More on the gas tax summer hiatus

Ezra Klein:

"Unanimity is rare. Except on this gas tax holiday. Just about no one thinks it a good idea. Conservative economists loathe it, liberal economists loathe it, energy experts loathe it...it's shameless pandering of the worst sort."

Thanks to Don in the comments of the Friedman article for the suggestion. I don't know of any conservative economists to read to see if Ezra Klein is right on this. Anyone know a conservative economist blogger or writer on this one? And then ...

From the NYT editorial board:

"Leave aside that suspending the 18.4-cent-a-gallon excise tax would cost the deficit-burdened federal government $9 billion and that turning a tax off in May and on in September would be an administrative nightmare.

Even leave aside that nixing the gas tax would increase demand for gasoline — exactly the wrong response to global warming and rising energy prices. So wrong, in fact, that both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. McCain support policies that would cut carbon emissions and increase the price of energy. (Talk about voting for something before they voted against it.)

The fact is that drivers would, at best, see only the briefest reduction in prices at the pump. Gas prices rise during the summer season of heavy driving as rising demand pushes refiners to produce virtually at full capacity. If a suspension in the excise tax reduced the price at the pump, it would encourage even more driving. This would simply push prices back up. Oil companies would be grateful, drivers less so."

James Fallows is even offering a one year subscription to the Atlantic if someone can come up with an example of a more "foolishly destructive" bipartisan pandering. Man this one brought a lot of people out ...