I'm not a buyer of the 'long run consumption' boost argument for a six month tax. That's a stretch, and what's more, an entirely unnecessary one. And why go there when there is a veritable cornucopia of arguments to choose from that demonstrate how cataclysmically poor this policy proposal is.

1) It is temporary, and therefore its raison d'etre can only be seen as a counter-cyclical 'stimulus' package. So it does not address any of the long-term issues facing this economy, to say nothing of the policies, (or more to the point, lack thereof), that have found us at this precipice.

2) It is woefully poor bang for the buck as stimulus. A significant chunk of the economic activity supported by gasoline consumption is offshore, meaning much of it will flow straight through the consumer to petroleum exporting countries without stimulating demand at home, boosting our petroleum trade deficit which is nearly half our total trade deficit at this point (!!!!).

3) "Global imbalances', i.e. the trade deficit have huge negative externalities. That point is broadly recognized- everyone sees these as massive impediments to global macroeconomic stability- but the nuances of it are not. In fact, if you look at the size of consumer debt growth and compare it to the current account/trade deficits, you will see a high correlation. This is a big subject, but, suffice it to say, this is a very bad consequence of a remarkably bad policy.

4) Increasing revenues to oil producing/terrorist sponsoring countries has negative externalities. This is what Tom Friedman and- to my recollection anyway- one John McCain has dubbed, 'bankrolling both sides in the 'War on Terror'. Indeed.

5) Gasoline consumption itself has huge negative externalities, of which CO2 emissions may be the greatest, but are certainly not the only. In fact, it is pretty easy to show that the level of gasoline consumption in this country is sub-optimal (i.e. reduces public welfare), already! So this policy will take sub-optimally high gas consumption and make it higher. Bravo John McCain.

All of that against the only positive I an think of:

1) The tax cut is progressive.

So, in other words, being generous and not calling a spade a spade, (i.e. seeing this as the obvious political ploy that it is- i.e. the 'straight shooter's shameless pandering for votes), this is some pretty righteous turd of a policy.

This is an important post. The substance here was shockingly bad- the capital gains right wing talking points was bad enough, (by the way, laffer works in reverse too. a tax rate of zero means, u guessed it, 0 revenue), but totally agreed on gun rights, which is a winner for republicans and was flogged mercilessly, taxes- was the economy even discussed besides taxes?????- iraq and the 'circumstances on the ground'. JOKE! The substance was probably worse than the inane tabloid questions. At least those were on their face Repuklican talking points as opposed to through the back door. I am, and I find this odd, outraged about this debate last night. Tim Russert and MSNBC have had their bad moments, but this just about takes the cake. No worries though- David Brooks thought it was A-OK.

Glenn,

While it probably shouldn't have, it took last night for me to really fully understand and accept your thesis, and get beyond my looming skepticism over the lack of a 'benchmark' toward which to push our media coverage. Benchmark or no, there needs to be some semblance of introspection by the press corps. Because it's transparent to me now- all of this stuff is very cynically motivated, possibly not by the individual journalists, but certainly by the people who profit from it, and the people whose singular focus is on beating back liberalism. The repetitiveness of the tactics- their inevitability and all the contrived attacks- comes simply from the fact that they work. That's the very definition of insincerity.

I now think back on 2004 and how wrong I was to lend any credence to any of Kerry's gaffes and bad political moves, and there were plenty- he wasn't indeed a very good candidate. Fact is, we reelected a politician in spite of a horrendously AWFUL record by any standard. How did that happen? I don't know if anyone who had started such a disastrous war as he did would have survived it politically if we were part of another culture and media, in spite of the myriad flaws of other culture's media. And that doesn't include the record setting deficits, the Guantanamo Bay eyesores, the stonewalling of the 9/11 commission, the corruption... it is, only now, to me, remarkable. And of course the consequences of that election were dire and only now fully apparent.

I always blamed red state Americans and John Kerry for this atrocious mistake. But it was the subservience of the media in the service of contrived right wing talking points and fatuous right wing policy, all along...