Pena on Clinton’s Gas Tax Holiday “Gimmick”

Submitted by jmeasley on Wed, 04/30/2008 - 21:16.

Barack Obama

Barack Obama supporter, and former Clinton Energy Secretary, Federico Peña released a statement today about what he called Hillary Clinton’s gas tax holiday, “gimmick.”

“Today we're seeing another example of Washington politics at its worst. Senator Clinton is running TV ads and launching repeated attacks on Barack Obama for not supporting the gas tax holiday she's supporting, but today her own aides told the Washington Post that they know that this is a questionable plan and that they are using it to make it appear they're against big oil,” Peña said.

He called the Clinton/McCain plan a pandering insult to people’s intelligence, “The Clinton gas tax gimmick does little to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and will actually increase oil prices. It is the kind of pandering that insults people's intelligence. With energy prices skyrocketing, we're looking for real solutions—not political posturing to get elected.”

I expected this kind of empty headed pandering from a candidate with no ideas, such as John McCain, but if Hillary Clinton was half the candidate that she claimed to be, she would never stoop this low. Clinton is obviously so desperate now that she is willing to invent issues about debates and gas tax holidays just to try to get ahead of Obama.

I think what everybody forgets when they talk about this issue is that since none of these candidates will be president this summer, so this whole discussion is nothing more than fantasy. We have been down the gas tax holiday road before, and it doesn’t work. Gasoline is not expensive because it is overtaxed, but because the price has been jacked up due to an over speculative market. The reason why the price is so high is because people would rather go bankrupt at the pump, than change their consumption patterns.

Gas tax holidays aren’t the answer, but electing a president that will promote a new energy strategy that will cut consumption and develop alternative fuels is. Neither Clinton nor McCain is interested in finding solutions to the nation’s problems. A gas tax holiday would create more problems than it solves, and this is why it has zero chance of ever happening.

Pena statement:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/stateupdates/gGCnkF