When Sen. McCain said the economy wasn’t his strong suit, he apparently wasn’t kidding. Today he unveiled his plan – a term which perhaps gives too much credit – to put a moratorium on the federal gas tax during the summer months.

McCain urged Congress to institute a “gas-tax holiday” by suspending the 18.4 cent federal gas tax and 24.4 cent diesel tax from Memorial Day to Labor Day. He also renewed his call for the United States to stop adding to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and thus lessen to some extent the worldwide demand for oil.

Now I’m no Rhodes scholar, but several red flags went up for me upon hearing about his plan for a tax holiday on gasoline. While it may be “smart politics” on Sen. McCain’s part, it’s terrible policy.

First and foremost, gas prices have risen here in Milwaukee by over 75 cents in the last six months alone. Even if gas prices were to drop by 18 cents overnight, we’d still be paying $3.32 a gallon and there’s nothing to say that the oil companies simply wouldn’t take up the slack by raising pretax prices on top of what they already would in a normal situation to compensate for any lowering of prices.

Second, the federal gas tax funds important highway and infrastructure maintenance programs. It allows us to build new roads, fix old bridges, and most importantly to employ hundreds of thousands of workers. If we suddenly wiped $11 Billion in tax revenue off the books, not only would our infrastructure become more dangerous, thousands of families would suffer due to job loss.

Third, as much as it hurts, higher gas prices are forcing consumers to make smarter choices about what kind of vehicles they buy. It just doesn’t make any sense for the family of three to own a Ford Expedition now that gas isn’t cheap and plentiful. Not that it ever made much sense for a family of three to own a monster of a truck like that anyways, but you get the point.

Finally, imagine the sticker shock on the day after labor day when Sen. McCain’s gas tax holiday ended and prices for gas went up 19 cents overnight.

At the end of the day, a gas tax holiday would provide short term savings to many consumers. But the negative mid to long term impact such a tax holiday would have on this economy are just too important to ignore. McCain’s plan recklessly puts politics before policy; very much to the detriment of the people he’s trying to appease in the first place.

That darned “liberal media”.

John McCain and Barack Obama both appeared before the nation’s newspaper editors yesterday. The putative Republican presidential nominee was given a box of doughnuts and a standing ovation. The likely Democratic nominee was likened to a terrorist.

At a luncheon for the editors hosted by the Associated Press, AP Chairman Dean Singleton quizzed Obama about whether he would send more troops to Afghanistan, where “Obama bin Laden is still at large?” – Washington Post

These are the people McCain half-jokingly calls his “base” of support. No wonder.

Here’s a thought… Instead of spending two news cycles merely “reporting” on the supposed controversy about Barack Obama saying American voters were frustrated and bitter, how about reporting on why American voters might be frustrated and bitter by the state of politics in this Country.

I understand the it’s a heck of a lot easier to have talking heads debate the drummed up controversy and how this “hurts” or “helps” Sen. Clinton or Sen. Obama and everything, but taking the topic itself into consideration, it’s kind of ridiculous.

Of course the traditional media and talking heads aren’t frustrated, they’re part of the problem. But the “regular” people who everyone is so concerned about all the sudden are frustrated and bitter right now.

Let’s talk about why.

Timely, seeing as tomorrow is the final day to file taxes for most of us:

The tax audit rates of the largest companies are less than half what they were 20 years ago while more small and mid-size businesses are coming under scrutiny, according to an organization that monitors the Internal Revenue Service. – AP

Seems to me like the IRS should be paying more attention to big business rather than coming down on the easier to nail little guy.

The Iraq war costs $720 million of our tax dollars every day. What else could you get back here in America for the cost of a single day of the Iraq war?

The April 15th “Tax Day” is a good example of grassroots campaigning to convince Congress to defund the Iraq war. Especially in light of events this week where we’ve been told yet again that maybe next September we’ll take a look at bringing our troops home.

In other words, at least another 150 $720 million dollar days.

Yikes.

Several hundred veterans stood in the cold drizzle Tuesday morning for a man they called their hero.

“You can have your Tiger Woods,” David Bellavia, a former Army Staff Sergeant told the crowd of pro-Iraq veterans. “We’ve got Senator McCain.” – CBS News

What’s the message from the McCain campaign? An admired successful multi-racial man who represents the belief that no matter what your background you can do great things in America is the real bad guy?

Imagine the outrage if Sen. Obama were introduced at a campaign rally by someone who stated something equally as stupid about “white people”.

First Sen. McCain has the support of someone who thinks Catholics are “The Great Whore”. Now he’s got the guy lumping anyone who isn’t white into the same group together introducing him. I can’t wait to see who’s next on the endorsement list.