Today’s N&R lead editorial also said:
In the long haul, however, the country needs to develop more energy resources and break its addiction to foreign oil. Obama has put forward some suggestions, and Clinton and McCain have as well. They all know that encouraging Americans to drive more — many of them in gas-guzzlers, still — isn’t going to pay off down the road. And depleting revenues for transportation projects isn’t going to keep the country moving.
The editors at NRO agree with the N&R that suspending the gas tax is a bad idea, but also note:
The issue is good politically for McCain, because Barack Obama was for a gas-tax holiday before he was against one: Back in the Illinois state senate, he backed such an idea, whereas now he claims it would deprive the government of badly needed highway-construction funds.
Nonsense. Revenues from the federal gas tax go into the U.S. Highway Trust Fund, which Congress draws upon to pay for some of its biggest pork boondoggles (the infamous Bridge to Nowhere would have drawn upon the fund). Responsibility for maintaining roads and highways ought to be returned to the states, and the federal gas tax done away with for good.
NRO also says:
McCain’s call to stop filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve makes more sense. Again, there is a strong case for going further. The costs of maintaining the reserve have far outweighed any economic or strategic benefit it has ever yielded. So why not dump the reserve on the market and shut it down?
Watch Jim Neal’s views on energy policy during Tuesday’s Senate primary debate and note that he, too, is in favor of tapping into the SPR to drive gas prices down.
