We’ve talked about the gas tax quite a bit already; basically the plan proposed by John McCain and supported by Hillary Clinton has been judged to be terrible by economists.

Hillary Clinton doesn’t seem to agree with these economists who have said the gas tax won’t lower the price of gas and just let the oil companies get richer. She brought out a fairly familiar conception in an interview with George Stephanopoulos.

This morning, George Stephanopoulos began his televised interview with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton by asking if she could name a single economist who supported her plan for a gas-tax suspension.

Mrs. Clinton did not. “I’m not going to put in my lot with economists,” she said on the ABC program “This Week.” A few moments later, she added, “Elite opinion is always on the side of doing things that really disadvantages the vast majority of Americans.”

So if I read this correctly, to be an expert is to be by definition an elitist, which has definite connotations leading back to Clinton’s characterization of Barack Obama as an elitist who is out of touch with society, while she is from working class stock and has her finger on the pulse of the nation.

However, as a college student I tend to feel the exact opposite, especially after some of Clinton’s remarks at times, including her “rich people - God bless us” statement.

Dave Leonhardt discusses some of the more generalized philosophical differences between Clinton and Obama economically in an article yesterday.

They were arguing over who had better economic instincts.

For all the similarities between the two Democrats, there is a core thematic difference between them. Clinton tends to favor narrowly focused programs, such as the gas-tax holiday, that speak to specific voter concerns. By suspending the tax and replacing it with a new tax on oil companies, Clinton told a rally in Hendersonville, N.C., on Friday, she was standing with “hard-pressed Americans who are trying to pay their gas bills.”

Obama, on the other hand, leans toward broader programs meant to help nearly all middle- and low-income families. At a steel factory in northwest Indiana on Friday, Obama called the tax holiday a “gimmick,” and said he instead favored a cut in the payroll tax, which finances Social Security, of up to $1,000 for middle-class households “to offset the costs not only of gas, but also of food.”

What really stuck with me though, is a quote from Jodi Kantor in Sunday’s New York Times:

But like every other candidate, Mrs. Clinton has a team of economists behind her policy positions. Is she dismissing their work? And in the coming weeks, how far will she take her anti-elitist argument? After all, the race will likely end up in the hands of the superdelegates — many of whom are, by definition, the Democratic Party elite.

Touche.