Merit

Oh good, a Bush administration appointee is on board. I can sleep now.

A plan by Senate Republicans to soften the blow of rising gasoline prices by giving taxpayers a $100 check and suspending a retail fuel tax has merit, U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman said Friday.

Bodman's comments to CBS television were taken as an indication the White House could support a proposal advanced by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist on Thursday.

"It certainly has merit," Bodman told CBS. "Whenever you have a proposal of that sort there's always the question of unintended consequences, so we will be doing analysis."

Frist's bill would give all but the wealthiest U.S. taxpayers a $100 check to ease the burden of high pump prices.

It would suspend until September 30 the 18.4-cent-per-gallon retail gasoline tax. The measure would be aimed at helping consumers during the summer months, the heaviest driving season in the United States.

However, Bodman reiterated the White House will not support a plan to tax oil industry profits, which some Democrats have proposed.

"There are a couple of things that we know don't work -- that is one of them," Bodman said.

So the White House can back a plan that temporarily suspends a tax, making that deficit thing Republicans don't like to talk about even bigger. But it doesn't support a Democrat-backed plan to tax oil company profits, which are among the largest in human history, a plan that would increase the amount of tax revenue the government collects, shrinking that deficit thing Republicans don't like to talk about.

But hey, every little bit helps.

OK, let's be clear about this: Softening the blow of runaway gas prices with $100 is like giving someone a pillow before tossing him off a cliff. This plan will not help the people it's allegedly intended to help, but will protect oil companies from taxes on their mammoth profits at a time when they can more than afford it.

And isn't that what it has always been about for the Bush administration?