Give My Check to the Caribou

Everybody's trying to come up with an election year plan to combat high gas prices. Here's the dumbest:

Senate Republicans advocate sending $100 rebate checks to millions of taxpayers, and a Democrat is leading the campaign for a 60-day gasoline tax holiday.

Either way, it seems no one in Congress wants to be without a plan, however symbolic, to attack the election-year spike in gasoline prices.

A vote is possible as early as this week on the Senate GOP approach, which calls for $100 rebate checks for taxpayers to cushion the impact of higher gasoline prices. The measure seems unlikely to prevail, at least initially, since it includes a highly controversial proposal to open a portion of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

First of all, a temporary suspension of gas taxes will only delay that impact of the higher prices until the suspension comes off, and then up they go again. How about a permanent reduction in gas taxes?

And I can't believe the $100 check idea is coming from Republicans. That sounds like something L.A. congresswoman Maxine Waters would dream up. She's always trying to get the government to send checks to her constituents (of course, most of her constitutents already get government checks).

I've got an idea! Since the hang-up on the $100 check plan is the requirement for drilling in ANWR, how about sending my check to the caribou, and when combined with the checks of millions of other Americans, the noble herds can buy a new place to live away from the drilling rigs. It's the American thing to do! Surely Democrats will get behind any plan that seeks to buy Americans off with government money.