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With Us? Really? |
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Senator Hillary Clinton, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, spoke earlier today at a rally in Southern Indiana:
“I believe it would be important to get every member of Congress on record: Do they stand with the hard-pressed Americans who are trying to pay their gas bills at the gas station or do they stand once again with the oil companies? I want to know where people stand, and I want them to tell us: Are they with us or against us when it comes to taking on the oil companies?”
The senator alludes in this false choice idiocy, to the gas tax plan she supports—a course so dislodged from sound fiscal policy that it merits endorsement by Senator McCain. Which is no exaggeration, because the senior senator from Arizona is perpetuating the same economic bastardization.
A repeal of the tax, which places eighteen cents on top of every gallon of gasoline, is, well, here's American Public Media's “Marketplace” contributor Robert Reich:
“Talk about a dumb idea. It will only encourage Americans to drive more, thereby increasing demand and causing gas prices to rise even higher. Driving more will also put more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which fuels global warming. And this will cost taxpayers some $10 billion. It's a cheap political gimmick that does nothing to stem the rising price of oil.”
Climate change aside, this type of result should be expected anytime demand is stimulated in a market that has a supply ceiling, and an uncomfortably low one at that. An argument could probably even be made for raising said tax, to encourage lower demands and the conservation that comes with that, but this is of course is an election year, and not one friendly to people who think that far in advance.
But let's suppose we ignore the fact that this only further entrenches our dependence on foreign oil, and examine the Department of Transportation estimate that repealing the gas tax, which funds federal highway upkeep projects, will result in a loss of 300,000 jobs this summer. That's fifteen times the number of jobs we lost in the entire month of April, and a complete hypocrisy from a candidate who is supposedly predicated on job creation.
A transfer of funds from a windfall profits tax might assuage this resulting catastrophe, but such a tax has never been coupled with a repeal of the gas tax in any of its iterations. I suggest that setting up the safety net prior to jumping off this cliff would be in order: actually instating the windfall tax before praying on its revenue to save the construction jobs and the asses of the politicians who are looking to put themselves on the line.
In what is still far from the worst-case scenario, an increase in gas prices following the removal of the tax would put eighteen additional cents per gallon, and possibly even more in the hands of the oil companies who continue to clean up a tidy sum at the expense of us at the gas pump, and indirectly, everything we purchase that at one point or another must be transported.
The question—the ridiculous ultimatum straight out of the George Bush lexicon—is in fact pointed the other direction. If one must be with consumers or the oil companies, those in favor of removing the gas tax have woefully found themselves on the unfortunate, albeit more wealthy side of the equation.
