White House hopefuls battle over gas tax holiday

By Ellen Wulfhorst

HENDERSONVILLE, North Carolina (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Republican John McCain hammered Democrat Barack Obama on Friday for refusing to support a proposal to suspend the federal gasoline tax.

The U.S. economy and record-high gasoline prices took center stage after a Labor Department report said U.S. employers cut 20,000 jobs in April, the fourth straight month of job losses and a new sign that the economy is flirting with a recession.

Clinton, fighting to overtake Obama's lead in North Carolina, criticized Obama for not backing a summer suspension of the 18.4-cent per gallon federal tax on gasoline to give Americans some relief during vacation season.

Obama has said the proposed suspension would save each American family less than $30 and would not solve the long-term problem.

Clinton attacked McCain for how he would make up the money raised by the gasoline tax. McCain would divert funds from general government revenues to pay for transportation projects funded by the tax; Clinton would levy a windfall profits tax on oil companies.

"Senator Obama doesn't want us to take down the gas tax this summer and Senator McCain wants us to, but he doesn't want to pay for it. I believe we should impose an excess profits tax on the oil companies," she said.

McCain, at a town hall meeting in Denver, said the money would come from eliminating wasteful special interest projects that both Obama and Clinton have supported in the past.

"Let's give low-income Americans a break for the summer and realize maybe they deserve it, given the increase in food costs, given the increase in the cost of gasoline, given the increase in expenses particularly when most of them are on fixed income or even worse, having lost their jobs," he said.