Knowledge Problem

Piling on the Criticism of a Summer Gas Tax Holiday

Lynne Kiesling

By now you all have probably heard that Hillary Clinton and John McCain are proposing gasoline tax holidays this summer to take some budget pressure off of voters who drive a lot (c’mon, let’s be honest about the true audience of these proposals). Barack Obama does not support such a proposal.

Criticizing this proposal is truly like shooting fish in a barrel, and others have done it more thoroughly and eloquently than I can (thanks to the WSJ’s Environmental Capital for the link).

So will the populist impetus take the day on this issue, or will there be room for reasoned economic analysis to convince voters that this is a stupid policy? Depends on who they are and how much they drive, probably.