Democracy for Vancouver

First, from The Conservative Nanny State author Dean Baker:

According to the oil industry, they have their refineries running flat out, producing all the gas they can. This means that the price is determined on the demand side.

We have a fixed amount of gas entering the market, the question is simply what price clears the market. In this context, if we reduce or eliminate the gas tax, the price doesn’t change, the lower tax will simply allow Exxon and other oil companies to keep more profits (unless of course they were lying about running their refineries at capacity).

Since most people do not have much familiarity with economics [especially Senator McCain - s.], the media should be informing the public about the impact of Senator McCain’s proposal.

Second, the federal gas tax is only about 20¢ a gallon, the tax break wouldn’t do a helluva lot to help people deal with prices that have more than doubled since Bush took office, and are predicted to hit $4 a gallon by summer.

Third, what happens every time a tax is “cut”? Even if it’s supposed to be a temporary tax cut, all tax cuts are treated by the GOP as permanent, and any attempt to sunset tax cuts or revive taxes after a “holiday” like McCains leads the Republicans to howl “TAX AND SPEND DEMOCRATS! NEW TAX! TAXES BAAAAD!” like stuck pigs (with their noses firmly in their troughs). Case in point, Bush’s “10 year” tax cuts which the GOP is now desperate to make permanent before the November elections:

Republicans on both sides of the Capitol assailed Democratic plans to let some of the massive tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003 expire, saying that would amount to the largest tax hike in U.S. history.

The tax cuts were designed to expire because otherwise no reasonable legislator - or American - could have swallowed what the tax cuts would do to the national debt if they were permanent. (You think the estimates of the Iraq War debt are bad now???) But of course, the Republicans knew they would start screaming - just like they are - once the tax cuts threatened to sunset as they were designed to.

And the final reason McCain’s gas holiday idea sucks? It does nothing to address the problems of global warming/greenhouse gases, dwindling fossil fuel deposits, fucked up pipelines and politics in Iraq, OPEC giving us the finger, CAFE standards that are ridiculously low even after they were raised this year (35 mpg by 2020 is a sick joke), and oil companies lying their asses off about refinery capacity.

Address those problems, Johnny-boy, and then come talk to us about a tax holiday.

Schmuck.