Beyond the Dome

It turns out Barack Obama does have an opinion on John McCain's gas tax holiday idea. He doesn't like it.

From today's press conference in Indianapolis on gas prices:

"You don't know that the oil companies are actually going to pass on the savings to the consumers or whether they're just going to – you’re just going to see an increase in prices when the gas – by the same amount that the gas tax goes down.

"And it would deplete the Highway Trust Fund that we need for rebuilding our roads and our bridges. And I don't want somebody to be able to save essentially $25 bucks – that’s what the savings would yield for the average driver – and now they're potentially driving over an unsafe bridge.

"I think it is a better option for us to use the mechanisms I've talked about, providing a middle-class tax cut that would give people relief not only for rising tax prices, but also home heating prices and rising grocery prices, and, at the same time, go after a windfall profit tax that could be used to provide relief to low-income folks."

Obama's press conference came at a time when Hill Democrats have been scrambling to put together a series of proposals to bring temporary relief from rising gas prices, CQ's Coral Davenport and Edward Epstein report.

The gas tax holiday idea is one of the rare domestic issues where Obama and Clinton actually have a disagreement. She has said she's all in favor of suspending the gas tax for the summer, as long as there's a windfall profits tax to make up for the money the Highway Trust Fund would lose.