Earlier, at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, the presumptive Republican presidential said of his gas-tax proposal: "The effect will be an immediate economic stimulus - taking a few dollars off the price of a tank of gas every time a family, a farmer, or trucker stops to fill up."
The plan to suspend the 18.4-cents-a-gallon tax, which McCain called "a gas-tax holiday," topped a package of economic proposals unveiled by the Arizona Republican.
The package included some ideas long dear to Republicans, including a flat-tax option to the federal income tax and a presidential line-item veto.
McCain reiterated proposals to lower business taxes, raise the dependent-child tax credit from $3,500 to $7,000, and permanently lock in President Bush's tax cuts, enacted by Congress from 2001 to 2003. McCain opposed the tax cuts until his campaign for the presidency.
He also proposed requiring affluent people - couples making more than $164,000 - enrolled in Medicare to pay a higher premium for prescription drugs.
Addressing worries that college students might get shut out of education loans this fall because of the credit squeeze caused by the housing-loan crisis, McCain said the Department of Education should work with governors "to make sure that each state's guarantee agency has the means and manpower to meet its obligation as a lender-of-last-resort for student loans."
The Republican candidate's Pennsylvania visit diverted some attention from what has been an all-consuming political story in the Keystone State - the Democratic presidential primary, set for a climax six days from today.
He criticized both Democratic contenders, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, contending that they would let the Bush tax cuts expire out of concern that they benefit the wealthiest Americans. McCain said that letting the cuts expire would amount to the single largest tax increase since World War II.
