Is it just me, or are McCain and Clinton trying to pull one on the general populace?  Both Presidential hopefuls are calling for a gas tax holiday this summer.  The holiday would last for three months, and would repeal the federal gas tax of 18.4 cents per gallon.

I drive nearly 40,000 miles per year.  Which equates to 3,333 miles per month.  My car averages 27 miles per gallon.  Doing a little math, I compute that I use a total of 123 gallons per month.  That’s 8 fill-ups per month or about two per week - just over 30 gallons per week.

The average american consumes far less gas per week.  But using my numbers, the gas tax holiday would save me approximately $5.65 per week.  Extended out, the calculations show a total savings of $67 for the entire three months.  On average, I’d be saving about one-half tank of gas per month.

This great idea being floated by McCain and Clinton is horrible.  It’s a feel good measure that sounds good until a person actually sits down and crunches the numbers on the actual savings.  In fact, even an extreme driver like myself would realize minimal savings.  Not to mention, the devastating effect the holiday would have on the already severely underfunded road infrastructure (some sources indicate the lost tax revenue at close to $9 billion).

All McCain and Clinton are doing is buying votes.  The problem is that they’re buying the votes for a little more than a tank of gas.

2 Responses to “Proposed Gas Tax Holiday a Half Tank Idea”

1. dpe Says:
   May 8th, 2008 at 8:39 am

   I think we could file that one under “Politics as usual”!

   Why can’t we get some solutions and not pandering for votes?

2. John Says:
   May 8th, 2008 at 9:13 pm

   dpe, that’s what really irks me about politics. There is way too much pandering and far too few solutions. Maybe I’m being delusional, but I’m hoping someday to have a candidate that actually will provide solutions rather than selfish pandering!

Leave a Reply