the bigger issue is not the gas tax -- it is -- what will people chose?

short term vs long term
pander vs fact
distortion vs reality
not informed vs knowledgeable

The Clinton campaign counts on the American people being dumb --

Did anyone see the incredibly wealthy, ivy league, former first lady on George S saying you can't trust economists?

Lets prove the Clintons wrong
on Tuesday
Your country needs a change

she didnt even come up with this plan on her own she plagerized from a rep she has a plan al right on fleecing americans and becoming commander elite

Why then is McCain and Clinton suggesting they can do it? It is an out right pander and Senator Obama called their bluff.

My vote is for Obama.

I'm not a supporter of Senator Obama, but I certainly give him credit for exposing the gas tax holiday for the fraud that it is. It is a cynical political play that will only work if we voters are stupid enough not to think it through. It is the public policy equivalent of waving pancakes and syrup at Homer Simpson.

Obama said: "It is a political response to a serious problem that we have neglected for decades,'' ----refering to the gasoline tax holiday.

He's correct. But, what do economists think about corn ethanol subsidy??? pork barrel for farmers. Yet, Obama supports this "political solution" that have cost the American tax payers in the hundreds of billions of dollars since inception.

The truth is only individual Americans can get ourselves out of this problem. We complain about gasoline prices, but won't give up SUV's or V-8 performance sedans for our commute to work. In fact, most of us can't even be bothered to make sure our tires are properly inflated (which would increase gas mileage by 15%).

Americans buy about 16 million new cars a year, which means we turn over cars on the road about every 10 years or so. If we chose to buy 30mpg cars rather than 23, we would reduce our retail gasoline consumption by 30%.

We don't have to wait for miracle energy solutions (efficient solar cells, nuclear that don't glow in the dark, coal that doesn't produce CO2 or SOx or NOx). We have choices we can make today!
Choices that just take common sense.

You know, that's the real value of an education, isn't it? Instead of blindly following the pandering and emotional rantings of Hillary, some of us are able to stand back and assess the accuracy and prudence of her comments. Others are not so lucky, and will vote for whoever says what they want to hear. Fool me one, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Mr. ADM his own self had better take heed:
We are ON to you in the State of Illinois.
We need solar power.
YOu're in the pockets of the forces against that.
Including big OIL--Hillary ain't in the pocket. She needed the money too.
BUT YOU LIED ABOUT IT SIR.
AND THE CORPORATE MALE DOMINATED MEDIA IS WITH YOU HOOK LINE AND SINKER--OR THEY'LL LOSE THEIR LIVELIHOODS.
No matter. Economicsts are less reliablie than astrologers.
So waste your valuable campaign staff's time looking up some more of them.
We ain't buying it.
And we ain't buying you, sir.
Quit NOW and save the Democratic party any more hassle, please.

Wow! Usually, I can scroll right past the obsessive shouting rants of people but, for some reason, the "Obama's a FAKE" post @6:58 just struck me as amusing. I don't know that I've ever seen someone try to compose one of those B-movie ransom notes (you know the ones where they cut the letters out of a magazine) on a comment board before. Maybe this is just the feature we need to pass the time until Senator Clinton rides off into the sunset.

All your delegates are belong to us!

This has got to stop. Please, God, make it stop. The Dems are handing the country over to McBush. It won't matter what the congress passes.
This tax holiday is the worst possible idea. Hills; Please, I beg you, stop. Just stop it. Don't go any further with this line of thought. You, we, the Dems, are handing the country back to Bush as I write.

Don't think we don't know that Obama people are trying to figure out who criticizes them on these posts and then trying to make us lose our jobs.
YOU PEOPLE ARE VICIOUS.
But you won't win.
You'll watch your messiah go down with Rezko and other bad stuff too.
Just a matter of time.
And delegates, schmelegates---the Dems are NOT gonna let some fake pol let the Repugs back into the white house.
You at Obama HQ will have to go get jobs in the real, non-graft world again soon.

Yes. Lets get serious answers to the serious questions. Get back to DC and do something about it NOW. WHY WAIT?????

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E07E0D7143CF933A05750C0A9669C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

Bill Clinton on the gas tax. March 30, 2000.

Q. Mr. President, in light of the fact that OPEC has decided to increase production, do you see it as a mistake for the Senate to proceed with a bill that would suspend the gas tax? And if it reached your desk, would you veto it?

A. Well, I don't expect it to reach my desk because there seems to be bipartisan opposition to it in the House, including among the leadership. But the problem I have with it, apart from what it might do to the Highway Trust Fund and the spending obligations that have already been incurred by the acts of Congress, the budgets, is that I'm not sure that the savings would be passed along to the consumers in addition to that. So I think there are a lot of questions about it. But I don't expect it to pass. I do think, however, we shouldn't minimize the real bind that some Americans have already faced by these high fuel costs. For most people who don't have to drive a long way to work, it may seem an irritant but not a burden. But there are a lot of Americans who do have to drive a long way to work, who work for not very much money. And there are a lot of Americans who are in the trucking business who've been really really hurt by this. So I think we have to just keep our powder dry, keep our options open. But right now I think the prudent thing is to see how quickly these prices can come down with the increase in production and for the House to reauthorize the strategic petroleum reserve. We've got to have that reauthorization of the strategic petroleum reserve. My authority even to use that, even as a possible option, expires on Friday. And it's very very important for that to pass. . . .

Goodnight Hillary.

A few years ago, Sen Bill Frist was pushing for a $100 check for all Americans to offset the gouging they were taken at the pumps. It went over about like a turd in a punch bowl. People were offended. This is no different.

Obama is such a master in 2 things: copying Hillary and criticizing her positions.

DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING ORIGINAL TO OFFER OBAMA?

Obama probably took the $200k from oil company executives AFTER he okayed the IL one.

He is on the take.

Taxes s/b flat or suspended altogether if based on profit

Hillary and McCain have the right idea.

Obama's poorest salary was around $240k a year so he has no clue. Make HIM live on $40k a year and see if that extra $$ that he pays for gas hurts him.

Liberal Democrats also fail to understand that the cost of gas is passed onto consumers so it hurts grocery prices.

Long term solutions will not keep us afloat now. you need both a short term AND a long term fix. This just shows how removed Obama is from reality.

None of the three mopes running for President have addressed or presented a plan to deal with the number one problem in the country – the economy and the recession. The press has also failed to address the issue with the candidates. Instead, the press and the candidates diddle around the periphery. Staring us in the face is an utter melt down of the financial services industry which seems to be run by a bunch of idiots who must have failed Economics 101. Case in point: the richest man in the world is reported to have said “And Buffett said banks need better risk management. He said he recently considered the prospects of a large investment bank, which he did not identify, by reading its 270-page annual report. He said he highlighted 25 pages where he did not understand what he had read.” Somebody please ask the candidates what their plan is for the economy, the recession, and the crumbling financial services industry.

Obama is correct on this issue, but instead of blaming the oil companies for it's past failures in Illinois he should tell the truth which is a gas tax holiday would be exactly the wrong plan because it would encourage gas consumption at a time of record high prices leading to less supply and even higher prices.

Matt said: "gas tax holiday would be exactly the wrong plan because it would encourage gas consumption at a time of record high prices leading to less supply and even higher prices."

The most likely outcome for temporary gasoline holiday of $0.18/gal isn't going to have a big impact either way. It's not really going to help individuals because the relatively small amount of money ($9 B) is too broadly distributed. The flip side is that it's not going to encourage that much more discretionary driving.

As for economists who say the tax reduction won't pass through to consumers because oil companies will just fatten their profits, they are not taking into consideration the implied political threat. Once the government removes their interest in the gaoline prices (tax), they will have public credibility to start investigating oil industry's pricing policies. So, in the short term (a few months) oil industry will make sure the $0.18/gal pass throug even if it means a decrease in their profits. In fact, just by discussing the issue will put near term ceiling on gasoline prices (wait and see if I'm right).

For those that want to use previous failed attempts at gasoline tax holidays as an example, I will simply remind you we've never had gasoline prices at $3.3/gal.... a very different situation.

If you, Obama and others really cared about pandering and pork barrel, then focus your attention on corn ethanol fuel subsidy. It has cost tax payers more money (hundreds of billions $). It also benefits much fewer people; corn farmers for growing it and oil industry for buying it (yep, roughly $0.50/gal since corn based ethanol is still mre expensive than petoleum based gasoline). Finally it is very ineffective in meeting its goals, which is lower dependency for foreign oil. The gasoline component in crude oil we back out lowers the gasoline import from Asia, which has higher demand for diesel and kerosene components. The result is that China takes the unwanted gasoline component and makes plastics out of it and flood U.S. market with cheap plastic goods---which we, Americans, have shown a voracious appetite to consume.

Just thought I'd give some context to a very narrowly focused debate.

after 16 years of short-term thinking got us where we are - I'm wandering , "is more short-term thinking really what my country needs ???"

p.s. ALISON (FIRST COMMENT ABOVE) IS 100 % RIGHT