Is Mankiw One of the 'Obamicans' We've Been Hearing About

Pigou-obsessed economist Greg Mankiw's blog is the source of front page news as Reuters uses Mankiw's musings in the lead paragraph to tout Barack Obama. "Score One for Obama" gushes Reuters using Mankiw's words. I'm not sure Mankiw intended that much praise of Obama, who merely failed to offer up a policy that Mankiw disagrees with rather than actively propose a decent policy. Still it was enough for Reuters to relish the linking of a former Bush advisor to a pro-Obama theme. Although, what I can't figure out is where this quote comes from: "In light of the side effects associated with driving ... gasoline taxes should be higher than they are, not lower." It comes right after the sentence that indicates who Mankiw is and what he wrote, so it seems pretty clear that the report intends us to believe that Mankiw said it. But if you go to the actual blog post, he wrote no such thing. Yet this clearly sounds like something he would say, so maybe Reuters called him up so he could provide his climatological expertise - because that is what this is, Mankiw validating the speculative theory of anthropogenic global warming and its presumed negative consequences. Mankiw may be getting the economics right, but if you make a correct economic judgement based on false assumptions about underlying conditions, the consequences can be disastrous. History is littered with these examples.

Let me offer an alternative view. Mobility makes us both more efficient and happier. Reducing the price of mobility increases our efficiency and thus our standard of living, as well as our happiness and desire to maintain and increase that standard of living. Without the artificially increased cost of mobility due to gas taxes, the true level and price of mobility would find equilibrium. Over time we would have exactly the amount of infrastructure needed to provide that amount of mobility, as opposed to now where we have infrastructure added (bridges to nowhere) or restricted (refineries) based on the political process funded by gas taxes. Mankiw seems to be arguing in favor of this sort of inefficiency. Why? Because he's bought into a scientific theory that he is not trained to evaluate properly.

I am not a fan of the McCain gas tax holiday because it is temporary and thus does not impact long term incentives, but for what it is, it represents one ever so small shift of resource allocation from the government to private citizens; and no matter how small or fleeting, that is better than were it not to happen.

UPDATE: Bryan Caplan seems to agree with me. The gas tax holiday isn't a bad idea, it's just not a terribly good one. What were people expecting, a fantastic, silver bullet of an idea that would cure our energy shortage (and that is what it is plain and simple) overnight?