Faced with a barrage of ads from the Clinton campaign criticizing his opposition to a federal gas tax holiday, Obama hit back hard yesterday, ridiculing Hillary's position. In response, the Clinton campaign argued that Obama's comments on the issue shouldn't be taken "seriously" due to his support for a gas tax holiday as a state senator in 2000:
Phil Singer, a spokesman for Clinton, responded, "Considering that Sen. Obama voted to suspend the gas tax three times when gas cost less than $2 a gallon and has an energy lobbyist chairing his Indiana campaign, it's hard to take his latest criticisms very seriously."
But Obama should be taken seriously on this issue precisely because he grappled with it while in the Illinois Senate. Indeed, as I argued yesterday, how he came to his current position perfectly illustrates the virtues of legislative experience.
Furthermore, Singer's assertion that Obama voted for a gas tax holiday "three times" is quite misleading. It leaves the impression that he repeatedly signed off on such proposals as a state senator, only to change his position once in the presidential arena.
In fact, two of those votes were on the same bill -- SB 1310, which suspended the gas tax in Illinois for six months in 2000. Obama first voted [PDF] in favor of the measure on March 8 of that year. The bill then stalled, but was resurrected during a special session that June, at which time he again supported it [PDF]. The third vote, meanwhile, came on the House''s version of a gas tax bill -- HB 2873 -- which Obama voted for on April 15, 2000.
So the "three times" Obama voted for cutting the gas tax all came in a four-month period in 2000. Having been signed into law, the gas tax suspension occurred during the final six months of that year. And citing the negligible benefits to consumers, Obama went on to repeatedly oppose efforts to permanently cut the tax the following year. Not surprisingly, he now says we shouldn't cut it at the federal level either.
As for that bipartisan group of 150 economists that backed Obama's position on the gas tax, this morning Clinton minimized all that as representing "elite opinion" which has long supported "policies that haven't worked well for hard working Americans."
Elite opinion? Um ... wow. Check out Steve Benen's appropriate skewering of those comments.
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