A summer of fun awaits
James Rickman
Posted: 05.05.2008 / 1:04 AM EDT
Mercifully it seems as though presidential campaign coverage has slogged beyond the somniferous miasma of petty back-and-forth bickering between the Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama campaigns and the true meaning of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and into new rhetorical territory.
With last week’s news that the first Americans would begin receiving their political bribes Economic Stimulus checks in hopes of jump starting some kind of spontaneous national spending spree for cheap Chinese-manufactured merchandise, talk has turned toward another potential political gift for the American people—the so-called “Gas-Tax Holiday.” The name itself drips with the kind of infectious good cheer that is sure to stimulate smiles and consumer confidence as the prospects of paying $4 a gallon during the summer travel season lingers thick and heavy like diesel exhaust from a Ford 350 Extracab pickup accelerating on the freeway.
Talk of the Gas Tax Holiday had me rummaging around my closets for my curly elf shoes and festive jingle hat in hopes that retailers would offer holiday discounts to provide me with even more of an excuse to crack open that $600 Economic Stimulus check. With the economy the way it is and with global warming swirling around out there like an unwelcome early tornado season, you can bet that many American’s are budgeting at least 10 percent of their IRS windfall for booze.
The rest ought to pay for a nice family dinner at Applebee’s and the gas to get there (okay, maybe not dessert for those unfortunate people who moved way out into suburbia to get away from the less-attractive aspects of city life).
This is precisely why a “Gas Tax Holiday” is a notion who’s time has come! Think about it: the Gas Tax Holiday gives people another couple of months to whistle past the graveyard without actually having to do something practical like, say, carpool or walk to work. God forbid we Americans would ever have to make sacrifices—like not endlessly circling parking lots for that fabulous front-row parking spot or not having to suck it up and ask your weird neighbor with questionable hygiene whether he would like to catch a ride with you to the grocery store this week so he can return the favor the following week. With our innate refusal to move out of our national comfort zone, it looks like at least two of the Presidential candidates are siding with the American Poeple.
John McCain and Hillary Clinton have heartily endorsed the idea of a Summer Petrol Jubilee, except that Hillary has gone one step better than McCain: She’s suggesting that oil companies foot the bill so necessary road improvements will still get funded. Talk about a win-win! People get to continue to buy gas 18 cents cheaper a gallon for a few months, demand for crude oil stays high, and consumers get a little bit of that added stick-it-to-the-Man pleasure that comes from knowing part of their summer joyride is being funded by Big Oil. And when it comes time to pay the piper and start trying to replace some of our national transportation infrastructure without all of those combined 18 cents that weren’t paid all summer long, it’ll be too expensive to drive anyway. No one will miss out on a thing.
It still remains to be seen whether the majority of America can be bought for 600 bucks and a summer of really expensive—albeit less expensive than it could have been—gasoline. Sad to say, I’m betting we can.
Obama today on Meet the Press made it clear he wasn’t jumping on the Gas Tax Holiday bandwagon. Most folks I know are in his court on this. While many of my compadres would welcome a brief reprieve on paying way too much at the pump this summer, most know that the idea of a Gas Tax Holiday is a ridiculous postponement of the inevitable that does nothing to encourage conservation.
Some Learned Person somewhere once said it takes 21 days to create a new habit. A Gas Tax Holiday merely gives people an excuse to put off beginning a 21-day cycle that may actually be beneficial in the long run. Driving less is a little like smoking less; it’s difficult to do and it creates a lot of stress in people. Our nation is on the brink of a massive involuntary withdrawal program, and odds are that things are going to get pretty ugly somewhere down the line as people are forced to make the transition. Think Mad Max.
Putting 600 bucks in people’s pockets just before the primary elections and treating people to a summer of cheap still-pretty-expensive gasoline may be an artful political move, but in the long run it’s still pretty meaningless—like that one last cigarette I smoked at 11:55 p.m. the day before I quit for good. It sure felt good at the time, but the next morning was a killer.
I plan to steer well clear of gas stations the day after Labor Day if the Gas Tax Holiday is enacted.
