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We are certainly in the season of raw politics--and many of the proposals being offered demonstrate that. Both John McCain and Hillary Clinton are proposing and strongly supporting a gas tax holiday for this summer. They would both suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents per gallon, for the summer months of travel (Memorial Day through Labor Day). To his credit, Barack Obama has refused to support this gimmick! It is truly an insane idea.
Listen to Tom Friedman: “This is money laundering: we borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks. What a way to build our country. When the summer is over, we will have increased our debt to China, increased our transfer of wealth to Saudi Arabia and increased our contribution to global warming for our kids to inherit.” This ridiculous proposal is a perfect example of what Peter Schwartz of Global Business Network has said of US energy policy: “Maximize demand, minimize supply and buy the rest from the people who hate us the most.” The point is the US has no energy policy—and this crazy idea shows that fact! How could you use tax policy to effect a change in behavior? You would probably raise the taxes on the thing you most want to discourage—gasoline consumption and gas-guzzling cars—and you would lower the taxes on those things you most want to encourage—new, renewable energy technologies. But these people who want to be our president are doing the exact opposite. And we want them to run our country?
Friedman also demonstrates how absolutely dangerous our lack of an energy policy has become. When the US Congress passed the 2007 energy bill in December, no investment tax credit was extended for solar energy and wind energy. Oil and gas kept all their credits, but those for wind and solar energy expired! The Congress is so poisoned by politics that it is turning its back on the next great global industry—clean power. Friedman comments that if these wind and solar energy credits do indeed expire and are not renewed, by 2009 more than 100,000 jobs will either be lost or not created in these very industries! That is $20 billion worth of investment that will not be made!! During the Ohio presidential primary, the candidates were railing against the lost manufacturing jobs in Ohio, but no one mentioned that First Solar, from Toledo, Ohio, was opening its newest factory in Germany—with 540 high-paying engineering jobs. The reason? Germany has created a booming solar market and America has not! These are real facts and reflect the tragedy of a vacuum of leadership in the United States. I do not agree with Obama on everything he says—indeed, I disagree with him more than I agree. But he has the integrity and courage to talk about this excise tax suspension for what it is—a political charlatanism that actually damages Americans more than it helps them! Further, this inane proposal illustrates the paucity of leadership in Washington, D.C. It is political pandering at its worst! Perhaps we are simply going to get the leaders we deserve. May God have mercy upon us!
See Friedman’s brilliant editorial in the New York Times (30 April 2008). |
