Re: Gas Tax “Holiday”
All right, basic intuitive Econ 0.000001, applied to a dumb ass idea, here we go: You lower the cost to market of a commodity (like say a barrel of oil), demand will rise to meet a new equilibrium with the new cost to market. Meaning: if you get rid of taxes on oil thus lowering it’s price, people will buy more oil, thus rising the price back up. It won’t go all the way back up, but it will likely go somewhere around halfway.
But oil’s not like, say, beer. The difference is that for oil, since it’s finite, each barrel costs a tiny bit more to bring it to market than the last. Now, just like every other commodity with this structure, if you lower the price, thus increasing consumption, then because we’re consuming more, the result is that the price now rises faster than it otherwise would have. And after some number of years, we find ourselves paying more than we otherwise would have. This ain’t rocket science people… this is what our kids all should be learning in junior high.
Now, the most insulting part about this is that both Hilary and McCain understand this perfectly well. But they’re running on the assumption that enough of the American public is not an “elite liberal economist from new england” and therefore doesn’t get this “complex” stuff. Well, F-YOU! We’re not fricking bricks here, it’s damn insulting that you think the average American falls for this kind of BS.
Nobody really blinked an eye when McCain proposed this idea. It’s no secret what the business-minded side of the Republican party thinks about the social-conservative side. But Hilary? What? Why are you trying to treat me like I’m a little kid who can’t stop myself from grabbing a marshmallow? How bout some fricking respect?
If you support Hilary, you should be embarrassed by this shit. ‘Nuff said.
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