Experts: Clinton/McCain Gas Tax 'Holiday' a Joke

Over the past several days, some of the nation's leading economic and political pundits have weighed in critically on the proposal of both Sens. Hillary Clinton and John McCain to institute a gas tax holiday this summer.

Paul Krugman of the New York Times said on Tuesday that Clinton's idea, while less "evil" than McCain's, was still "pointless" and "disappointing."

One day later, Tom Friedman, also of the Times, called the idea "so ridiculous...it takes your breath away."

And Jonathan Alter of Newsweek piled on: "Hillary Clinton has now joined John McCain in proposing the most irresponsible policy idea of the year -- an idea that actually could aid the terrorists."

Surely, however, there must be someone out there not associated with a politician or a candidate who supported the idea of a gas tax reprieve -- especially if, as Clinton suggests, it would be paid for by an excess profits tax on oil companies.

I emailed Howard Wolfson, Clinton's spokesperson, asking him to put me in touch with an economic or environmental analyst who favored his boss' plan. He never wrote back.

So I took the task upon myself. I would call experts from all sides of the ideological aisle to get a sense of where the debate stood. In the end, every single analyst I surveyed judged the gas tax holiday proposal to be, roughly speaking, a silly, superfluous, or outright pandering idea.

I started with what I thought would be my best shot, the libertarians. Jerry Taylor, a fellow for the Cato Institute, unfortunately, called the proposal a "holiday from reality."

"What would happen more likely than not, gas taxes would be cut, but pump prices wouldn't go down, service stations would just continue charging what they are charging," he said. "I'm a Libertarian and I don't mind that. But you might not be a Libertarian and you might believe the federal treasury needs that money... Now if this were a permanent reduction of the tax, I would be all for it."

Alright, one "no." Perhaps the free-marketers would be of a different ilk. I was wrong.

"I think it is close to political pandering," said Max Schulz, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. "It is bad policy and political gimmickry. If you want to deliver relief to folks you have to do more than just this little holiday from the gas tax. You have to address what is driving the price of crude oil, even problems with the weak dollar. You aren't going to win any points doing that, however. But you will get points if you get up and say let's suspend the gas tax for a few months... I never have seen the wisdom of playing gimmicks games of the tax code."

Who, I asked, would favor the proposal? "Political advisers to candidates," was Schulz's response. "It is entirely due to the focus of the presidential election coinciding with the summer."

From Schulz, I moved on to the conservative crowd. But Ken Green, an energy expert for the American Enterprise Institute, ended up being similarly dismissive.

"There would be economic sense in eliminating the gas tax completely and replacing it with tolls. That would make sense," he said, "but if you remove the tax now, the things being funded with the money will still need funds. Or it will be funded with taxpayer's dollars from other things. So it will be less at the pump and more in your tax bill."

He went on: "All of these candidates claim to be environmentally conscious people, so what do they want to do? Lower the cost of driving in the summer time when it is the highest demand in the first place."

"I'm afraid," he summarized, "that your record is going to be unbroken in terms of finding someone who will like this idea."

Sigh. I tried my hand with the progressive wing of the ideological spectrum. There too, however, the idea of a gas-tax holiday was dismissed as ineffectual and publicity-driven.