Clinton joins McCain in the race for panderer in chief (TIME)

[book_worm]

So now Hillary Clinton has decided to endorse John McCain's silly idea of a three-month federal gas tax holiday. Only Barack Obama, who voted for an Illinois gas tax holiday back in 2000 but has since seen the error of his ways, is standing firm against this nonsense.

Why's it nonsense? First of all, because the impact would be minuscule, probably reducing the cost of a gallon of gas by less than a dime.

But the big issue is that artificially low gasoline prices over the past couple of decades are at least partly to blame for many of the nation's woes today, from the huge trade deficit to a crumbling transportation infrastructure to the war in Iraq. Basically, U.S. drivers haven't been paying anywhere near the real environmental, infrastructural, and military costs incurred in getting gas into their cars and then burning it. As a result we've overconsumed, and become ever more dependent on the world's oil-exporting countries--all as a result of undertaxing gasoline.

Don't believe me? Just listen to an expert:


"We know the broad contours of some things that have to happen," said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office who is now at the Council on Foreign Relations. "You have to price oil on a permanent basis to provide incentives to shift away from it. It's the key issue -- and the hardest one to make progress on."

http://time-blog.com/curious_capitalist/2008/04/clinton_joins_mccain_in_the_ra.html

[Aloha Spirit]

1. It's even sadder to know that the government employs experts to figure out what's the best thing to

do, and the legislators ignore them. This reminds me of watching Senate Finance Committee meetings on the stimulus package. CGO Director gave everyone a chart showing which measures were most likely to be effective at jumpstarting economic growth.
Senators asked him (DR Orszag) "What should we do?"
He said "I cannot tell you what to do, but this chart shows you the likelihood of success for each measure."
They said "Which one would you recommend?"
etc
This went on for an hour, and then the Senators continued the stimulus debate as if Orszag hadn't even been there. As in... this measure is more Democratic... this measure is more Republican...
Oh my God it was embarrassing.