The proposed Gas Tax Holiday smells like it has been stuck up the ass of a politician for years and is only now being pulled out at election time. No matter how you try and sell the plan, the results still stink.

First there is nothing to prevent stations from simply offsetting the 18.4 cent discount by raising their prices. In fact most economists believe this will happen unless the holiday comes with a price freeze. I like that second part a lot better as a driver, than I do the Tax Holiday.

Secondly, if you figure out how much gas you use in a week the saving just don’t amount to squat. My wife and I burn about 20 gallons a week in the summer between the two of us, which is better than the average single driver who burns roughly 14 gallons. If you multiply the tax savings out over the twelve weeks we save as a family $44.16 while the average single driver will save $30.91. I know you are excited about that! Face it what can a single person or a family get for between $30 and $45. Amortized over 12 weeks you will hardly notice the difference.

The third reason the tax holiday is a bad idea is the $30 you save is going to cost the government a considerable amount. It is estimated that the 12 week holiday will cost the government more than $9 Billion, $7 Billion going to the Highway Superfund and $2 Billion going to the much needed public transit. We have enough budget problems already to risk what that will do to us. Next taking that money out of system endangers more than 310,000 workers who rely on those funds to stay employed.

Next charging the oil companies the difference won’t work either. Unless the government is prepared to enact a price freeze on the oil at an undisclosed date to keep from gouging or sudden increases the day before any freeze goes into effect the cost will be shifted right back to the consumer.

On top of the negative economic changes we will see from the holiday, we will see an environmental change as well. The higher fuel prices have forced drivers to use less gas. Lowering the price will only encourage drivers to use more gas. When we are finally starting to show some common sense politicians are trying to keep people from exercising it.

Rather than trying to sucker us in with grandiose notions like a tax holiday politicians should be telling us what they are going to do to bring down the effective price of gas. We constantly hear Drivers over the age of 25 talk about the olden days when gas was only a dollar a gallon. We will never see those days again, as the effective price is now more than $75 a barrel to just get it out of the ground. We should however be talking about how to get those 20 miles for a buck days back by raising standards. Can we hit efficiency standards of 80mpg any time soon? That is unlikely unless auto manufacturers are even more in bed with the oil companies than we know. It isn’t an unreasonable standard to strive for down the road though.

Furthermore we could be talking about how to reduce the cost of biofuels. The argument for years against ethanol has been it costs more gas to produce than it saves. To a point this is true, but only because we failed to make a lot of it and lacked the pipelines to transport it. If we were to actually invest in biofuel infrastructure the prices will drop dramatically and take away most of the reasons for not using them. Alternately you could help support or provide seed money to the already cash strapped school districts or towns that want to produce biodiesel to support their needs and reduce transportation costs.

In the end politicians need to be telling the truth and advocating change not kissing your ass long enough to start fucking you in it.