If Senator Clinton is such a policy wonk...

[RichardRay]

and has such a deep knowledge of how the country and the economy work, how come she is supporting this totally insane idea of a 'gas tax holiday'?

Just a quick once over: Price goes up when demand increases and supply can't keep up. That's why gas prices increase in the 'summer driving season'. If the price is reduced by a tax holiday as suggested there will be a very short window of lower prices, then demand jumps. There is no more supply, so the prices will climb back to current levels (at least). The only difference will be that the incremental revenue will accrue to the oil companies and the refiners.

The oil companies and the refiners will call it profit, and our highways and bridges will continue to fall down, we'll lose something in the range of 200,000 to 300,000 jobs when maintenance projects are shut down and real wages will drop again.

Not to mention that we'll burn that increased revenue in greenhouse gas producing internal combustion engines.

And, not to mention that the possibility of getting a 'gas tax holiday' enacted into law between now and Memorial Day is pretty damn close to zero.

The proposal is 100% pure pandering politics. I'm pleased Senator Obama rejected it, and I hope he won't backslide in the face of the storm of outrage being brewed up around his statements.

Senator Clinton should be ashamed.

[jakem]

1. Pandering wonk.

[speedoo]

2. To answer your question, she's desperate. nt

[anonymous171]

3. Pandering and lying to the voters. Obama should call her on it.

[susankh4]

4. Votes.

Plain and simple.

First ya gotta win the nomination. Then the G.E. After that you get to make changes.

Democracy sucks that way.

[RichardRay]

5. As far as I can tell, I'm preaching to the choir here...

does that mean that everybody agrees that it's a silly idea?

(that, by the way, is a rhetorical question :-).

[krkaufman]

11. Yes, it's a silly idea, from a policy standpoint ...

... but such payoffs -- bribes for votes disguised as tax cuts or tax rebates -- have been shown to be effective in winning votes, so politicians are often quick to sacrifice sound long-term policy for quick short-term votes. Which is yet another reason why I have a hair more respect for Obama than Clinton or McCain.

[dailykoff]

6. Hey it worked for Dumya.

Stuff a couple hundred bucks in everybody's pocket and he gets reelected.

[BlueJac]

7. Hillary is an idiot.......take that to the bank........

The Clintons are fools and the past shows it clearly, NAFTA!

[krkaufman]

8. She got it half right, anyway.

She signed-on with her like-minded Republican fellow, McCain, is supporting a temporary rollback of the gas tax, but at least she proposed a way to pay for the revenue losses.... through a windfall profit tax on the oil companies.

The thing is... if she can get the windfall profit legislation passed, that is ALL that would be needed for prices to drop... and considerably more than the 18 cents from rollback of the gas tax.

Keep the gas tax in place, and bring back the windfall profits tax to bring the oil company profits into check and to help fund alternative energy projects.

[cliffordu]

9. FOCK, LOL. Somehow I never associated Hillary with Policy wonk...

:rofl:

[SemiCharmedQuark]

10. She used to think the idea was terrible.