Props to Barack Obama for resisting the siren call for a summer gas tax holiday. In contrast, Hillary Clinton has clambered aboard John McCain’s free-lunch bandwagon, vowing to support the gas tax cut he first proposed a couple of weeks ago. Even worse, she’s now tied it to an energy company windfall profits tax so, as she says, oil companies would “pay their fair share to help us solve the problems at the pump.”   more »

There are few things more frustrating in life than being a budget hawk. You spend your days predicting dire consequences that never quite come to pass, trying to convince voters that their government can’t keep expanding popular programs without paying for them, and hectoring politicians into making votes that would be political suicide. Like Cassandra of Greek myth, you have the ability to foretell the future, but suffer the curse of being unable to change it.   more »

While most observers are focused on John McCain’s proposed summer gas tax holiday, they have missed a much bigger idea from GOP’s likely presidential nominee: A massive tax reform—but one that, at least as it stands now, would be a huge windfall for business.   more »

In their debate last night, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama wandered deep into George H.W. Bush land by pledging never to raise taxes on “middle-income” taxpayers making less than $250,000.   more »

Senator McCain proposed today to suspend the 18.4 cents per gallon federal excise tax on gasoline between Memorial Day and Labor Day this year. For a moment, forget about whether encouraging fossil fuel burning makes sense during a time of global warming, whether we should raid the highway trust fund when bridges are collapsing for lack of maintenance, or the disconnect between the proposal to cut gasoline taxes and the candidates’ endorsement of “cap-and-trade” limits that would raise gasoline prices.    more »

I spent about 90 minutes this afternoon interviewing John McCain's chief economic adviser, Doug Holtz-Eakin. He laid out what would be a powerfully ambitious domestic agenda for a President McCain, including big upfront initiatives on climate change and Social Security reform. But he also set the stage for what would be an existential battle between the parties over taxes and spending.   more »