Marathon Pundit: McClueless McCaskill wrong on energy taxes

I'm old enough to remember Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale vow that he would raise taxes if he was elected president in 1984. What happened? He lost 49 states and barely won his own.

A Missouri Democratic senator isn't brazen enough to promise to raise gaoline prices, but she might as well do just that. Because the sneaky approach won't work either, as Jeffrey Mazzella tells us in an op-ed for the Springfield News-Leader:

Facing an uphill re-election battle in 2012, Sen. Claire McCaskill must spend the next 17 months working to get Missouri voters to forget her scandals.

It appears the senator thinks the current debate over high gas prices may provide the distraction she needs. But her solution is misguided and counterintuitive.

McCaskill is pushing to raise taxes on U.S. oil and gas companies, an idea that Congress' own research shop warns would increase prices at the pump. And her calls to selectively eliminate legitimate tax deductions for the energy industry are raising the eyebrows of many of McCaskill's constituents who recall the Senator's recent failure to pay $320,000 in taxes on her own income.

McCaskill's attempt to score cheap political points by scapegoating the U.S. energy industry for the federal government's deficit problems, if successful, will come at a high cost to her constituents. A study by Louisiana State University economist Joseph Mason predicts such a tax hike would cost Missouri $1.4 billion in economic output. Furthermore, the Congressional Research Service found that the new taxes would have the effect of "increasing prices and increasing our foreign oil dependence."