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Go Home How To Beat Gas Tax Demagoguery

THE PLANK MAY 1, 2008

How To Beat Gas Tax Demagoguery

BY JONATHAN CHAIT

The Clinton and McCain campaign have defended their plant to suspend the federal gasoline tax in strikingly similar terms. Clinton's spokesman Geoff Garin says:

"Every penny counts," Garin said, and insisted that the holiday will save $70 per driver (not $30, as Obama claims).“If you live in the center of the city it may not be a big deal.”

"There’s a real gap here of how some people see this from 30,000 feet", he continued, and how  North Carolina and Indiana residents  "experience it every day."

And John McCain, when asked about New York Times columnist Tom Friedman's opposition to the tax suspension, replied:

Appearing on CNN's "American Morning," McCain noted his respect for the Pulitzer winner but said Americans deserve "just a little break this summer."But then he went further."And I understand in New York City that you don't really drive a long way most of the time," McCain said.  "But -- and then maybe you're chauffeured."

The common thread here is anti-intellectual, populist demagoguery. Economists believe the gas tax suspension won't help consumers. Under current market conditions, the after-tax price of gasoline won't fall. (And the precedent this would set would be a disaster for the future of weaning Americans off of cheap, carbon-intensive fuel.) So the fact that economists or Tom Friedman may live in cities is obviously not relevant at all. I can imagine Clinton and McCain promising to solve the health care crisis by promising free government-issued leeches, and when doctors insist the leeches won't help, they reply that it's easy for rich doctors with their lavish medical plans to say we don't need a solution.

Generally, betting on the intelligence of the American public is a bad move. But, like Noam, I think this is a great fight for Obama right now. Here's how pointing out his refusal to pander on the gas tax helps Obama:

1. Obama needs to move the narrative past race/class/gender splits, and the gas tax -- a substantive issue where the campaigns clearly differ -- is the only path that's offering itself right now.

2. Mark Schmitt once wrote, "It's not what you say about the issues, it's what the issues say about you." In other words, the specific substance of a candidate's positions matters less than the meta-narrative those issues create around the candidate. John McCain's endorsement of campaign finance reform helped him, not because the public was champing at the bit to ban soft money, but because it suggested that McCain was an independent-minded reformer. Opposing the gas tax suspension positions Obama the same way.

3. As Noam has pointed it, it allows him to tie Clinton to McCain. Her political strength is her wonkiness, and her weakness is her reputation for dishonesty and ruthlessness. This issue cuts away at her strength and  reinforces her weakness.

4. It lets him tie McCain to Clinton. McCain's biggest asset is his reputation as a truth-teller. By pandering on an issue where the whole news media knows he's wrong, McCain is squandering his most precious asset. So Obama hammering this issue now will pay dividends in the general election.

--Jonathan Chait

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10 comments

One candidate has the courage to change the wasteful ways of Washington... and his name is Barack Obama.

- Gavriel Meir-Levi

May 1, 2008 at 5:03pm

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Jon and Noam are betting Obama will win current the gas-tax debate. But I wonder if they're too smart

- Anonymous

May 1, 2008 at 6:27pm

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Any and every time Hillary and McCain are on one side of an issue and Obama is on the other, Obama should pound the point home day and night.

- tedmcd

May 1, 2008 at 6:31pm

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I agree completely, Jon, but : If Obama wants to take the high road on this one, he needs to be more careful than his latest ad, where he says he is going to take care of "price gouging" by the oil companies. That term is itself a meaningless pander to economic illiteracy. The price of gas is high because that is the price that clears the market. It also makes a lot of money for the oil companies ($11B this quarter for Exxon Mobile alone), but if they charged less fuel consumption would have to be curtailed some other way (such as 1970s-style gas lines, which were an inefficient kind of rationing). There are plenty of things to blame the oil companies for, but using an economically meaningless term like "price gouging" tarnishes one's credentials for making the criticisms.

- titanio

May 1, 2008 at 7:40pm

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Besides, I'm pretty sure Friedman lives in the 'burbs...

- cspencef

May 2, 2008 at 11:11am

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Everyone is jumping on Clinton for pandering on gas taxes, but what is Obama's solution?  

Cutting of contributions to the Strategic Oil Reserve?  What would this do but put more oil onto the market, lower prices a little, and drive up consumption which everyone says is so horrible when they talk about cutting the gas tax.

Relying more on ethanol?  Ethanol is a joke.  We're growing fewer crops for food and as a result prices food prices are going up and in some parts of the world people are starving.  Obama is the "world candidate" but he's willing to let children starve so fat Americans can drive SUVs?

Ethanol was a faustian deal cut between ag and auto lobbyists and marketed to midwestern lawmakers to allow domestic car manufacturers to skate on CAFE requirements while propping up cop prices.  Is this the face of the "new politics?"

- dreadopus

May 2, 2008 at 1:59pm

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Jon Chait makes the counterintuitive argument that Barack Obama's refusal to pander on the summer gas tax holiday will actually help him, but I think he omits a key factor: Obama will be proved right if a holiday is enacted

- Anonymous

May 5, 2008 at 7:47am

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Hillary has lost it. First, she signs on with John McCain's idiotic plan to eliminate gas taxes for a while. This is stupid, because it won't actually cut prices (the price of a good like gasoline is dominated by how much customers are willing to pay

- Anonymous

May 5, 2008 at 11:41pm

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Over at TfK, Josh more-or-less reads my mind about the rank stupidity of McCain and Clinton calling for a suspension of the gas tax: This is stupid, because it won’t actually cut prices (the price of a good like gasoline...

- Anonymous

May 6, 2008 at 1:51am

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Here’s another Barack Obama veep pick, lobbed on CNN today by none other than James Carville: "I

- Anonymous

June 11, 2008 at 11:49pm

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