Healey files bill to suspend gas tax for the summer

AP reports that Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey today issued a campaign press release filed a bill with House Republican leader Bradley Jones that would suspend the gas tax between Memorial Day and Labor Day.  Even Healey’s boss Mitt Romney thinks this is a stupid idea.

Amusingly, in announcing this sure-to-go-nowhere proposal, Healey spends more time talking about the Democrats running for Governor – none of whom have anything to do with whether it gets enacted or not – than about Sal DiMasi and Robert Travaglini, the guys who control the bill’s fate.  She mentions each Democratic Governor candidate by name (calling on them to support the bill), but ignores Sal and Trav, referring only once to “the legislature.”  That, to me, confirms that this is a campaign stunt, not a serious proposal.

Romney, of course, is right that suspending the gas tax is a bad idea.  Why?  Because, as he says, it would “encourage more consumption when conservation is needed.”  Why make OPEC and Big Oil happier than they already are?  As I’m fond of saying, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

UPDATE: I just happened upon this thoughtful column in the NY Times.  It explains – again – why gas isn’t actually all that expensive in historic terms right now, and why artificially making the price lower would be a bad idea.  It also contains an interesting fact that Kerry Healey, who on this issue at least is clearly more interested in votes than sensible policy, will want to know about:

The price of gasoline is hovering around $3 a gallon, and politicians are falling over each other to pander to voters’ gas fears. In a recent Gallup Poll, 70 percent of people said they favored price controls.

Hey, there’s a good idea!  The price of gas goes down, we don’t have to cost the state revenues to do it, and 70% of the people are for it!  Sounds like a plan to me!  Waddaya say, Kerry?

[Note to the humor-impaired: I’m being facetious.]

FURTHER UPDATE: Check out this excellent related post by Shai Sachs.

FURTHER FURTHER UPDATE: Jon Keller thinks we should waive the gas tax, and likens reluctance to do so while backing pay raises for judges to the Boston City Council’s recent pay raise bonanza while not hiring more cops.  That strikes me as a false analogy, for the simple reason that hiring more cops would be an unalloyed good thing to do, the only legitimate question being whether the city can afford it (and, given the pay hikes, it seems fair to assume that it can), whereas there are  excellent arguments from both left and right that waiving the gas tax is actually a lousy idea (though Keller doesn’t bother to mention them).  Shai’s idea of making the T free for the summer is really much better: if we’ve got the cash laying around, let’s spend it on encouraging the use of public transportation rather than lining OPEC’s pockets.

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