Sunday, May 04, 2008Hillary Clinton Doesn't Listen to Economists by Robert Reich When asked this morning by ABC News' George Stephanopoulos if she could name a single economist who backs her call for a gas tax holiday thissummer, HRC said "I'm not going to put my lot in witheconomists.” I know several of the economists who have beenadvising Senator Clinton, so I phoned them right after I heard this.I reached two of them. One hadn’t heard her remark and said hecouldn’t believe she’d say it. The other had heard it andshrugged it off as “politics as usual.” That’s theproblem: Politics as usual. The gas tax holiday is smallpotatoes relative to everything else. But it’s so economicallystupid (it would increase demand for gas and cause prices to rise,eliminating any benefit to consumers while costing the Treasury morethan $9 billion, and generate more pollution) and silly (even if shewon, HRC won’t be president this summer) as to be worrisome. ThatHRC now says she doesn’t care that what economists think is evenmore troubling. In case you’ve missed it, we now have apresident who doesn’t care what most economists think. George W.Bush doesn’t even care what scientists think. He rejects allexperts who disagree with his politics. This has led to someextraordinarily stupid policies. I’m not saying HRC isGeorge Bush. And I'm not suggesting economists have all the answers.But when economists tell a president or a presidential candidate thathis or her idea is dumb – and when all respectable economistsaround America agree that it’s a dumb idea – it’s probably wisefor the president or presidential candidate to listen. When thepresident or candidate doesn’t, and proudly defends the policy bysaying she's "not going to put my lot in with economists,”we’ve got a problem, folks. Even though the summer gas taxholiday is pure hokum, it polls well, which is why HRC and JohnMcCain are pushing it. That Barack Obama is not in favor of itdespite its positive polling numbers speaks volumes about the kind ofpresident he’ll be – and the kind of president we’d otherwiseget from McCain and HRC. Haven’t we had enough ofpoliticians who reject facts in favor of short-term poll-drivenpolitics? ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ