歐巴馬懂經濟，希拉蕊不懂

從健保到最近的石油稅的問題，歐巴馬的方案都比希拉蕊的好。應該是說希拉蕊的方案太差了。

希拉蕊希望能降低石油稅，在從石油商所多賺的錢抽稅。她希望這方案能夠降低美國人民的石油支出的負擔，也進一步，殺殺石油商的銳氣 (她每一次都在說，go after the oil companies......)。 但是這個方案真能達到此效果嗎?


歐巴馬的回應:

They argue that it would either have little impact or it would have a negative effect by either causing drivers to drive more or oil companies tosimply raise their prices.

這回的太漂亮了，因為希拉蕊的方案的確是會造成這樣的效果。為什麼呢? 就聽一聽 Paul Krugman 的解釋:

Why doesn’t cutting the gas tax this summer make sense? It’s Econ 101 tax incidence theory: if the supply of a good is more or less unresponsive to the price, the price to consumers will always rise until the quantity demanded falls to match the quantity supplied. Cut taxes, and all that happens is that the pretax price rises by the same amount. The McCain gas tax plan is a giveaway to oil companies, disguised as a gift to consumers.

Is the supply of gasoline really fixed? For this coming summer, it is. Refineries normally run flat out in the summer, the season of peak driving. Any elasticity in the supply comes earlier in the year, when refiners decide how much to put in inventories. The McCain/Clinton gas tax proposal comes too late for that. So it’s Econ 101: the tax cut really goes to the oil companies.

The Clinton twist is that she proposes paying for the revenue loss with an excess profits tax on oil companies. In one pocket, out the other. So it’s pointless, not evil. But it is pointless, and disappointing.

所以結論是歐巴馬比較懂經濟學，因此比較適合當總統。