Tuesday, April 15, 2008

More Stupid Economic Ideas from McCain

He proposes a massive shift of money from consumers to the oil companies--er, I mean a gas tax "holiday" . He also continues the utterly irresponsible policy of advocating the continuation of Bush's tax breaks for the wealthy. Excerpts from Jared Bernstein's post:

First, the gas tax holiday is smart politics but lousy policy. As Taplin aptly described, high gas prices are sending an important economic signal and jamming that signal is ill-advised. On the other hand, as one of the commenters points out, this idea could really help some strapped families.

The problem is there's absolutely nothing to stop the oil companies from claiming a big chunk of this subsidy by raising the pretax price of gas at the pump. Prices go up in the summer anyway, and I'll bet you a gallon of premium that they go up even more than usual, such that some of that 18.4 cents/gallon ends up back in Exxon's wallet, not yours.

Which leaves us with a nice little transfer from taxpayers to oil companies. Nice work, John.**********

Finally, and this is the most worrisome aspect of McCain's economics, if he gets what he wants, he has two fiscal choices: deeply cut entitlement programs, especially those related to health care, or blow a massive hole in the budget.

I give the details here, but the arithmetic is simple: you can't extend the Bush tax cuts forever, same with the war, end the AMT, finance big health care subsidies, and slash the corporate tax rate all on the backs of "savings from earmark, program review, and other budget reforms." Like I said, you either end much of government as we know it--a standard conservative goal--or become unsustainably indebted.

Folks, this guy is a dangerous ignoramus. The Democrats MUST stop their internecine warfare and train their political guns on McCain, the biggest threat to America's survival since...well, George W. Bush.