By Brendan McLaughlin

The "gas tax holiday" promoted by both John McCain and Hillary Clinton is a bad idea on so many levels, it's hard to know where to start.  New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman calls it

"so ridiculous, so unworthy of the people aspiring to lead our nation, it takes your breath away." 

Friedman goes on to say,

 "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."

The economic shell game Friedman describes has been policy in the U.S. for many years, but suspending the 18.4 % federal tax on gasoline for the summer makes anyone who drives complicit in the scheme. Worse yet, the plan intended to ease the pain of high prices probably won't. Many economists say the increased demand spurred by the lower pump price will raise the price of gas. And that money will flow to oil companies- not consumers.  State officials say the loss of the tax revenue will halt highway and bridge improvements and cost thousands of jobs.  In other words, the tax holiday is far from free.

Clinton proposes to replace  the lost revenue with a windfall tax on oil companies. McCain will go after the low hanging fruit of government waste and tax money from other sources. Good luck on that. If it's so easy to get your hands on $10 billion dollars (that's how much will be lost during the summer fuel fiesta), then why were we being taxed that 18% in the first place?

Imagine a world where we spent the last eight years paying a couple extra pennies for a gallon of gas. That money funded a Manhattan Project of energy independence that created low cost, solar, hydrogen and wind power.  Today we'd be enjoying cleaner air the satisfaction of telling  OPEC to suck hi-test. Instead we're strapped to a runaway train of oil prices that will sap our personal finances and our nation's ability to educate our children and build our future.  

Maybe it's easy for me to advocate for continued gas taxes because I can live without the estimated savings of $2.70 per fill-up. But doesn't it stand to reason that we might need to sacrifice something in the face of a true crisis?   I maintain that most anyone who doesn't drive for a living could cut their gas consumption by 18.4 percent this summer just  by  thinking twice before pulling out of the garage.  Wouldn't it be more fun to pocket that savings knowing it came out of the fetid mouths of  oil companies and despotic regimes instead of your local highway fund?

One tax expert said the gas holiday is not an idea to get us through the summer. It's an idea to get the candidates through the election.