Why Clinton and McCain Idea on the Gas Tax Is a Good Idea

I have to admit I am not a big fan of this lets have a tax holiday on gas prices. However I saw this over at Vox Nova that is in reference to a Op-Ed in the New York Times by an economist. Go see A Gas Tax Holiday: It Could Be Worse. He says in part:

The tax holiday is a relatively cheap symbolic gesture that makes truly bad policies less likely. The main causes of high gas prices are probably factors beyond our control, like rapid growth in China and India and low real interest rates. But voters don’t want to hear this; they want politicians to “do something!”
During our last big energy crisis, in the 1970s, “something” turned out to be a salad of populist nonsense: price controls, rationing, windfall profits taxes, arcane loopholes and lots of lawsuits. That political response turned an inconvenience into a disaster.......So it’s better for them to balance their abuse of the oil industry with an occasional olive branch. In that sense, Senator Clinton’s pairing of an excess profits tax with a gas tax holiday isn’t nearly as bad as an excess profits tax all by itself.

That is a good argument.