Can Hillary Clinton Take on Big Oil?
Americans are feeling the pain of high gas prices; I just paid $4.20 a gallon at the pump in northern California. Needless to say, the presidential candidates are scrambling to be the savior of the gas guzzling voter. Both McCain and Clinton support suspending federal excise tax on gasoline and diesel fuel over the summer, but is this the right solution? Barack Obama disagrees, and I can’t help but think this is a band-aid solution.
The federal excise tax on gasoline was first implemented in 1932, although the states began taxing fuel in 1919. It is estimated that suspending this tax, as proposed by Clinto and McCain, would result in a loss of revenue of nine billion dollars for the Highway Trust Fund, which is used for interstate maintenance. McCain says he would shift revenue from other sources, and Clinton proposes enacting windfall-profits tax on big oil companies to make up for the loss. Both candidates are making Obama look like the bad guy for not wanting to save consumers 18 cents per gallon, but would this temporary suspension of the federal excise tax on gasoline really be the catalyst to change our current oil dependency and the harm it causes to the environment?
