This comes under the category of blowing my own horn. I had an article in today’s Washington Examiner pointing out John McCain’s total hypocrisy in calling for a 2 month federal gas tax moratorium while at the same time supporting a CO2 cap and trade program to fight global warming–warming that , I might add, we have not seen now for 7 years. As I noted in the article:
Anyone lamenting the high price of gasoline while pushing for a
policy of restricting CO2 emissions is crying crocodile tears…You cannot be
both a CO2 scaremonger and in favor of lower gas prices. This is
because any meaningful restriction on CO2 emissions has to be
accompanied by a policy that makes carbon-based fuels more expensive.
Low gas prices and targets like a 65 percent reduction in CO2
emissions, as called for by McCain, are completely inconsistent with
each other.
As far as I can tell there are two possible conclusions regarding the Arizona Senator’s proposal on the gas tax. Either he truly doesn’t understand that in proposing a cap and trade program he is essentially calling for a massive gas tax increase, which would suggests a level of ignorance that would be unacceptable, or he does understand it and he is simply playing politics. Neither explanation is very appealing.
