Clinton, McCain share dillusion; Obama chooses reality
I saw this in the news :
(my commentary below)
Clinton Joins McCain in Criticizing Obama on Gas Tax | The Trail | washingtonpost.com via kwout
What planet are these people on? Are gas prices going to magically fall come fall? What about the winter heating oil? Or next summer?
Will India and China politely decline from growing their economies so we can enjoy $2.00 gas?
Is OPEC sitting on a giant oil field that they’re waiting to tap until oil gets really expensive?
These gas-tax-relief plans are built on pure fantasy–the fantasy that we can all keep driving our cars a few hundred miles a week and not change a thing. Those days are over. Gone. Not coming back. We have exactly two choices at this point : either embrace this change and start rapidly planning for a low-energy lifestyle, or invest our remaining national wealth in a vestigial enterprise that should have gone out with the 1970s.
For Clinton & McCain, it’s cheap gas or bust. For the sake of our country, I hope they don’t win.
Filed under economics, energy, politics : Comments (4) : Apr 28th, 2008 by tadfad
April 29th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
The article also make a good point about how removing the federal gasoline tax decreases funds available to the federal highway trust fund. With bridges collapsing and ever expanding federal highway system in need of repair, this is the last thing we need.
I also enjoyed the Reddit article title on this topic: “Telling us we deserve gas tax breaks is like giving a fat kid chocolate to make him feel better about his weight.”
April 29th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
I agree Obama is doing the wise thing here, thinking big picture. But that’s not what gets votes. Clinton is sucking up to the least intelligent common denominator.
May 1st, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Tad, you might be interested to hear of one way that Northern Virginia is both alleviating some of the pressure people are feeling from increased gas prices and helping to improve our sometimes frighteningly bad air quality:
http://www.ridefreenova.org/about2.html
May 1st, 2008 at 9:01 pm
The eerie thing is that you used the same phrase, “what planet are these people on”, that I used when I read this report. Not only is the plan totally ineffective, but it will actually make things worse. If we cut our gas tax, we effectively donate the money to somewhere else in the oil economy, probably to the refiners. I just heard today that refiners are not able to raise their prices as much as the per barrel cost would justify because people are starting to cut back on driving. The report I heard placed the tipping point at about $3.50 to $3.75 per gallon. Our 18 cent gas tax would nicely bring the per gallon cost below that figure and allow our favorite refiners to get the mark-up they deserve. God Bless America.