Gimmick

In a recent ad Obama is hitting Hillary (and almost by accident McCain... someday they'll pay attention to McCain again) for her support of a Summertime gas tax holiday which he is calling "a gimmick". And, of course, it is a gimmick most likely to play out as Ritholtz describes here

Put this plan into effect and long before summer's end, gasoline prices would have risen to the pre-tax holiday levels. Then, we slap that tax back on, and the electorate is pissed at you. Then, neither of you gets elected. Not only bad economics, but bad politics.

So Obama gets points for calling out his opponents and taking an "honest, principled" stand. Certainly, this is the kind of CHANGE the Obama enthusiasts have expected their candidate to bring to the political discourse.

And then there's this.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Democratic Sen. Barack Obama accuses his presidential rivals of pandering to voters by supporting the "gimmick" of temporarily lifting federal taxes on gasoline, despite his own past support for a similar tax holiday.

As a state legislator voting for a tax break, Obama even joked that he wanted signs on gas pumps telling motorists that he was responsible for lowering prices.

The gimmicks keep on coming.

Update: The real gimmick, of course, may be in the oversimplified comparison as joejoejoe explains in the comments.

The IL gas tax was 5% of the total sale so that over the years as the price of gasoline rose the total amount of tax collected got larger and larger. In IL they reduced the percentage because tax revenues were tax exceeding projections and gas prices were spiking. They didn't eliminate revenue collection.

A gas tax that is a fixed amount per gallon like the 18.4 cent federal tax provides the same revenue when gas is $1/gallon or $4/gallon and declaring a holiday from the tax is like declaring a holiday from being fiscally responsible.

This is the kind of issue that isn't simple and it's easy to say "They all suck" but Obama actually has experience with this very thing and when he tried to provide relief from increasing gas taxes (not gas prices) he saw first hand that only a fraction of the reduction in taxes was passed to consumers at the pump, making it a bad way to give taxpayers relief.

Nevermind that Clinton's plan only exists in her stump speech. Unlike McCain, she's never introduced a bill to make her gas tax plan a reality.