Etc., etc.

Since Hillary Clinton announced her support last week for suspending the federal gas tax between Memorial Day and Labor Day, the press has marshaled economists and environmentalists from around the country to wholeheartedly denounce the idea.

[From CJR: From Gas Tax to Safety Valve]

Reading this typically excellent and way too complicated for my late-afternoon brain piece in the Columbia Journalism Review about McCain's and Clinton's gas-tax holiday schemes and cap-and-trade "safety valves" - etc., etc. - got me thinking, though, about how little effort goes to teasing out the whole story before leaping to combative conclusions thereon. Like this one, maybe.

Every discussion of this gas-tax business I've seen, it seems, centers on oil companies and energy policy and the pressing need for highway maintenance, and all the jobs that depend on highway work. But there are a lot of other jobs - and other businesses - that depend on summer weather also. Whether you're up for a big vacation this year or not I'm just guessing (no, I don't have any data to back this up and I'm not an economist so I wouldn't understand it even if I did) summertime vacation travel is a big source of income for a whole lot of people. I'm talking people who work in hotels and resorts and restaurants, on beaches and at amusement parks and even in those roadside vegetable stalls you see on the back roads. And business - like, I'm thinking, restaurants on Cape Cod here in Massachusetts that probably make most of their money in the summer, on the tourist trade.

And hey, if you really want to get down to it, summertime driving no doubt sells more tires, too.

Of course none of this makes much difference anyway, since neither Clinton nor McCain stand much chance of actually getting such a plan in place by summer, and I'm figuring gasoline prices will moderate a little this summer without their help because it's an election year (you've noticed?) and the oil companies aren't dumb.

And anyway it's almost time for dinner.