McCain Panders With Temporary Gas Tax Relief

J.J. Jackson* | April 19, 2008

Filed Under General Politics, John McCain, Taxes and Taxation, The Republicans

Yes, that is pandering you smell. Which, oddly enough, smells like fecal matter.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - Republican Sen. John McCain on Tuesday called for a summer-long suspension of the federal gasoline tax and several tax cuts as the likely presidential nominee sought to stem the public’s pain from a troubled economy.

Timed for the day millions of Americans filed their tax returns, McCain offered some immediate steps as well as long-term proposals in a broad economic speech. The nation’s financial woes have replaced the Iraq war as the top concern for voters, and McCain, who has said economics is not his strongest suit, felt compelled to address the problems as he looks ahead to the November general election.

“In so many ways, we need to make a clean break from the worst excesses of both political parties,” McCain told an audience at Carnegie Mellon University. “Somewhere along the way, too many Republicans in Congress became indistinguishable from the big-spending Democrats they used to oppose.”

John McCain’s proposal certainly would be of some benefit to an ailing economy … at least until the tax was reinstated. But the bigger issue is that such a proposal has a snowball’s chance in Hell of passing the House and Senate because the liberals don’t want to let go of any of our money which they are currently taking.

John McCain should be talking about trimming spending and scaling back welfare programs (like Social Security and Medicare) and then we could cut taxes permanently. What McCain’s goal here is is to be able to say in debates and on the stump that he proposed a tax cut. That’s it.

Sure I’d love to see the gasoline tax repealed temporarily. It being repealed permanently would be even better. But I don’t trust John “Screw the First Amendment” McCain to get it done.

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