The tax debate in the 2008 presidential campaign is playing out in miniature over the issue of the federal gas tax. Senator McCain had the opening move with his April 15 speech proposing that the 18.4 cents a gallon federal gas tax be suspended for the summer. Senator Clinton picked up on the idea this week, but proposed to join the tax cut for gas consumers with a new tax on profits of oil and gas companies. Her plan wouldn’t really be a tax cut at all, just a shift of the tax from consumers to producers, who in any event would have to pass the new tax along to consumers, leaving the gas price at the pump the same place it was at before.

Senator Obama, meanwhile, belittled the idea of giving drivers any tax relief. He was quoted in the New York Post as saying, “If it lasts for three months, you’re going to save about $25 or $30, or a half a tank of gas.” That may be just a couple of bags of Whole Foods arugula to the Obamas but, as Senator McCain understands, ordinary Americans would rather have the cash in their own pockets than in the hands of Washington’s free-spending politicians.

What it amounts to, in other words, is a Republican offering a tax cut, a Democrat trying to look like she’s offering a tax cut when in fact she’s pairing a tax increase with a price hike, and a Democrat who won’t even rhetorically sign on to a tax cut. President Bush, offered a chance at a press conference on Tuesday to weigh in on the summer gas tax holiday idea, demurred, though he did call on Congress to make his own tax cuts, on income, dividends, and capital gains, permanent. The amazing thing is that not a single candidate is calling for a permanent end to the federal gas tax as opposed to a mere summer suspension.