CONTINUED high demand for tight supplies of gasoline has pushed the price to about $3.60 a gallon. So what do two of the three candidates for president propose to do? Drop the federal tax on the fuel during the summer - so drivers will be encouraged to drive even more, increasing consumption of gas and pushing the record-level profits of the oil companies even higher.
Republican Senator John McCain first proposed to suspend the 18.4-cent tax on gasoline from Memorial Day to Labor Day, a move that has political appeal but undercuts his Senate record as an advocate of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by curbing fossil-fuel use. Now Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton has followed suit in this game of monkey see, monkey pander.
Ironically, it was President Bill Clinton who raised the tax to its current level 15 years ago - one of the steps that helped the federal budget move out of the red and into surplus by the time he left office. Just to keep up with inflation, Congress should have raised the tax to 27 cents a gallon by now.
Senator Barack Obama opposes the summer tax holiday as a short-term approach to rising fuel prices, though he too favored a temporary suspension of most of the Illinois tax on gasoline as a state senator in 2000.
To her credit, Clinton at least proposes a way to recoup the $10 billion in road-building money that the Highway Fund would lose if the tax on gasoline and diesel were suspended: She wants Congress to pass a windfall-profits tax on oil companies. But the Senate rejected a similar tax last December, and there is nothing to indicate that it would approve one now - certainly not in time to make up for lost gas-tax revenues this summer.
A quick-fix approach like the gas-tax holiday might make sense if there were any evidence that oil at more than $100 a barrel is a passing phenomenon. But energy analysts say the high prices mainly reflect increased demand from China, India, and other quick-growing countries. By slightly reducing the cost of gasoline to US consumers, the tax holiday will only increase consumption, with the likely result that the pump price might not drop at all.
McCain and Clinton also seem to have given no thought to Tuesday, Sept. 2. That's the day after Labor Day, when Americans will still need to drive - to work, not to the beach - and will have to do so with gas costing 18.4 cents more. Will McCain and Clinton then propose to end the gasoline tax altogether, further accelerating the deterioration of the nation's roads and bridges?
The public needs a holiday from demagogic politics more than from the gasoline tax.
