Sen. Barack Obama, the other Democratic presidential contender, has rejected the tax interruption as a “quick fix” with limited benefits and numerous drawbacks.
The White House and congressional leaders in both parties also sound rightly dubious. Other well-informed votes against the gas-tax holiday: Friday’s Los Angeles Times quoted Joseph Doyle, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor, as saying economists are “as close to unanimous as you can get” in regarding it as a “horrible idea.”
Yes, higher gas prices are tough on our personal and collective budgets. Then again, higher gas prices strengthen motivation for fuel conservation, alternative-energy development and mass transit.
Our long-term energy problems require long-term solutions, not short-term gas-tax “holidays” that merely delay the inevitable adjustments we must make now that the era of cheap oil is over.
“Gas-tax ‘holiday’ from reality”
Well put. Given the federal government huge fiscal deficit, suspending the gasoline tax would be irresponsible. We have no business saddling future generations with any more government debt.
If the gas tax whiners want to persist in their campaign, let them offer a politically realistic program for cutting spending or raising taxes to offset the revenue from the gas tax. Individual whiners will come up with their own lists, which other whiners will then dispute.
Time to grow up!