Cheney shoots down the “gas tax holiday”

Now here’s a politically curious move. John McCain has really been championing this idea of a “gas tax holiday” for a while now, and the current Vice President is shooting it down. Odd that the sitting veep would so publicly go against the candidate from his own party.

“I think it’s a false notion, in the sense that you’re not going to have much of an impact, given the size of the gasoline tax on the total cost of the gallon of gas,” Cheney said when asked about the matter during a luncheon appearance. “You might buy a little bit of relief there, but it’s minimal.”

Now, unlike most, I’m not one of those “wait, if Cheney likes it, maybe it’s BAD” kind of liberal bloggers. Dick Cheney, like any politician, is entirely capable of saying something that is both reasonable and accurate. In this case, I wholeheartedly agree with him. The average gas tax, combining state and federal, is just over $0.40 a gallon. In my area, it’s about $3.95 at the pump and the tax is 50.7 cents, meaning I’d be paying a low low $3.44 per gallon. Hardly anything to jump about. Remembering that about 60% of fuel tax revenue goes to infrastructure, this seems like a poor idea.

What really intrigues me is how Cheney would do this to McCain. It seems like a bizarre decision to me. Combined with Murdoch’s nigh-endorsement of Obama, it’s almost like the right is trying to get Obama elected.