Both Clinton and McCain's call for a gas tax holiday would make a neglible impact on your wallet and is nothing more than an election year stunt to win votes.

Clinton campaign spokesperson Geoff Garin said in a conference call this week that the proposal would save each driver \$70. The Clinton campaign did not respond to our request to clarify how it arrived at that figure. But the non-partisan American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officialsestimates that the total savings for the average American motorist works out to about \$28; for a two-car household, that would be \$54.\

And there's no reason to assume that oil companies would pass the 18.4 cent tax cut on to consumers, although I'm sure they'd lower the price somewhat to mitigate bad PR.

With the supply of gasoline pretty much fixed (at least in the short term), the increased demand triggered by the price cut will lead consumers to bid up the price of gas. Len Burman, of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, says eliminating the federal tax won't actually lower the price of gas because "supply constraints will push pump prices near their pre-holiday levels." He goes on to warn that "If that didn't happen, there would be shortages." The libertarian Cato Institute's Jerry Taylor agrees that a short-term gas tax holiday will have "little impact on pump prices."\

You can get the full economist lowdown at Who will reap the benefits of a gas tax holiday? I clipped part of her conclusion below, but you should read the whole thing.

Hillary Clinton's proposal is particularly stupid, in my humble opinion, because it tries to get the money back from the oil companies with a windfall profits tax. Tax incidence is tax incidence: if the oil companies can make consumers pay most of the excise tax, then probably consumers can stick them with your windfall profits tax too.

I'm very happy to introduce you to the newest member of our familily, Nicholas Herbert, pictured here taking a nap with his proud dad. He was born in the early morning hours of April 8th. Since then he's kept us busy between feedings, diaper changes, and one to two-hour cat naps throughout the day. He's got quite a set of lungs on him, to let us know when he's hungry. Nicholas is also a night owl like me, but hopefully he'll outgrow that soon.

When we brought him home, we were curious how Simon would react to him. At first, whenever he cried or made some noise, Simon would run into his crate, but now when Nicholas is being held, Simon wll curl up next to the person holding the baby and occasionally sniff him.

It certainly couldn't hurt to run your non-profit like a for-profit business with an eye on the bottom line. Trouble is, many organizations end up trying to own the solution and instead of cooperating with other groups on an issue, end up competing with them for publicity and donors. Some social entrepreneurs are looking at new models of philanthropy as summarized in Bottom-Line Philanthropy.

Mullaney helped conceive a plan. Instead of using Operation Smile’s hard-raised millions to fly doctors and equipment around the world for limited engagements, what if the money were used instead to train and equip local doctors to perform cleft surgery year-round? Mullaney figured that the cost per surgery would drop by at least 75 percent, and he saw no reason not to try it. Operation Smile’s leadership saw things differently, so Mullaney and a few others left the organization and started a rival group, Smile Train.

Isn't it interesting that we describe some people as social entrepreneurs nowadays?