Letters to the Editor
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Would you take a 15 cent reduction on the cost of gas?
Because thats what I, Mr. Oil Company, am willing to offer you! You see, the federal government is going to stop charging me sales tax, and I'd like to pass down some of those benefits back to you.. In the range of 70% or so. You won't complain, because I know that you're just stoked to see that the price of gas is going down. However, when the much-dreaded date of tax reinstatement comes back around, I'll happily pass down the cost of those 18 cents to you, which you'll be expecting anyways.
That's a nifty 3 cents-a-gallon profit for me!
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Author Frost not convinced!
Mr. Frost has so many caveats and "even if's" in his piece that he appears skeptical of his own premise.
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Current circumstances are different
At the present time, gasoline production is at maximum levels. This means that the market clearing price is the current price, including taxes. If the taxes are removed, producers can sell the same quantity of gasoline at the same price. Hence, prices should not fall significantly, unless producers reduce them for political reasons, i.e. to curry favor with the public and politicians.
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Whatever Hillary proposes
Spells the end of all living organisms on planet earth. I heard she was in a school and her gaze incinerated several small children.
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Some of you need to re-read the article again
"Obama did learn from Illinois' gas tax holiday. Sure, 60% of the tax cut may have made it to the pump price (quiz: where'd the other 40% go?), but 100% of the lost revenues either resulted in more debt, loss of services, or were funded by other taxes."
You obviously forgot about the windfall tax on oil company profits. Other counter-arguments are similarly misinformed.
And this comes from me, a carbon-tax proponent.
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I don't mind Salon providing a divergent opinion
But this one is just flat out bulls**t.
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Hilllary Can't Actually Deliver on This Promise
The most ridiculous part of this whole debate is that even if Hillary had already sponsored a bill to push this "gas-tax holiday," Bush probably wouldn't sign it. And even assuming she wins the nomination and then wins the general election in November (a specious argument at best), the best she could do is try to eliminate the tax when her term starts. Just in time for your road trip in August 2009.
All of which means that this is completely pointless argument and an example of how politicians will promise the moon even when it's clear that there's no possible way for them to deliver.
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I'm taking bets on this one
How long until Joan sites this article in defense of HRC in a blog post? Other writers might well do the same, using terms such as "well-researched" and "eye-opening".
If they're really lucky, maybe they can get it sited elsewhere in the media world.
Echo chamber-er-er-er.
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Absolutely ridiculous
Frost illustrates very clearly that everything Obama says about the "tax holiday" is clearly supported by his Illinois experience, yet Frost claims that Obama is wrong. Did Frost read his own essay?
First of all, let's look at the overall absurdity of the plan. At today's prices, a driver would have to spend approximately $600 on gasoline to save $30 during the "tax holiday." If someone is "choosing between food and gas," $30 out of $600 over the course of an entire summer is not going to make a difference. Their problems are much larger than any thing a tax holiday can alleviate.
Frost claims that a study of the Illinois plan proves Obama wrong. In fact, the study backs up Obama. The Illinois action SHOULD have cut gas prices by 5%. At the pump, the price only dropped 3%. Frost generously phrases this as "This suggests that the tax holiday delivered at least 60 percent of the tax savings to motorists." No. What it suggests is that 40% of the intended benefit was shanghaied by the oil companies. 40%. That money was going to repair roads, educate children — you know, the things we keep governments around to do. And the Illinois legislature's well-meaning but badly thought-out "holiday" redistributed that money to the bloated oil companies.
So Frost suggests a labyrinthine regulation/audit/windfall scheme to tax excess profits above a certain gross percentage per barrel of oil. Isn't that just a very confusing and sneaky way of implementing a price cap? And if you're going to do that, why not just have the spine to institute a price cap?
At best, Frost says "it is "not a foregone conclusion that the suppliers will get all the benefit." Not a foregone conclusion? Is THAT how we're formulating public policy these days? By going with any plan that isn't 100% destined to result in the worst case scenario?
Basically, Frost is saying that the Clinton plan isn't doomed to utter failure. It's not purely a give-away to the oil companies. Just a 40% giveaway. But he calls Obama wrong. Who the hell IS this guy, and who's paying him write this crap?
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What a piece of garbage...
The opening to the article suggests that the author is going to prove Obama wrong on the effect of the Holiday on Illinois. Then it goes on to attack him in all sorts of unrelated points.
The linked pdf file is the only evidence that the author actually has some information that EVERY ECONOMIST QUESTIONED has somehow missed.
Take a look at that PDF. Go to page 43 and look at figure 1.
Do you see any reason to believe that the 5% Gas Tax Holiday had any significant effect on the price of gas in comparison to other states?
I sure don't.
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Delusions of grandeur and gasoline
So Clinton co-opts McCain’s gas tax idea (the 4 more years of Bush guy, remember?) and tries to take credit for being original? So Barack Obama is an elitist Washington establishment friend of big oil? What’s Hillary not been smoking this week, the disingenuous weed from her backwoods Arkansas hemp farm? Gas prices haven’t gone up due to increasing federal gas taxes, but due to global oil supply and demand. If we don’t buy the oil at $120 a barrel the Asians and Europeans will. What’s coming home to roost here is a richer world, with an ever-increasing population of American-style consumers with buying power. The gas tax in fact is a much smaller percentage of the price of a gallon of gas now than it was when gas was at $1.00 a gallon. Clinton’s tough talk to dismantle OPEC and to make American oil companies pay for the global free market profits they make is a load of BS. They’ll just eventually base themselves out of more tax-friendly countries. The US couldn’t break up OPEC back in the 1970’s when the USA was in a much stronger global financial position than it is now; and any attempt to now shows that Clinton has a very tenuous grasp on foreign policy and what America’s global reach is these days. Sabre rattling against OPEC or anyone else is supposed to endear us ugly Americans around the world more than Dubya did?
As Clinton proved in Bosnia, she’s a phoney warrior. She ain’t even the nominee yet, the gas tax holiday is a ruse to dupe ignorant working class types before the Indiana and North Carolina primaries and to falsely paint Obama as an old-hat Washington friend of big oil with her being the anti-Washington candidate, what a spinmeister she is!