The Gas-Tax "Holiday" Revisited

John McCain still hasn't given up on his idea of a gas-tax "holiday:

The Republican told an estimated 1,200 people at Union Station that suspending the federal tax on gasoline and diesel fuel would help put millions of dollars into the hands of businesses and lower-income Americans.

And he's still the only one who thinks it's a good idea:

The political vision of a summer gas tax holiday died a quick death in Congress, losing to a view that federal excise taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel will have to go up if they go anywhere.  [...]

Depriving the 52-year-old Highway Trust Fund of $9 billion at a time when it is heading into the red doomed the notion of a gas tax holiday in Congress.

The chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Rep. James Oberstar, and the chairman of the highway subcommittee, Rep. Peter DeFazio, presented fellow lawmakers with a list of how many jobs and how much money each state would lose. It ranged from $30 million and 1,000 jobs in Vermont to $664 million and 23,000 jobs in California.

But still McCain presses on. Never mind that "only about $27 billion in federal money will be available next year to states and local governments for new infrastructure investment even though the current highway act calls for spending $41 billion a year," McCain thinks he's latched onto something that will resonate with the public, so damn the consequences.