. Bryan Caplan, an associate professor of economics at George Mason University, eventually stepped up to the plate and wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n

In the short run, the supply of gasoline is basically fixed; it takes a while to build a new refinery. The demand for gasoline, in contrast, is more responsive to price; we’re already seeing greater use of public transportation and brisk sales of fuel-efficient cars. When you combine fixed supply with flexible demand, it’s suppliers, not demanders, who pocket the tax cut. That’s Econ 101. […]<\/p>\n

Economists might overstate the rigidity of supply \u2014 it’s possible that eliminating the tax could spur producers to find a way to squeeze out a little more gas \u2014 but they’re probably right that the Clinton-McCain proposal will not shrink the price at the pump.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to the one economist willing to defend<\/i> the idea, a gas-tax holiday won’t save consumers any money, and will boost oil company profits.<\/p>\n

For that matter, let’s also not forget that McCain’s approach to this policy is even worse than Clinton’s. She, at least, wanted to replace the lost revenue with a tax increase. McCain wants to cut the tax, boost oil company profits, leave the price of gas unchanged, and either leave the National Highway Trust Fund with $10 billion in lost revenue (costing thousands of jobs and undermining U.S. infrastructure projects) or replace the money by boosting the deficit.<\/p>\n

When it comes to public policy, John McCain is just not a serious person. He, like the man he hopes to replace, doesn’t care for details, or substance, or explanations. McCain even appears to lack the curiosity to care.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Honestly, it’s like deja vu all over again. When the presidential campaign starts to resemble Groundhog Day: Right at the top of his remarks before taking questions from the Nashville crowd — where regular unleaded goes for about $3.85 — McCain said he wanted to discuss “what’s on everybody’s mind, the price of oil.” McCain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15747\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}