Letters to the Editor
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I could use some pandering
Bring on the pander! Pandering is doing something to benefit constituents, right? Something we like? To tell us--this is for your own good, stupid voter, I don't do it--is insulting. Also to say this should not happen bec it isn't the overarching energy policy we need is also stupid. Of course, it's not--so? Prince Charming would have been for this if Hillary had not gotten to it first. Count on it. And I particularly like the argument that lowering gas 20 cents a gallon will make people drive more. So I guess we need to keep it at $4! Or even raise it? Let's hear you pols say that!
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The devil's in the details...
The federal tax is on the producers, regardless of where they sell the gas or who sells it. It is embedded in the wholesale price of gas sold at the refinery. The Illinois tax was a form of sales tax collected at the pump.
In a competitive industry, the refiner doesn't say, "Lessee, it cost me x dollars for the oil, y dollars to refine it (calculating the cost to refine a barrel of oil is itself complex), z dollars in federal tax, and my profit is p, so the wholesale price I'm going to charge is x+y+z+p." Things simply don't get priced that way. If McCain's proposal became law, would the price of gas go down 18.1 cents? No, but it would probably go down, at least temporarily. If Three Name's proposal became law, the price of gas wouldn't go down at all because from the oil company's perspective what's the difference? Tax the gas or tax the oil, it's still a cost of doing business and it will be passed on to the consumers. And by the way, getting into the producer's accounting system to try to enforce the x+y+z+p scheme has another name - the Communist Command Economy. We should all know how well that worked.
A sales tax, collected from the seller is different. If the seller doesn't have to pay it, he doesn't have to collect it. The price of gas will go down.
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Thanks
This is a very good argument and insightful. With all the press, thought, I doubt that the gas tax will make it into policy. It would be more important that the fuel tax be taken off of those who transport our foods. Without that, the cost of living is going to rage upward regardless of how fuel conserving the public is.
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Not convincing....
While it may be possible to pick at the details of Obama's objections to Clinton's plan, I think the overall theme is perfectly valid: this is the work of a panderer and a tinkerer.
The vast majority of Americans, many of whom are genuinely stressed-out by their economic circumstances, will never complain about a tax cut. Neither will most take the time to figure out if it's really helping them, or what the long-term effects to the country might be. So there is no political downside to this plan for Senator Clinton, and she knows it.
The only thing I don't understand is how she plans to keep the oil industry happy. It's not like her to alienate a major corporate player. I have to wonder if she would really follow through, or what kind of deal she would work out with them.
But I think this incident illustrates very well her approach to government and her rationale for being president. She thinks that by coming up with clever little plans like this, she can save humanity. I disagree. Saving humanity at this point will take massive reform and fundamental changes in the way we understand the eco-system and our relationship to it.
I don't think a born policy wonk like Clinton is up to the task. She is too invested in our existing political culture -- which she helped to create -- to admit how fundamentally dysfunctional it is. She doesn't have the vision, and she doesn't have the leadership to take us where we need to go. I'm not sure if Obama -- or anyone else -- does either, but I am pretty sure that Clinton doesn't. And this kind of proposal does nothing but reinforce my impression of her.
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Gas holiday tax very bad, windfall tax bad, too
These politicians really need economic advisors. The gas holiday tax is a no brainer. And thanks to economists coming out and saying so, the public is realizing it, too, and not expecting much from it. The windfall profits tax is also a ridiculous idea embraced by both candidates. Look at the companies, their p/e (all of the big oil companies are around 12, not bad at all), their eps, their peg ratio, and now, with oil, there is the "crack spread," which is the difference between the costs/ prices of processing unrefined crude and refined products--the wider the crack spread, the greater the profit. And, where exactly does one stop with this windfall profits tax idea, anyway? Hey, MicroSoft (or fill-in-the- blank company) makes lots of money, let's put a windfall profits tax on them. This kind of policy would hurt the shareholders. It is not a well-founded or grounded idea.
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There is one massive, gaping hole in this whole story.
See, all of this discussion and argument about economics and whatnot is completely immaterial. In fact, Obama is proven right not by economists or the reality of global warming, but by pure, plain, simple politics.
You see, neither Clinton nor McCain, nor even Obama, will be President this summer. They will all, however, continue to be sitting Senators, a position of not inconsequential power. If Ms. Clinton wishes to have a gas-tax holiday this summer, there is one avenue, and only one, in which she can pursue such a goal: the United States Senate. Mr. McCain's options are similarly limited.
So the emptiness of Ms. Clinton's and Mr. McCain's rhetoric is proven not by economic theory but by political fact: neither of them has introduced a bill in the Senate. Until they do, their words are clearly nothing more than pandering.
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George Frost Can't do complex math...
The weakest link in this article is that frost doesn't tie back the tax to its support of our infrastructure. We are not going to reduce spending on infrastructure - if anything it has to go up. So...
Reducing this tax for a few months means taxes to fix infrastructure have to come from somewhere. So if gas dropped by 18 cents, then the taxpayers would pay it out somewhere else. If any percent of it goes to the oil companies, then you are in effect raising taxes to cover infrastructure.
if anything, we should leave the gas tax where it is and raise oil companies taxes by orders of magnitude. oh yeah and get the f out of iraq. But Clinton was wrong about that too!