So we get a Gas Tax Holiday but no Martin Luther King Day?

Has McCain explained how to make up for the loss of revenue? Will we have higher gas taxes the rest of the year? Higher income taxes? End the Iraq War?

Tax holidays for all!

Free everything!

Yep. He always has had the pander-matic device built into his incredibly thick skull. It is about the only thing in said skull that works consistently. I have had the unfortunate pleasure of seeing him in action since the day he plopped his carpetbag down here in Phoenix, and he is nothing if not consistent.

McCain doesn't have to explain anything. Wishing makes it so. Haven't you ever seen Peter Pan? It's a documentary in Winger World.

Politician: I will cut taxes on gas!
American: Awesome! Now fix the roads.
Politician: Um, sure! I will also fix the roads! With magic fairy money!
American: Awesome! Now give me a pony.
Politician: Sure! Ponies! For everyone! Can I go play war now?
American: Ok, you've been a good boy. I hope to drink beer with you some day.

Reino, he's spelled it out clearly.

1) freeze all spending on things that don't explode
2) Reagan proved deficits don't matter

This has more to do with the long standing alliance between Bush Republicans and Al Queda, prior to 9/11.

McCain wants to revive the special relationship between America and radical Islam.

The great thing about this proposal is that it's really a two-fer. America is facing serious long-term problems with both global warming and the national debt... and a gas tax holiday would make them both worse!

Throw in a seat-belt-law holiday and he'll be doing his magic on the health care crisis too.

I figure that this might save me $35-$40 in taxes over the course of the summer. Grandpa McCain is just too good to be true.

I think this is a great idea.

And I think Democrats ought to proposed legislation that implements this and offsets by rolling back the Bush tax cuts on, say, people making over $1 million a year.

Even with "new" ideas, he is constrained by his old ones. Such lies the inability of an effective conservative governance in the face of new challenges.

Hey, the New York Times reports, "Tax Cuts at Center of McCain Economic Plan." That McCain is a real maverick!

I hear he's been going around saying Democratic plans will put a burden on our grandchildren, and that our grandchildren will suffer from global warming. It's nice to know that he wants out grandchildren to pay our taxes, too!

That last one was me (what happened, this site didn't used to let you post a comment without your name on it?).

Heh - you guys think this is funny?

http://mediamatters.org/items/200804150003?f=h_latest

Think of miles-long lines of people wanting cheap gas available for One Day Only. It'd be like the '70's all over again.

Increasing the demand for gas is a wicked good idea. It won't increase the price or anything.

I don't need no stinking government giving me a gas tax holiday.

I get one every day I ride my bike instead of driving my car.

Wait a minute - maybe McCain is talking about an unpaid day off for all the road maintenance people who are paid with the gas tax. Yeah. It could coincide with the Olympics. I hear China is ordering a forced time off without pay to all it's factories around Beijing so the pollution can pause for the Olympics.

Is it Gas Tax Holiday already? I didn't even start my shopping yet! Do we have to put up lights?

Arnold needs to coordinate with McCain (and have a state gas tax holiday) so we can simultaneously increase the state and federal deficits.

There are some math types around here. Perhaps someone can answer this:
On the Gas Tax Holiday, how long do I have to sit in line with my Ford Extinction's engine running to get my cheaper gas before I turn into a f*cking moron?

In return, I'll answer Joshua's question:
You don't have to put up lights, but if you don't kill a young tree and bring it into your house you're an America-hater!

Well, if McCain really is a pander-matic machine I think that he would have proposed a similar cut in the tax on arugula. That way he could appeal to the elite upper class "high information" voters.

Thersites - you still driving that thing? You will have to spend 0 minutes in the gas line, you are already a moron for driving that monstrosity.
;-o

So the oil companies just jack up the price to what the market will bear and we wind up paying to Exxon instead of the Treasury. Great idea.

Gas is 114$ a barrel today. Will someone please tell Chimpie to STOP jaw-boning the Saudi's.

Of course the press, including some of Kevin's prospective employers, would never think of examining McBush's proposal. Instead, they will bring him his donut treat and give him standing ovations.
Bloggers like Kevin won't call this behavior into question. Instead, you get "Sheesh, what's up with these politicians?"

I meant "oil" is 114$.

Hey, stop your complaining. That's an 18 cent tax per gallon. That means you're gonna get two SHINY DIMES for every $4.00 gallon of gas you load up.

Two dimes! Enough to get a malted!

thersites,

On the Gas Tax Holiday, how long do I have to sit in line with my Ford Extinction's engine running to get my cheaper gas before I turn into a f*cking moron?

Fair question. Assume your Extinction has half a tank because it is impossible to have a full tank once you start the engine.

Okay, half of 80 gallons is 40 gallons of US primo number one all-American 87 octane gasoline with zero ethanol. If you were moving you'd get two miles to the gallon but idling I think they get two minutes to the gallon.

Two minutes times 40 gallons is 80 minutes, but lets round up to an hour and a half because I'm feeling extra generous today.

So you could sit in line for about an hour and a half before running out of gas and having to push that thing. Yeah. I assume you've got the locking gas cap or at least a loaded rifle across the back of the cab. Otherwise you'd be siphoned pretty darn quick.

Here in MN where we just raised the gas tax 2 cents a gallon(gasp, you should've heard the taxnuts bust an artery when that happened!) you'd be paying an addition whole $1.60 every time you gassed up that puppy. That's why the taxnuts say that EVERYONE knows the increase in the gas tax might repair roads and bridges but it will bankrupt every single God-fearing American (TM) to pay it.

To the contrary, a federal gas tax holiday would show people how little tax (a whopping 18.4 cents a gallon - while the price of gas just jumped over twenty cents a gallon today) they pay on a gallon of gas. Which would get them thinking about how much they're getting socked to fill Exxon's greasy pockets. What's not to like? Doesn't Big Oil deserve a tax break too? NOT.

Weenie, Tripp, thanks for the input, but

a) I wasn't asking for gratuitous insults, and
b) Neither of you really answered my question which was a formula. For example:

let m = degree of moronitude
let t = time spent waiting in line
let d = differential in gas price

suppose that m = Kt/d

what is the value of constant K?

um, which was a REQUEST FOR a formula.

Its the usual pander, counter to any economic logic. One of our largest national economic problems, shipping off more than a $billion a day to the oil exporters. You know our good good friends like Mr Chavez, and the Saudi Royal family. Pander cure, make it easier for the public to consume even more of the stuff, and be delusional long enough to buy one more SUV.

If we got this "Tax Holiday" what's to say that the oil companies wouldn't raise the price the same day. Drop the tax (18.4 cents) the oil companies raise the price 10 cents and we got a cut. The oil companies get another 10 cents a gallon, we pay 8.4 cent less. The government losses 18.4 cents a gallon, future generations pay the difference and everyone is happy. Yippee, sign me up!

Of course the reality is the Oil Companies will raise the price 19 cents a gallon.

If not for the prospect of WWIII and Banana Republican hyper-inflation, I would welcome McCain as a one term president. Nothing would put the spike into the GOP monster more surely than a McCain presidency.

The man suffers from gas attacks. Too many peanuts scarfed down with his Anheuser Bush heiress on the veranda in one of his five homes. He drinks Bud.

Well, my God, Kevin, it's not as though he has the brains to be anything else. The Never-Ending Battle between Mrs. C. and Mr. O. is concealing the fact that both of them have IQs at least one significant digit ahead of McCain's.

Thersites,
k (small k) is Boltzman's constant and is 1.38 x 10^-23 Joules/Kelvin.
However since you are asking about human sized moronitude, you really should use the "macro" Boltzman's constant - which is generally called the gas constant (fitting isn't it), R, = k x Na, where Na is Avogadro's number (6.022 x 10^23), so R = 8.314 Joules/Kelvin/Mole.

So assuming that you are a total moron since you drive a Ford Extinction, then m = 1
and now = dm/k = .18 x 1/8.314 = 0.0216 seconds.
This assumes that the units of moronitude are
Joules x second/(Kelvin x Mole x Cent).

So the upshot is, in 21 millisec you turn into a moron. Most people cannot react in this time frame, so essentially the answer is 0. Just what I told you in the earlier post.

See a PhD in chemical physics can be helpful.

A holiday from gas. That would mean no political speeches???

These guys (conservatives) are one-trick ponys. The only idea to solve a problem they can suggest is to cut taxes - it is reflexive.

A conservative superpatriot is someone who tells you how much he loves his country and in the next breath, tells you he isn't willing to pay a dime in taxes to live here.

What a dumb idea, if anything create a 4 day workweek. One less day of driving. One less day of sucking automotive emissions.

Well, jeepers.
I was gonna use my vehicle to haul organic compost to your new veggie garden, but if you're going to be that way about it...

Jet: create a 4 day workweek.

Jet for President!!!

I am too honest to be the Panderer......umm President. =P

Hell, it works for Bush. Just throw a few c-notes around (so the fed puts in a couple of long days) and EVERYONE likes you for a few more months...pathetic.
Sorry Jen, that kind of gas will always be bonded to our atmosphere in one form or another...but it was a pleasant thought for a moment.

I really liked it when I worked for this company that had us work four ten hour days. Three day weekends are awesome.

*

Liberals are always free to pay extra income tax. If McCain's gas tax moratorium becomes law and offends liberals, they can merely add the gas tax savings they reject to the additional income tax they volunteer to pay and send their checks to the US Treasury. -=mhr=-

Personally, I dont buy lottery tickets [voluntary tax] X^B

This is a TERRIBLE idea. The reason that the U.S. economy is suffering much more than Europe from the increase in the price of crude oil is that Europe has had high taxes on gas for a long time, and thus their economy is now structured in a way that is less dependent on gasoline and less prone to disturbances when prices increase.

If we had our high taxes on gasoline, we could be using this money to pay for roads rather that allowing the OPEC nations to capture all of the surplus rent.

This would not reduce fuel consumption, but increase it giving rise to even higher prices after the 'Holiday period' ends.

If it looks and smells like a canard, it usually is.

The typical American would save $36 this summer. Wow! Thanks!

What Sen. McCain is doing is now considered populism. A rash appeal to the to the general public for an issue that does nothing to solve the problem and makes it worse because of the appeal to save everybody a few bucks consuming an increasingly scarce resource they should be conserving. Is this how Easter Island ended?

"What Sen. McCain is doing is now considered populism" - Brojo

The dumbing down of everything else has occurred under Repuglicans...so a little fake populism is not going to matter at this point in time...
it is nickel and dime theatrics, but I believe even the clueless may be catching on.

I know one thing for sure...Americans haven't a clue how much taxes are in a gallon of fuel, but when they find out, they are gonna want an explanation of where it all goes and possibly someone to lynch.
And they *are* gonna lynch when the taxes get put back on. Go ahead John, Make My Day....

This is McSame's "major economic speech"? To cut the federal gas tax for 3 months? I drive a lot, about 30 miles each way to work and back, and I spend about $35 every other week for gas. So McSame's "major economic" proposal will net me...$7 a month! Wow, now I can afford to go out and buy that popcorn I've always wanted!

Yet the media is eating this up. What a joke. Our discourse is fundamentally broken.

thersites,
m = Kt/d

Ah. I see.

Well I'm no economist (I still have morals) but it seems to me there is no constant K.

Instead I'd say m = tV-dG

Where
m=moronisity
t=time spent in line
V=Value of your time (varies by individual)
d=discount
G=Gallons purchased.

Please note that this assumes a plentiful supply of gasoline. In times of shortages, when gasoline becomes completely unavailable, the value of the gasoline approaches infinity and discounts become irrelevant. Hence the need for locking gas caps and/or firearms.

Stewart Dean,

I know one thing for sure...Americans haven't a clue how much taxes are in a gallon of fuel, but when they find out, they are gonna want an explanation of where it all goes and possibly someone to lynch.

We just went through this in MN. The honest answer is that the taxes go for the roads and bridges (like the one that recently collapsed in Minneapolis). Republican shills lie and say the taxes go for something wasteful like feeding children or planned parenthood or saving the bald eagle.

mhr is the only poster who can make me miss Al.
BTW - anyone heard from Al lately?

accutane before and after pictures