Many Americans say politics today are too divisive. But presidential hopefuls John McCain and Hillary Clinton have accomplished the amazing feat of getting virtually all the nation's economists and political experts to agree on something.

McCain in April proposed a moratorium on federal gas taxes, 18.4 cents a gallon, from Memorial Day through Labor Day. It was meant to be an immediate economic stimulus. He said he'd neutralize the revenue loss by cutting wasteful government spending.

Never one to pass on a government giveaway, Hillary Clinton echoed the idea. The main difference, not surprisingly, is that she would recover the revenue with a tax on oil companies' "windfall profits." That, however, makes the idea even worse by hobbling efforts to find more oil, which the nation badly needs.

Estimates vary as to how much a gas tax holiday would save drivers. A rough estimate is that a Provo family with two cars -- one being driven on workdays to Salt Lake City -- would save a total of $66 by Labor Day. Savings would vary, of course, and $66 is not nothing. But it's certainly not much.

A host of experts and commentators have said that a gas tax holiday would divert billions needed for highways.

McCain and Clinton have doggedly defended their plans. According to news reports, McCain sounded exasperated with the flak he's caught over the scheme. "You'd think, my friends, that it was the end of Western civilization as we know it to give low-income Americans a little break."

On ABC's "This Week," George Stephanopoulos pressed Clinton to name one reputable economist who thinks the scheme is a good idea. She responded: "Well, I'll tell you what, I'm not going to put my lot in with economists." She said she was going to defy "government power and elite opinion" and side with ordinary folks.

But it's ordinary folks who would be hurt worst by the move. Some research does confirm that a gas tax holiday could save drivers a few bucks. The savings, however, are far outweighed by problems. The moratorium would reduce funding to the federal highway trust fund by $10 billion, just when America's roads need more repairs. Of course, if Congress were to approve this idea, it likely would say "charge it," and add to the out-of-control federal deficit.

Though no one likes taxes, the gas tax has the merit of linking a voluntary behavior -- driving -- to the cost of that behavior to society in road maintenance. The tax also supports a key government function that clearly serves the general welfare, not some frill. That's why the critics are saying that it should not be monkeyed with.

But a gas tax holiday would also be a distraction from the real problem: the failure of the United States to develop its own resources.

Our nation sits on huge supplies of energy reserves it is afraid to develop. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has enough oil to replace 15 years of oil from Saudi Arabia. The Chukchi Sea off the coast of Alaska has 50 percent more oil than that, plus 76 trillion feet of natural gas.

There's at least 3 billion barrels of oil in the Bakken Shale formation in Montana and North Dakota. There's more oil and natural gas in the Gulf of Mexico, on the Outer Continental Shelf, and elsewhere. Then there's oil shale in the Colorado Basin, tar sands in Utah, and coal in many places across the United States. Beyond all that, nuclear energy remains a superior source of non-polluting power.

Yet the politicians in Washington won't touch these sources of fuel. Unleashing energy companies to develop resources would bring a torrent of oil to market, lowering prices by far more than a paltry 18.4 cents per gallon. And we wouldn't be sending billions of dollars to hostile or unstable nations.

Extremist environmentalists and pandering liberals have kept us from developing these energy resources. How high does oil have to rise before America wakes up and opens the spigot?

National energy policy has not been sane. It has consisted of actions and beliefs so far removed from reality as to be dangerous. Turning acreage once devoted to the production of food into the inefficient production of ethanol is a good example. Failing to allow environmentally reasonable development is another.

Meanwhile, China, Russia, Venezuela and most of the Mideastern nations are digging for oil as fast as they can, and many people in those places will be happy to use oil profits to cause mischief for America. Yet still we dither and fret and moan, fearful about the look of a few oil wells, when we should be far more frightened of economic disaster and overseas enemies.

Yes, we need a holiday all right: a holiday from the phobia about finding and tapping all the oil and natural gas resources available right here in the United States. Doing so would save you money, bolster the economy and keep the nation safe.

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