From the Wall Street Journal:
Sen. Obama, who voted for a temporary gas-tax break when he was a state senator in Illinois, rejected a federal tax holiday as bad fiscal policy. The federal gas tax raises money to repair and expand the highway system.
In Illinois in 2000, Sen. Obama voted for a six-month, five-percentage point break on the state's 6.25% gas sales tax. The reduction of the tax, which goes into a general revenue fund, passed on a 55-1 vote and included measures designed to ensure that the benefits of the tax break reached consumers. At one point, Sen. Obama jokingly asked on the Senate floor whether it would be possible to install placards on gas-station pumps telling motorists he had helped win temporary price relief.
When some state legislators tried to make the suspension permanent before it expired, Sen. Obama spoke out against that measure but defended his vote for the holiday, according to transcripts posted on the legislature's Web site.
"I originally voted for the suspension because I thought that it was extraordinary circumstances, given the huge hike in prices," he said at the time. Gas prices averaged $1.52 a gallon in March 2000.
I understand that the efficacy of a gas-tax holiday is debatable.
However, the fact that Obama is politics as usual is not.
No wonder flip-flopper John Kerry endorses Barack Obama.
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