Give Me A Break

According to this handy little calculator, the Object and I would save a whopping $5.45 on gas this summer if the gas tax holiday goes through. We could almost afford to split a latte with that money! To be fair, we don't drive a whole hell of a lot - if you found on-the-street-parking in Adams Morgan, you'd develop a keen interest in public transit, too. So I entered the amount for friends of ours who live out in Farlington, giving them a 40 mile back and forth daily commute in a compact SUV and added in ample extra mileage for grocery trips, vacations, and whatnot. They fared a little better than the Object and me - with almost $40 bucks in their pocket, they could afford to either go out for a short evening or hire a babysitter.

I bet those approximately 310,000 people who would lose their jobs over 3-4 years as a result of the holiday would be pretty damn happy for us and our good fortunes. They'd probably be pretty stoked, too, since losing your job in a shitty economy means you get a loooooooooong holiday. Let's just hope we don't decide to go on an unemployment benefits holiday, too.

If McCain is so keen on giving Americans a break, it seems like a much better way of going about it would be to put a Kit-Kat bar in the pockets of every American. In fact, the whole "holiday" is the sort of thing that sons of nebulous former Kings of Nigeria tend to concoct. It's great politics, true, and it has definitely made people excited about Hillary again.

But I'm worried that if the gas tax holiday goes through and Hillary gets elected, it'll set a precedent. Next thing you know, I'll be getting these sorts of official government emails from her administration telling me that she's a top official of a western superpower, and that during the last military regime, the government started a war with the tiny, helpless nation of Iraq, set up companies and awarded themselves contracts that were grossly over-invoiced in various areas of the administration, and now in order to support the troops, I have to use my bank account to transfer funds to the Clinton foundation. You know, for America.

Jeez, no wonder the Clintons don't want to disclose where their foundation funding comes from.