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What happens if Hillary Clinton hitches a ride on John McCain’s campaign bus?

You can’t call it "Straight Talk Express" anymore.

Clinton and McCain are barreling down a dead-end road together with their proposal to get rid of the federal gas tax for the summer. Sure, it’s full speed ahead for a while. But they can’t get anywhere in the long run.

McCain came up with the idea first, calling on Congress "to suspend the 18.4-cent federal gas tax and 24.4-cent diesel tax from Memorial Day to Labor Day."

He didn’t propose any way to make up the lost revenue, which supports transportation programs like highway construction and, incidentally, keeps a lot of people working. But at least he acknowledged a role for Congress.

Clinton didn’t when she mimicked McCain’s proposal and added a dubious funding mechanism.

"Hillary will impose a windfall profits tax on oil companies and use the money to temporarily suspend the 18.4-cent per gallon federal gas tax and the 24.4-cent per gallon diesel tax during the upcoming peak summer driving months," her campaign proclaimed.

Hillary will impose? She’s not president yet. And this "windfall profits tax on oil companies" raises such a complex issue it would take Congress months to enact the necessary legislation — if it ever could agree on what amount of profit is considered a "windfall" and how much money oil companies, or any companies, ought to be allowed to make. What she proposes, then, is an immediate tax break paid for by a very speculative revenue source sometime later.

But this is about political mileage, not policy sustainability. Maybe it’s a smart bid for votes. Motorists would welcome any break at the pumps and might resent Barack Obama’s dismissal that they’d only save an average of $30 over the entire summer.

In the long haul, however, the country needs to develop more energy resources and break its addiction to foreign oil. Obama has put forward some suggestions, and Clinton and McCain have as well. They all know that encouraging Americans to drive more — many of them in gas-guzzlers, still — isn’t going to pay off down the road. And depleting revenues for transportation projects isn’t going to keep the country moving.

Americans don’t need to pay higher gas taxes. North Carolina legislators wisely capped the state’s gas tax last year, or else motorists here would be paying even more at the pump now.

Yet, it simply isn’t responsible to pretend that a gas tax summer holiday is going to pay any real dividends. McCain and Clinton ought to get off that bus. It’s running on empty.

To comment on this editorial, visit the blog Your Voice at the Table.