GOP Gas Pains In Ohio: VP Cheney Calls Boehner's Tax Suspension 'False Notion'

CINCINNATI (TDB) -- Whatever one thinks about about Vice President Dick Cheney, this fact cannot be ignored. He's an oilman at heart. And Cheney says U.S. Rep. John Boehner, the House Republican leader from SW Ohio, isn't really doing much for consumers by pushing legislation to temporarily suspend the federal gasoline tax. Cheney says it is sort of an empty fraud. You didn't know Boehner, R-8 Butler County, was behind that plan? You thought it was John McCain and Hillary Clinton's idea? Well, you would be wrong.

On May 30, Boehner said he was "supporting legislation . . . to suspend the 18.4 cents per gallon federal gas tax for the summer. No one should mistake this for a comprehensive solution, and I'm under no illusion that this is going to end the pain motorists are feeling."

To be fair, Boehner also said he wanted to end earmarks to reduce the federal budget deficit (a pet project), although it was not clear how that would ease the nearly $4 per gallon cost of gasoline.

Cheney says suspending the gas tax won't really help consumers at all. The vice president basically dumped on the idea. Ohio's newspapers pretty much ignored the slap at the state's top GOP official in Congress. Cheney's words were widely reported:

"I think it's a false notion, in the sense that you're not going to have much of an impact, given the size of the gasoline tax on the total cost of the gallon of gas. You might buy a little bit of relief there, but it's minimal."