200 Economists Criticize The Tax Holiday Idea.

Today several respected economists came out publicly in opposition to the Gas Tax holiday proposed By Senator John McCain and later used by Senator Hillary Clinton to boost her campaign against Senator Barack Obama who opposes the idea.

Presidential hopefuls Senator John McCain and Senator Hillary Clinton have been pushing this Gas Tax Holiday in theory giving the American public a few month reprise from the High gasoline prices.  The plan involves eliminating the approximately nineteen cent federal gas tax and the approximately twenty-five cent diesel tax beginning Memorial Day all the way to Labor Day.

You may remember that when this idea was first proposed I posted a blog where I stated it was a bad idea.  I mention this because my view was not based on being an economist (because I am not one) but on simple common sense.  The truth is that if we come up with any idea that takes millions, billions, or trillions of dollars out of the national budget, the money has to come from somewhere to replace it (in this case we are talking about somewhere in the area of ten-billion dollars).  Nineteen cents is not worth some huge debt that shows up later to be paid for by taxing us.  The two dollars I would personally save a week is not enough for me to be willing to create a ten-billion dollar hole in the budget.

Today two-hundred top economists, four of which are Nobel prize winners, signed a letter completely rejecting this ridiculous idea.  This is the kiss of death for this stupid idea. 

Hillary Clinton has been trying to say she was the candidate most likely to turn the economy around and the polls have been growing in her favor in this area.  When I first heard her endorsement of this idea, I immediately knew she was not the economist she has been trying to sell herself as.  When she decided to put her stamp of approval on an idea about the economy that came from a candidate that states clearly that the economy is his weak point I realized she was capable of being just as ignorant as Senator Barack Obama was in associating with a certain Mr. Wright. 

Senator McCain has stated repeatedly that he is terrible with the economy (How can we take you seriously as a candidate at this point in history if this is the case?) so this is no surprise.  The surprise for me is that Sen. McCain and his campaign would decide that the place for him to come out of hiding and make his big stand was going to be on the battlefield of the economy.  I have to ask myself:  “Who though this would turn out well?”

Sen. McCain seems to end up in trouble every time he speaks publicly and the Republican party is sinking fast because of how unpopular the current presidency is.  If McCain is the current captain of the sinking Titanic why would Sen. Clinton jump on board the sinking ship. 

I do not give Sen. Obama as much credit as it would seem he should get for opposing the idea.  It would normally give us the idea that he is better in touch with the economy, but that is not the case. 

The truth is, the reason for his knowing this was a bad idea was because in the state that he represents currently, Illinois, they tried a similar idea and it failed miserably.  He simply knew it would fail because he was there the last time it failed. 

Again I say that I think that none of the three of these candidates is in fact a “good” choice.  I feel it is simply a matter of which one is the lesser of the evils.  In the case of the “Gas Tax Holiday” I score it this way:

Senator John McCain  -  Minus one-half point (only a half because I already knew he was terrible in terms of the economy)

Senator Hillary Clinton – Minus two points (this was such a stupid move on her part for so many reasons I think only taking two points away is being generous in trying to be fair)

Senator Barack Obama – Plus a half point - (he didn’t have any knowledge either way about the economy, he just got lucky)

As a side note, the Democrats, as a party, are working on drafting a proposal to help individual American’s at the pump without being such a stupid idea.