so just to clarify that every expert who said this won't work.

you are now saying they are wrong and YOU are right that the gas tax is a good idea right?

Thanks for showing the real numbers.

All I had to read the other day was from someone who said the average person would love to find a twenty on the sidewalk once a month.

Obama is more than out of touch.  He never was in touch.

So I take it you would be for a full repeal of the tax then?  After all, why only support a 3-month stunt?

If you want to help truck drivers, then craft a policy solution for them - like a subsidy.

And BO's plan.  Do nothing.  Well when you dont know what to do for a problem you should attack someone elses solution.  Where have we heard this before.  7 1/2 years of Bush.  Just do nothing.

david

I heard Hillary say this the other day too, that the real beneficiaries are truck drivers, but I've never heard anyone actually say that this applies to both the gas tax and the diesel tax.

Does the Clinton/McCain gas holiday apply to both gas and diesel?

Thank you for posting this diary. I've been making this point in other people's diaries for the last couple of days. Truckers have been hit really hard and need some relief. USA Today had a story yesterday that quoted a trucker who's putting over $2500 a week into his tank. (http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries /energy/2008-03-30-truckers_N.htm)

Not only that, we don't just pay the gas tax at the pump. Because truckers deliver virtually all the goods we purchase, we pay the gas tax and the supermarket, the drug store, the auto parts store, the home improvement store, etc., etc.

From Clinton's 2000 Senate campaign in New York, when she came out in opposition to a gas tax holiday.

It is "a bad deal for New York and a potential bonanza for the oil companies," Clinton said of her Republican opponent Rick Lazio's plan to repeal 4.3 cents of the gas tax.

That's a great link but I think you could do better with a less confrontational title for your diary.

WaPo has a pretty good summary here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con tent/article/2008/04/30/AR2008043003575. html?nav=hcmodule&sid=ST200805010009 0

Well Done!

Here's what Clinton said at her October 8, 2000 debate with Lazio: "[O]ne of my fundamental disagreements during this campaign with my opponent was when he called for the repeal of the gas tax. Now, the gas tax is one of those few taxes that New York actually gets more money from Washington than we send. And we are totally reliant on it to do things like finishing I-86 in the Southern Tier, or the fast- ferry harbor works up in Rochester, as well as the work we need to do here in the city. So you can count on me to support infrastructure."

And here's a June 28, 2000 Newsday clip: "Campaigning in the Hudson Valley, Lazio continued a two-day assault on Clinton's support of maintaining the 18-cent federal gas tax and then used tough rhetoric to declare that 'trust' and 'character' were campaign issues during an evening fundraiser in Manhattan that raised more that $1 million. Clinton, meanwhile, lashed out at Lazio's plan to repeal 4.3 cents of the gas tax, calling it 'a bad deal for New York and a potential bonanza for the oil companies.'"

"During a visit to a shopping mall in the Buffalo suburbs, Clinton said that 'the gas tax is one of the few exceptions where we actually get more money back than we send to Washington.'"

-msnbc

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's proposal for a windfall profits tax on oil companies could cost $15 billion a year at last year's profit levels, a campaign adviser said.

The plan would target profit from the biggest oil companies by taxing each barrel of oil costing more than $80, according to a fact sheet on the proposal. The tax would help pay for a $1,000 tax cut for working families, an expansion of the earned- income tax credit and assistance for people who can't afford their energy bills.

Obama's plan is three times larger than the $50 billion, 10-year plan contemplated by his Democratic rival, New York Senator Hillary Clinton.

It really speaks volumes when you see it down on paper, doesn't it?

Obama is 100% correct on this one and Hillary and McCain are of course on the same side and wrong.

It is horrible policy, that will do nothing but increase Gas prices and lower supply.

"And economically it's trivial or worse -- by reducing the price of driving it encourages more of it, thereby increasing demand for gasoline, which inevitably pushes the price back up - the consumer gains nothing, and the oil companies and OPEC collect the extra bucks instead of the government." -Robert Shapiro

What another pandering diary. Why don't you freaking read the million other diaries on th9is topic before you post something like this?

1) You did not address the fact that there is no proof that the gas tax savings will be passed along in their entirety. Any calculations in savings you make should be based on the real decrease. So the number you come up with is bogus.

2) Even if you assume the tax savings will be passed along, you got no idea if a psychological comfort with the decrease will put less of an urgency to cut down driving to an absolute minimum and whether that will just lead to maybe some of the savings erased in a slight increase anyway. We got no proof of this, but it is possible.

3) Even if you diregard points 1 and 2, why not support a $1400 rebate check for all truckers. POr maybe a mileage rate increase? You do realize the mileage rate is going to be adjusted.

4) and even if there no rebate check or mileage adjustment, I would assume the extra cost involved in spending on gas will be deductible. So if you are going to put up a diary with hypothetical numbers, at least , calculate the tax deduction a truck driver will benefit from.

Do a little thinking before you put up a diary or just limit yourself to a comment on one of many other diaries on this exact topic.

I wish I could troll rate the diary writer for using a right wing smear of "elitist" to a section of liberals.

If you want to declare war, we are ready. All Jerome has to do is give us permission to engage in a free for all if the MYDD admins are unwilling to use volunteers to monitor this kind of crap.

I thought we'd had enough of politicians who make decisions based on their gut instincts rather than expert opinion.

The consensus among economic experts who have studied the issue is that the gas tax holiday is a mistake and will not result in lower prices at the pump. This expert opinion happens to be shared by Obama and the top Democratic leadership.

But Clinton is dismissing the advice of experts in favor of what she believes is right, according to Howard Wolfson:

You know, this is something that Senator Clinton believes is important. And presidents listen to advice, get advice, and then, and then act.

Get advice, dismiss advice, do the opposite. We've been down this road before.

I told ya.  Obama took opposite stand against Clinton just of the sake of it.  He tried to toughen up and get rid of his pansy image.

Also he tried to hold on to his last demographic well-to-do voters whose pockets do not get dent so much by the high gas price.

He's out of touch with the regular Joe & Jane who earned 8-10 dollars an hours.  For this group,  the gas tax holiday pros out weight the cons.