At least that is what Reuters claims. According to Reuters, Senator Clinton has joined John McCain in calling for the elimination of the gas tax over the summer months.

Given the quality of election reporting, this may sound like a populist measure to many voters. In reality, since refineries will already be running near flat out in the summer months, the benefit of the tax break will go almost entirely to the oil companies.

The point is simple. If refineries are at running at capacity then the supply of gas is effectively fixed. It is set at the levels that the refineries can produce. The price is then determined by demand. If the gas tax is reduced or eliminated, then the price will stay the same, you will just get money going to the oil companies instead of the government.

George F. Will has been spouting his conservative ideology as a nationally syndicated columnist for almost three decades. He is consistently on the right and can almost always be counted on to support Republican political candidates. But this week Will took a giant leap to the left, suggesting that the Fed should not act as an open-ended piggy bank for the incredibly rich people who run the country's investment banks.

Since the Bears Stearn bailout last month, the Fed has been allowing the investment banks to borrow money at below market interest rates. Even more importantly, the Fed told the banks' customers that it would honor all their commitments, effectively allowing the banks to sell insurance that is being provided by the taxpayers.

These are very generous gifts to the executives of these banks, who apparently can't get by in the free market without the help of the government. The Fed is also handing taxpayer dollars to the shareholders in these banks who would lose lots of money on their investments if the Fed forced the banks to accept market outcomes.

While most Democrats seem to have no objection to these huge welfare grants to the incredibly rich, Georg Will does.

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