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In an "open statement" of response to the racketeering swill of a "gas tax holiday" now being foisted on this vast Republic, economists find themselves in uncommon agreement, but only because the proposal is so uncommonly stupid. The academics, in their statement, had a technical term for it: "a bad idea," which, also quite uncommonly, they dispatched with brevity:
First, research shows that waiving the gas tax would generate major profits for oil companies rather than significantly lowering prices for consumers. Second, it would encourage people to keep buying costly imported oil and do nothing to encourage conservation. Third, a tax holiday would provide very little relief to families feeling squeezed. Fourth, the gas tax suspension would threaten to increase the already record deficit in the coming year and reduce the amount of money going into the highway trust fund that maintains our infrastructure.
Signers of this letter are Democrats, Republicans and Independents. This is not a partisan issue. It is a matter of good public policy.
But of course it is a partisan issue -- more notably for Sen. Clinton. McCain's coronation is all but official; he didn't really need to pull this ugliest of demagogic rabbits out of a hat at this time. Plus, this is the sort of fiscal insanity that comes naturally to Republicans, especially leading ones.
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