Gas Tax Holiday?
We have had tax holidays in the past. While the ones we have had have always been a sales tax holiday designed to spur spending, help those who have to buy school supplies or even prepare everyone for a hurricane, this particular tax holiday will not do much for anyone.
What Tax holiday? The Gas Tax holiday that the major candidates are contemplating to help those in need.
This holiday in particular is a very bad idea. It won’t work. It isn’t going to do a darn thing for anyone except for the retailers who sell gas.
First off, this assumes that the tax savings will be passed on to the consumer. While this may well be the case it will be difficult to monitor. Gas prices will not just suddenly drop twenty or thirty cents because a holiday has been declared.
Second, with the prices as high as they are and the price of fuel fluctuating as much as it does there won’t be a huge difference in what we will pay during this holiday and what we are currently paying. Not with pricing going up on a continual basis as it is.
Third, your taxes will be used to pay for this Gas Tax holiday. That means that either we go more into debt, we find another stream of revenue to replace that lost or we drop some programs which are controversial to begin with.
True, you may argue that it will keep the prices from rising as fast. But all you are doing is postponing the inevitable. The price of gas is going to rise and it will continue to do so until an alternative comes about that beats the cost.
While pandering constituents about a Gas Tax holiday may get some votes, in the long run it won’t do anything for the consumer or the economy.
We don’t need a tax holiday that only benefits those who are well off enough to have a vehicle. And a holiday that is basically benefiting those who have gas guzzling vehicles over the fuel efficient vehicles.
Like a housing foreclosure bail out, this is just another bad idea that needs to be forgotten.