Giving the People What They Want

Okay, this is getting a little ridiculous.

We've already enumerated the reasons why the gas-tax holiday proposed by John McCain and seconded by Hillary Clinton is a preposterous idea: 1) "it offers taxpayers only peanuts"--$30 per car for the summer--which would be quickly offset by higher demand and therefore higher prices; 2) "it sends more hard-earned money to the Middle East, which is terrible for our national security"; 3) "it worsens global warming by encouraging gasoline consumption"; 4) "it makes it more likely you'll have a car accident or will waste even more time in traffic"; 5) "it will cost 300,000 construction jobs, according to the Congressional Budget Office"; 6) "it will cost the U.S. Treasury at least $8.5 billion and probably much more, according to state highway officials"; and 7) "it won't happen anyway because Congress isn't usually quite that stupid, and if it is, President Bush would veto the bill." What's more, everyone from Tom Friedman to Paul Krugman to Nancy Pelosi to Michael Bloomberg to Tom Harkin to former Clinton energy secretaries Bill Richardson and Federico Pena opposes the tax break. When asked today to name a single non-political expert who supports such a proposal, Clinton aides could not--because not a single economist does.

But that's not stopping Clinton and McCain. On the trail today, both candidates continued to push the tax break, chiding their opponents as elitists who are out of touch with real Americans. "I find it, frankly, a little offensive that people who don't have to worry about filling up their gas tank or what they buy when they go to the supermarket think that it's somehow illegitimate to provide relief for the millions and millions of Americans who are on the brink of losing their job," said Clinton in Brownsburg, Ind. McCain echoed her remarks on CNN's "American Morning."I understand in New York City that you don't really drive a long way most of the time," he said. "But... maybe you're chauffeured." Conveniently, Clinton and McCain were focused on their populist, anti-intellectual demagoguery to acknowledge that experts aren't saying relief isn't needed--just that the tax holiday wouldn't actually, you know, provide any relief when all is said and done.

Why keep pushing a proposal that every independent observer says won't work? Because it's politically popular. On a conference call with reporters this afternoon, Clinton pollster and chief strategist Geoff Garin admitted as much. "We're seeing in our polling that working people appreciate the fact that Senator Clinton understands the incredible economic strain they are facing," he said. Now that's a novel way to determine policy--not because experts say it will work, but because voters "appreciate" it. I'm sure there are a lot of things that the good people of Indiana would appreciate. No income tax, perhaps. A four-day workweek. Monorails. Stamps that taste like buffalo wings.

If only those chauffeured, elitist, so-called experts from New York City would give the people what they want.