{"id":16121,"date":"2008-07-08T09:15:53","date_gmt":"2008-07-08T13:15:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/16121.html"},"modified":"2008-07-08T09:15:53","modified_gmt":"2008-07-08T13:15:53","slug":"some-economists-dont-think-much-of-my-gas-tax-holiday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/some-economists-dont-think-much-of-my-gas-tax-holiday\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Some economists don’t think much of my gas tax holiday’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Someday, John McCain will look back at his presidential campaign and wonder, “What on earth was I thinking? Why did I let those consultants and lobbyists convince me to repeat nonsense I know isn’t true?” Take yesterday<\/a>, for example.<\/p>\n

“Some economists don’t think much of my gas tax holiday,” he said of his plan to temporarily suspend the federal levy on motor fuels. “But the American people like it, and so do small business owners.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Good lord, what an embarrassment. “Some economists don’t think much of my gas tax holiday”? Actually, the McCain campaign found 300 economists<\/a> who’d endorsed his tax-cut plan, but literally none of them was willing to endorse McCain’s ridiculous gas-tax-holiday idea.<\/p>\n

Bragging that “the American people like it” isn’t a selling point; it’s actually evidence of a scam that McCain should be ashamed of. Lying to families that are struggling to pay the bills, telling them that a proposal that would do nothing in reality might offer them some glimmer of hope, is politics at its worst. There’s just no excuse for it. The old John McCain, the one who said he valued “straight talk,” would be disgusted by this. But this John McCain is apparently without honor or shame.<\/p>\n

Adding insult to injury, senior McCain advisor Carly Fiorina, who claims to be an expert on matters of economics, argued, “[T]he best stimulus package possible right now is the gas tax holiday, twenty-four and a half cents for every gallon of diesel fuel, eighteen and a half cents a gallon for regular fuel. McCain has consistently proposed that and Barack Obama has consistently said he does not support it.”<\/p>\n

The “best stimulus package possible”? Seriously<\/i>?
\n
\nHow do I know Fiorina’s lying? Because John McCain told me so<\/a>, when he acknowledged that his gas-tax holiday wouldn’t<\/i> be an economic stimulus.<\/p>\n

“I think psychologically, a lot of our problems today are psychological \u2014 confidence, trust, uncertainty about our economic future, ability to keep our own home. [A gas-tax holiday] might give ’em a little psychological boost. Let’s have some straight talk: it’s not a huge amount of money…. A little psychological boost. That’s what I think [a gas-tax holiday] would help.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even the Bush White House<\/i>, hardly a liberal bastion, has said rhetoric like Fiorina’s is “irresponsible<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Look, we’re just dealing with common sense here. We have a fixed supply of gas<\/a>, so even a little critical thinking shows that “the tax cut really goes to the oil companies<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

There’s no stimulus, and no reduction in the price of gas. All McCain’s idea does is boost oil-company profits (bad idea), encourage oil consumption (bad idea), devastate highway and transportation programs (bad idea), and cost thousands of jobs (bad idea). That’s it. That’s the whole debate. No serious person anywhere disagrees with any of this.<\/p>\n

I can’t help but notice that McCain has not yet tried to defend the merit of his gas-tax holiday. Not even once. He’ll lash out angrily at critics, and question the utility of economists, but McCain can’t bring himself to say, “I think the gas-tax holiday would work and here’s why….”<\/p>\n

What does that tell you about the merit of his ideas?<\/p>\n

But, McCain says, the “American people like it.” The American people are desperate, and some of them, regrettably, believe a lie John McCain keeps repeating. For McCain to exploit their desperation this way is ugly and pathetic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Someday, John McCain will look back at his presidential campaign and wonder, “What on earth was I thinking? Why did I let those consultants and lobbyists convince me to repeat nonsense I know isn’t true?” Take yesterday, for example. “Some economists don’t think much of my gas tax holiday,” he said of his plan to […]<\/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-16121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16121","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=16121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16121\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}