Comments on: In defense of the gas tax holiday http://rightwingliberal.wordpress.com/2008/05/01/in-defense-of-the-gas-tax-holiday/ hide the decline Tue, 29 Dec 2009 15:07:45 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: The Write Side of My Brain » I’m really tired of stimulus gimmicks http://rightwingliberal.wordpress.com/2008/05/01/in-defense-of-the-gas-tax-holiday/#comment-1939 The Write Side of My Brain » I’m really tired of stimulus gimmicks Sat, 03 May 2008 00:28:49 +0000 http://rightwingliberal.wordpress.com/?p=768#comment-1939 [...] See:   The Death Of Economic Sanity At The Republican National Committee and In defense of the gas tax holiday [...] [...] See:   The Death Of Economic Sanity At The Republican National Committee and In defense of the gas tax holiday [...]

]]> By: Below The Beltway » Blog Archive » The Gas Tax Holiday: Political Pandering And Economic Stupidity In One Convenient Package http://rightwingliberal.wordpress.com/2008/05/01/in-defense-of-the-gas-tax-holiday/#comment-1928 Below The Beltway » Blog Archive » The Gas Tax Holiday: Political Pandering And Economic Stupidity In One Convenient Package Fri, 02 May 2008 14:56:01 +0000 http://rightwingliberal.wordpress.com/?p=768#comment-1928 [...] The Right-Wing Liberal takes me to task for, well, taking John McCain, Hillary, Clinton, and the Republican National Committee to task over their advocacy of a summer-long suspension of the 18.4 cent per gallon federal gasoline tax: Gasoline, like everything else, is a good that follows the laws of supply and demand, but those laws mean different things to different goods. In some cases, consumers demand for a good will fall steeply as the price rises; we call those goods elastic goods. Other goods, however, will see hardly any change in demand despite price fluctuation; these goods are called - wait for it - inelastic. [...] [...] The Right-Wing Liberal takes me to task for, well, taking John McCain, Hillary, Clinton, and the Republican National Committee to task over their advocacy of a summer-long suspension of the 18.4 cent per gallon federal gasoline tax: Gasoline, like everything else, is a good that follows the laws of supply and demand, but those laws mean different things to different goods. In some cases, consumers demand for a good will fall steeply as the price rises; we call those goods elastic goods. Other goods, however, will see hardly any change in demand despite price fluctuation; these goods are called – wait for it – inelastic. [...]

]]> By: Doug Mataconis http://rightwingliberal.wordpress.com/2008/05/01/in-defense-of-the-gas-tax-holiday/#comment-1923 Doug Mataconis Fri, 02 May 2008 08:53:39 +0000 http://rightwingliberal.wordpress.com/?p=768#comment-1923 Given the fact that the average consumer is likely to only "save" $ 30-40 <strong>over the entire summer</strong> if the McCain/Clinton plan is followed (and that assumes that the entire savings from the gas tax would in fact be passed on to consumers and that there wouldn't be any impact on demand from a price reduction during the heaviest driving season of the year), the macro-economic impact of this "plan", half-baked as it is, is likely to be negligible at best. I oppose this idea not because of concerns about road funding, but because it represents political pandering to a population that is, relatively speaking, illiterate when it comes to basic economics, to be stupid and cynical. Given the fact that the average consumer is likely to only “save” $ 30-40 over the entire summer if the McCain/Clinton plan is followed (and that assumes that the entire savings from the gas tax would in fact be passed on to consumers and that there wouldn’t be any impact on demand from a price reduction during the heaviest driving season of the year), the macro-economic impact of this “plan”, half-baked as it is, is likely to be negligible at best.

I oppose this idea not because of concerns about road funding, but because it represents political pandering to a population that is, relatively speaking, illiterate when it comes to basic economics, to be stupid and cynical.

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