Clinton Joins McCain on Plan to Suspend Gas Tax

Apparently, Sen. Hillary Clinton is not an avid reader of KickingTires.

If she were, she would know that we — along with many other news sources — pointed out that Republican presidential nominee John McCain’s plan to suspend the federal gas tax over the summer was a pandering exercise in futility.

As we previously wrote, the plan would take more than $9 billion away from the nation’s highways, as well as 300,000 highway jobs, all to save the average American consumer a whopping $28 at the pump from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

To her credit, Clinton at least wants to make up for the revenue shortfall by imposing a windfall-profits tax on oil companies rather than tacking it onto the national debt, as McCain would do. Oil companies have been raking in record profits. Today, Shell and BP both reported record net incomes of $9.08 and $7.62 billion for the first quarter.

Clinton’s plan also presumes that lowering gas prices will give consumption a boost, while we think people are already well on their way to changing their driving habits. The 18 cents a gallon federal gas tax would lower today’s record high of $3.61 nationally back down to $3.43, which may have a psychological effect on drivers. But what happens come fall if prices haven’t stabilized, the tax comes back and drivers are yet again shell-shocked? Who will they blame after the primaries are over?

KickingTires is not a political blog, but we feel it is our duty to point out the flawed logic here. For the record, the other Democratic contender, Sen. Barack Obama, has come out against the Clinton and McCain plans (despite supporting a suspension of the Illinois gas tax when he was in the state legislature in 2000) for exactly the same reasons we point out here. He must subscribe to our RSS feed.

Democrats Divided Over Gas Tax Break (The New York Times)