Gasline News Tracker service announced

A news service on all aspects of high gas prices launched today. Pump-less-gas.com, the blog devoted to news, information, resources, and money saving tips now provides a news service called News Tracker. Editor Frank Girard explained “what we are doing is providing constantly updated, highly focused news on all aspects of high gas prices. Currently our coverage includes the topic of “high gas prices” and “fuel efficient cars” with other topics being added every week. The service provides a list of headlines and related story summaries from more than 4500 media outlets from all over the United States on these two topics with more planned,” Girard explained. “To read the headlines stories/news summaries listed, one simply clicks on the headlines/summaries to instantly get the whole story. Now instead of having to search for news on highly focused topics related to all aspects of high gas prices, this information is constantly updated and instantly available from our blog Pump-less-gas.com/wordpress,”Girard continued.

The News Tracker service described can be found at this address: http://pump-less-gas.com/wordpress/news-tracker/

Summer gas tax holiday?

A federal gas-tax holiday for the summer as proposed by John McCain and Hillary Clinton sounds like one of the gimmicks used by desperate politicians at election time. It’s almost a reminder of the past when one politician who was running for the highest office in the country failed to respond to a simple question about the cost of a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk. How much of an impact is a gas tax holiday going to have on one’s pocket, when a gallon of gas is close to $4? In addition, there is no “holiday” promised on other financial obligations. This is an insensitive, arrogant and expedient gesture. Dancing around the real issues and coming up with ploys to appease the public is what politicians are good at.

What is your opinion about the summer gas tax holiday?

Summary of article from South Jersey Courier Post Online: Click for complete article

Limited expert support for gas tax holiday

Experts have been critical of Hillary Clinton’s and John McCain’s proposal to institute a gas tax holiday this summer. And Jonathan Alter of Newsweek piled on: “Hillary Clinton has now joined John McCain in proposing the most irresponsible policy idea of the year — an idea that actually could aid the terrorists.”- Surely, however, there must be someone out there not associated with a politician or a candidate who supported the idea of a gas tax reprieve — especially if, as Clinton suggests, it would be paid for by an excess profits tax on oil companies.

In the end, every single analyst I surveyed judged the gas tax holiday proposal to be, roughly speaking, a silly, superfluous, or outright pandering idea. “What would happen more likely than not, gas taxes would be cut, but pump prices wouldn’t go down, service stations would just continue charging what they are charging,” he said. “I’m a Libertarian and I don’t mind that. But you might not be a Libertarian and you might believe the federal treasury needs that money… “I think it is close to political pandering,” said Max Schulz, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. “It is bad policy and political gimmickry. You have to address what is driving the price of crude oil, even problems with the weak dollar. That would make sense,” he said, “but if you remove the tax now, the things being funded with the money will still need funds. He went on: “All of these candidates claim to be environmentally conscious people, so what do they want to do? Bob Sussman, an energy analyst with the Center for American Progress, and, for full disclosure, a supporter of Barack Obama, saw little benefit or popularity to either Clinton or McCain’s proposal.

“Rather than indiscriminately suspending the gas tax, if we have a revenue source here to help people in need, we out to target the money to people who really need it. And if you suspend the gas tax you are giving a small break to every body instead of a significant break to the people pinched by the high prices,” he said. To the extent that McCain and Snowe’s proposals use general revenue funds to offset the hit to the trust fund, that concern is addressed.

To read the full article, go to the the HuffingtonPost.com. Click here

Other related stories below:

Editorial: Is fuel tax holiday a good idea? - There is no denying gasoline prices have gone through the roof. In most states, $4 per gallon is the minimum. Cheney shoots down the “gas tax holiday” - 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. … Mankiw vs. DeLong on McCain’s Corporate Tax Cut Proposal: Not Such … - It started with Greg’s Sunday column in the NY Times, where he first jests about McCain’s idea for a gas tax holiday, but then praises the …bigger idea that Mr. McCain and his economic team have put forward: a cut in the corporate tax … Gas Tax Freeze Eases Pain at the Pump - … the state’s ability to complete road construction and maintenance, the two chief recipients of gas tax revenues. Republican legislators in Michigan are pursuing a similar form of a gas tax holiday. For more information, click here. … Tax incidence - Tax incidence is the theory of who actually pays a tax. Let us consider the case of the gas tax holiday proposed by John McCain and supported by Hillary Clinton in the US. By announcing that there would be reduced tax on petrol over … Talleyrand and the gas tax holiday - I’m on record as saying that Hillary Clinton’s advocacy of a gas-tax holiday, while it wasn’t good policy, didn’t rise to the level of a crime. Judging from last night’s results, however, it was worse than a crime: it was a mistake. … Electeds Go to the Mat for Cheap Gas - In Albany, Senate Republicans have adopted the state gas tax “holiday” as their issue of the moment. Since the largely-ridiculed measure is going nowhere in the Assembly, Joe Bruno and colleagues can circulate petitions and distribute …