By Staff
Let's just call the McCain-Clinton idea of suspending the federal gasoline tax for the summer what it is: election-year political pandering.
It's a short-sighted, feel-good fix that would fix nothing and, in fact, make some things worse.
When the subject is oil addiction, we don't need Washington sending this wrong message.
At the current pace of progressive pump prices, we'll be at $4 a gallon before Memorial Day.
Consumers don't stand to save a whole lot by reducing the 18.4-cent a gallon tax – $4 on a 20-gallon fill-up, from $80 to $76.
Before they even leave the gas station they'll splurge with their savings on a couple of cold drinks in plastic bottles that are also petroleum products.
The way the McCain-Clinton holiday makes the situation worse is that the gas tax funds states' highway construction, from which Michigan counts on an estimated $1 billion a year.
Infrastructure in general needs more investment – not less.
According to one estimate, the revenue lost just from having a gas tax holiday Memorial Day weekend could costs $9 billion worth of road projects and more layoffs in that sector.
Sure, the federal government can always borrow for the road work and further enable our addiction.
It's peanuts compared to the $9.4 trillion mounting national debt.
Addicts are resourceful and will lie, cheat and steal for a fix of what they crave.
Addicts are also usually the last to realize what their habits cost them.
The two enabling senators pushing the gas tax holiday, John McCain and Hillary Clinton, disagree on how to pay for this tax break without hindering road projects.
McCain supports moving money from wasteful projects to keep the transportation fund solid. Wasteful projects ought to be eliminated anyway.
Clinton proposes a new tax on windfall oil profits, which sounds like something which will be passed along to the same customers already in peril at the pumps.
Americans don't want to hear it, but there's no easy, painless path out of this addiction maze except incentives for conservation and development of oil alternatives.