The lazy days of summer have done quite a bit to bring attention to America’s energy problems. We’ve had heat waves that require us to turn out our pockets and foot the huge bill for air conditioning; we’ve realized that our annual 4th of July trip to Lake George is no longer affordable because of gas prices. And we’ve been bombarded from all directions by the presidential candidates about all the myriad ways they hope to take the strain of high energy prices off of us.My personal favorite was when John McCain and Hillary Clinton began drumming up support for the “gas tax holiday.” I didn’t even really need to read the New York Times’ Op-Ed pieces to know it was a bad idea – simple supply and demand would dictate that a lower gas price meant that more people would consume it, driving the price up even more, and come September they would slap the tax right back on, leaving us with even higher gas prices than before.
The Op-Ed pieces, however, highlighted even more reasons that the gas tax holiday was an insult to the collective American intelligence, citing a letter written by some 300 American economists – that this short-term salve would do absolutely nothing to ease gas prices in the long-run; that the tax was an essential means of generating funds that we need to maintain our highways; that really, the parties that would profit from such a holiday would be big oil companies. Now, I know that more money for oil might actually mean more money for you, if you have a 401k in there. But the main point is that McCain and Clinton seized onto this policy because it sounded good, because it would put Americans under the impression that these two candidates wanted to give them some relief at the pump in time for summer getaways. That just kills. We have serious problems with energy, and we need actions to speak louder than words. While McCain was out campaigning for suspension of the gas tax, he oh-so-accidentally didn’t show up to Congress to vote for the extension of production and tax credits for renewable energy like wind or solar.
In the meantime, though, I’m glad that Barack Obama refused to support this gas prices head-fake, calling it like he saw it. I didn’t much like Obama prior to this display of brazen sanity, because I thought it was beyond presumptuous to run for the presidency without having completed a single Senate term. But hey – all I can really ask for is that politicians act as rationally as possible, and it seems as though so far, Obama tends to weigh in on the less-dumb side of most debates.
Summer went on without the gas tax holiday being enacted. People have had to take matters into their own hands, saving their bank accounts from the drain of high energy costs. My family bought a new, more fuel-efficient car, and soon after that I splurged on a bicycle. These personal choices were satisfying, knowing that we were doing the smart thing, despite government’s inaction. And then yesterday, when I met with a Tufts Economics professor, Gilbert Metcalf, I was happy to see a printout of the letter condemning the gas tax holiday on his door, with all 300-odd names below it. To my surprise and delight, there were a number of familiar names among the signatures, names belonging to my very own Economics professors. I walked in and commended Professor Metcalf for displaying the “We call bullshit” letter so proudly.
“Well actually, I was the one who orchestrated it,” he said, smiling. “I had supported Obama for quite some time, and when the gas tax holiday story broke, a couple of my friends and I decided to get this going. We didn’t even have to solicit signatures, they just kind of fell into our inbox.”
It’s been a tough summer, trying to elicit truth from between the lines of the screaming, story-starved 24-hour news networks. But perhaps, beyond the crazy media and the legion of Americans that might just have been hoodwinked by McCain and Clinton’s desperate ploy for votes, there is a cadre of real, smart people like those angry economists, who are ready. Ready to dispel the lies, stand up for what’s genuine, and get started helping us bring about the clean energy that we deserve.
