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Topic: McCain and Hillary's Gas Tax Joke
| Author | Message |
| keltoi2 | Posted – 4/30/2008 11:50:16 AM | show profile McCain and Hillary want to "help out" besieged Aemrican drivers by putting a moratorium on the Federal gas tax this summer. Never mind that the whopping 18 cents a gallon has already been lapped a few times by the 40-cent a gallon increase at the pumps just since March. Economically, it's a stupid idea. This from Alister Bull of Reuters today: Many economists implicitly agreed with Obama and said the McCain-Clinton gas tax plan sent the wrong signal on energy efficiency and was at odds with their pledges to combat climate change by encouraging lower U.S. carbon emissions. "I think it is a very bad idea," said Gilbert Metclaf, a economics professor at Tufts University currently working with the National Bureau of Economic Research. "If we want people to invest in energy-saving cars, we need some assurance that the higher price paid for these cars is going to pay off through fuel savings," he said. "It is a very short-sighted, counterproductive proposal." Economists also saw it is a poor way of getting money to the households that need it most and warned that it might end up in the cash tills of the oil companies. "If you want to provide households tax relief, a direct rebate ... is more effective. Not all of the tax relief from a gas tax holiday will be passed on to consumers. Some will likely be kept by refiners," Mankiw said in an e-mail response. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman was similarly underwhelmed: "It's Econ 101: the tax cut really goes to the oil companies," he wrote on his blog on Tuesday. |
| keltoi2 | Posted – 4/30/2008 1:51:27 PM | show profile np, the gas tax cut was pandering, plain and simple. It would do nothing to improve the situation, and would actually make it worse. All politicians pander, Obama included; it's just McCain and Hillary doing it in this case. And if Obama did have an immediate workable solution to soaring gas prices, heck yeah, he should be president right now. But at least, in this case, he's daring not to go with the easy fix for some votes. |
| chucho | Posted – 4/30/2008 3:14:53 PM | show profile Without the gas tax, what would all these red welfare states do without handouts from the federal government to pay for their road maintenance?? |
| keltoi2 | Posted – 4/30/2008 4:06:37 PM | show profile A little math: say gas is $3.50 a gallon. Remove the 18 cent Fed gas tax to help the working Americans. Gas goes down to $3.32 a gallon. Demand increases a blip or two. Gas prices rise in response. Gas is back to $3.50 a gallon. But this time, it's all going to the oil companies. I'm puzzled, ano and np. How does giving the oil companies more and the government less help the average American? At least with the government there's a chance (however slim) of seeing some of that money back in pothole repairs or highway clean-ups. And np, perhaps a couple of cups of green tea are in order. You seem to be a tad more excitable than usual today. |
| keltoi2 | Posted – 4/30/2008 4:25:50 PM | show profile Please enlighten, ano. What part is farcical? |
| keltoi2 | Posted – 4/30/2008 5:04:00 PM | show profile Ah. I see. So if I understand correctly, instead of the government taxing 18 cents a gallon that will only be wasted on pork projects anyway, the poor should be giving the entire $3.50 a gallon to further enrich the oil companies' already record-shattering profit margins. |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 4/30/2008 11:11:43 PM | show profile It's 100 percent pandering, and both Clinton and McCain know it's not going anywhere. Bush isn't going for it and the Senate and Congress aren't going to say no thanks we don't need our transportation dollars. How many months since that bridge collapsed? And they're going to forego a few bucks for people for the summer? Forget it, it's a joke. Obama knows it wouldn't go anywhere either, but he's not pandering. Gotta like that! I hope he doesn't have to resort to the absurdity. Oh yeah, and 20 cents a gallon is going to make a HUGE difference in people's lives... the price of gas will go up another 25 cents, down another 25 cents, and people will forget all about that gas tax anyway. |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 4/30/2008 11:43:05 PM | show profile Another rave review of the idea from the NY Times: ****** Dumb as We Wanna Be By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN It is great to see that we finally have some national unity on energy policy. Unfortunately, the unifying idea is so ridiculous, so unworthy of the people aspiring to lead our nation, it takes your breath away. Hillary Clinton has decided to line up with John McCain in pushing to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for this summer?s travel season. This is not an energy policy. This is money laundering: we borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks. What a way to build our country. When the summer is over, we will have increased our debt to China, increased our transfer of wealth to Saudi Arabia and increased our contribution to global warming for our kids to inherit. No, no, no, we?ll just get the money by taxing Big Oil, says Mrs. Clinton. Even if you could do that, what a terrible way to spend precious tax dollars ? burning it up on the way to the beach rather than on innovation? The McCain-Clinton gas holiday proposal is a perfect example of what energy expert Peter Schwartz of Global Business Network describes as the true American energy policy today: ?Maximize demand, minimize supply and buy the rest from the people who hate us the most.? Good for Barack Obama for resisting this shameful pandering. ... ...The McCain-Clinton proposal is a reminder to me that the biggest energy crisis we have in our country today is the energy to be serious ? the energy to do big things in a sustained, focused and intelligent way. We are in the midst of a national political brownout. |
| chucho | Posted – 5/1/2008 5:58:32 AM | show profile Ugo: Meanwhile, Friedman jets around the world as one of the biggest advocates of the very quality of life issues that are at the core of the problem: a global economy driven by non-sustainable growth and constantly growing consumer spending and consumption. I'd love to see the stocks that are in The Mustache's portfolio. But I have little doubt that like every good, self-conscious NeoLiberal Democrat, he thinks that since he hires money managers to handle his finds he is no longer culpable or directly responsible for the actions of the companies and industries represented in his basket of stocks. |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 5/1/2008 9:22:28 AM | show profile Okay anovel and chucho, you're both right. Obama is a politician and can't stay above the fray all the time. I just think he's a little better than the others. At least at this moment. And Friedman, absolutely right, he's not my hero. I totally agree that one of the biggest reason's we're in the mess we are is because of globalism. Houston, we have a big big problem. I think a lot of us are operating with our blinders on. Oil is not going to be cheap again. We can either fact the fact of it and deal with it as adults, or we can continue to cry out about how its not right and not fair and do nothing about it, which is basically what we're doing right now. Yes, we're playing at the edges with alternative fuels but we're not acting serious about this. |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 5/1/2008 10:40:33 AM | show profile And another rave review from the NYTimes editorial board, the same one that came out in support of Clinton for president. This is just plain stupid and I'm disappointed that Hillary would stoop this low. **** NYT Editorial: The Gas-Guzzler Gambit Senators John McCain and Hillary Rodham Clinton have hit on a new way to pander to American voters: a temporary suspension of the federal gasoline tax between Memorial Day and Labor Day. The proposal may draw applause and votes from Americans feeling the pain of nearly $4-a-gallon gasoline. But it is an expensive and environmentally unsound policy that would do nothing to help American drivers. Even leave aside that nixing the gas tax would increase demand for gasoline ? exactly the wrong response to global warming and rising energy prices. So wrong, in fact, that both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. McCain support policies that would cut carbon emissions and increase the price of energy. (Talk about voting for something before they voted against it.) The fact is that drivers would, at best, see only the briefest reduction in prices at the pump. Gas prices rise during the summer season of heavy driving as rising demand pushes refiners to produce virtually at full capacity. If a suspension in the excise tax reduced the price at the pump, it would encourage even more driving. This would simply push prices back up. Oil companies would be grateful, drivers less so. Certain realities need to be faced, even in an election year. First, oil prices are likely to remain high for some time as demand for energy continues to grow at a fast pace in China, India and other developing countries. Second, there is an urgent need to curb the world?s carbon emissions to address the threat of global warming. Americans ? like the rest of the world ? must find ways to curb their use of fossil fuels. Higher, not lower, prices are an important way to spur the needed technological innovation and curb demand. Of course, this logic escapes many politicians. ... There is not enough oil in Alaska to provide a lasting solution. And Mr. Bush?s prescription would do nothing to address climate change or quench the thirst for oil. Fortunately, Mr. Obama has not caved to the rising calls for cheap energy and has refused to follow his rivals down this misguided path. Until recently, Mrs. Clinton also seemed to get it. ... Neither Mrs. Clinton nor Mr. McCain have explained the inconsistency in their positions. We know pandering when we see it. We also know that suspending the gas tax for the summer won?t solve this country?s energy problems or even reduce the price of gas. |
| chucho | Posted – 5/1/2008 12:24:10 PM | show profile Ugo: "is because of globalism" I would be careful to distinguish between "globalism" and "Neoliberalism". Fair Trade (the movement to link producers directly with consumers without the middlemen to provide a sustainable, environmentally friendly, pro-labor system of global commerce) is a globalist concept. There's nothing wrong with global integration. And one of the biggest criticisms by the NeoLiberal schmucks running "free trade" in this day and age (the people who think Friedman is a "liberal") often unjustifiably criticize people like me for not accepting the realities of "globalism". I accept and embrace and advocate for globalism, but not for global Neoliberal trade policies. Big Diff. |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 5/1/2008 12:40:55 PM | show profile Yeah, you're probably right on globalism, I don't really know much about it myself. Energy is something I feel more qualified to talk about. |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 5/1/2008 1:25:24 PM | show profile novel, I guess you didn't read some of the sarcasm in my post, of course they want their transportation dollars and we need them (if nothing else but to maintain our infrastructure). Yes, absolutely the gas tax is regressive but we need to reduce consumption. How about we keep the gas tax and abolish an equivalent value of sales tax if someone wants to save people money for the summer. Energy is a special problem. Listen, our oil/gas problems go way way way way beyond the 20 cents a gallon we're talking about here. Check out the link on peak oil and OPEC in another message I posted. |
| writermum | Posted – 5/1/2008 2:35:10 PM | show profile I think Obama's unwillingness to pander for votes by supporting this short-sighted solution to our energy problems is as courageous as when Edwards refused to come up with a short-term stimulus package in the form of rebates when he was still in the race. Both are right that these don't address our energy or economic problems. But they probably do get votes. I don't know why Obama has to have a detailed energy plan to tout when making a principled economically sound decision to denounce this insignificant gas tax suspension. This action should tell you he doesn't want to pander on this. Americans need to consume less of oil and nearly everything else. And they need to stop whining when gas prices hit nearly $4 a gallon and start doing something about it. Ever been shocked at the pump in European countries? Wonder why their citizens aren't all driving SUVs and actually use mass transportation? And -- gasp -- walk anywhere? I guess the last president to ask people to do something about all this was Jimmy Carter. And we see how that turned out. I'm not sure how hopeful I am that Americans are bold enough to change their ways. |
| writermum | Posted – 5/1/2008 2:44:31 PM | show profile Ugo posted part of Friedman's op-ed. While I don't dispute chucho's characterization of Friedman as part of the problem, I liked its second half which points out how America sorely lags behind other countries in alt energy production and jobs creation in these industries. "Few Americans know it, but for almost a year now, Congress has been bickering over whether and how to renew the investment tax credit to stimulate investment in solar energy and the production tax credit to encourage investment in wind energy. The bickering has been so poisonous that when Congress passed the 2007 energy bill last December, it failed to extend any stimulus for wind and solar energy production. Oil and gas kept all their credits, but those for wind and solar have been left to expire this December. I am not making this up. At a time when we should be throwing everything into clean power innovation, we are squabbling over pennies. These credits are critical because they ensure that if oil prices slip back down again ? which often happens ? investments in wind and solar would still be profitable. That?s how you launch a new energy technology and help it achieve scale, so it can compete without subsidies. The Democrats wanted the wind and solar credits to be paid for by taking away tax credits from the oil industry. President Bush said he would veto that. Neither side would back down, and Mr. Bush ? showing not one iota of leadership ? refused to get all the adults together in a room and work out a compromise. Stalemate. Meanwhile, Germany has a 20-year solar incentive program; Japan 12 years. Ours, at best, run two years. ?It?s a disaster,? says Michael Polsky, founder of Invenergy, one of the biggest wind-power developers in America. ?Wind is a very capital-intensive industry, and financial institutions are not ready to take ?Congressional risk.? They say if you don?t get the [production tax credit] we will not lend you the money to buy more turbines and build projects.? It is also alarming, says Rhone Resch, the president of the Solar Energy Industries Association, that the U.S. has reached a point ?where the priorities of Congress could become so distorted by politics? that it would turn its back on the next great global industry ? clean power ? ?but that?s exactly what is happening.? If the wind and solar credits expire, said Resch, the impact in just 2009 would be more than 100,000 jobs either lost or not created in these industries, and $20 billion worth of investments that won?t be made. While all the presidential candidates were railing about lost manufacturing jobs in Ohio, no one noticed that America?s premier solar company, First Solar, from Toledo, Ohio, was opening its newest factory in the former East Germany ? 540 high-paying engineering jobs ? because Germany has created a booming solar market and America has not. In 1997, said Resch, America was the leader in solar energy technology, with 40 percent of global solar production. ?Last year, we were less than 8 percent, and even most of that was manufacturing for overseas markets.? |
| keltoi2 | Posted – 5/1/2008 2:57:53 PM | show profile No coincidence that the US government's support of alternative energy has been so pathetic with oil boys in the White House. Taking America back from the oiligarcy that's been controlling it for the past 8 years is the vital first step. |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 5/1/2008 3:09:11 PM | show profile novel, everyone wants a solution that won't "hurt" the economy and can be done quickly. I've said it before, I'll say it again. It took us 50+ years to get ourselves in this mess, and getting out won't be easy or cheap. We need to have sustained higher energy prices, change land use so people are less car dependent, and eventually move toward primilary electrically-powered cars with homegrown sustainable biofuels (such as cellulosic) fuel in PHEVs. All of this will take time, and plenty of it, and we will have to adjust our lifestyles accordingly and frankly who cares about the "economy" if we have an economy but not a planet we can actually live on? |
| writermum | Posted – 5/1/2008 4:55:30 PM | show profile No, I'm not advocating we all move to Europe. But, we do need to wake up. I've lived in more than one American "green city" that time and time again couldn't stand up to the power big oil had in fighting mass-transit bills, for one example. That Jimmy Carter was so loathed and Reagan so revered the minute he rode in to Penn. Avenue, yanked the Carter-installed solar panels off the roof of the White House and went to fight the Cold War on a credit card speaks directly to the fact that Americans don't like to be told what to do. (...And to a host of other things that are off-topic.) Now that being green is becoming sexy, Americans are buying in---to some extent. It's great it makes people feel better to recycle the one-use cups they're taking out of Starbucks every day and the plastic bags still available at what you'd think are the more sustainable big grocery stores. Is it enough? How about not using them in the first place? In Sweden, I believe you pay for each bag you take from the grocery store when you haven't brought your own. (Yes, I know, we're not Europe; certainly not Sweden.) As long as people are controlled in the voting booths, particularly, by billion dollar ad efforts to stop real change in energy infrastructure, and in the real world by the inconvenience of living sustainably there's no hope. anovelfate wrote We don't live in Europe, but by that logic let's all just move to Brazil (it after all has a better model; no CRUDE). |
| keltoi2 | Posted – 5/1/2008 5:24:15 PM | show profile Thanks, NP, but Veep is historically a useless position (Dick Cheney excepted), and my life's complicated enough as it is, so I'll have to decline. Besides, the media would probably latch onto something I wrote or said or did 30 years ago and spin it to death. Ever see the movie The Candidate with Robert Redford and Peter Boyle? That pretty much is my take on American politics. |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 5/1/2008 7:11:13 PM | show profile What AM I selling? Novel -- I'm selling love, dude, free love. No, I'm not selling anything other than the idea of wanting my kids to live in a world where people can actually grow food, have enough water to drink, etc. (climate change and energy security). For those who have been around for a while (keltoi, chucho, occasional visits from Stanley and even printingman and others...) you would know that over the last few years I have been pretty obsessed with oil. A few years ago when I spent some time looking at the whole oil supply issue, I became a little shocked. How could I not KNOW all of that?? Of course, it all seemed so obvious! Since then, quite unexpectedly, it has become a passion in my life, and once my eyes were opened to the oil issue, my eyes quickly opened to the climate change issue as well. And they go hand in hand too. All I'm saying is that we've got a huge economic problem we're facing and that is peak oil. We have a huge human survival problem we're facing and that is climate change. And we can try to adapt and change in response to them, or we'll change in ways that are going to be quite unpleasant. It's not going to be rosy either way, but these changes are necessary unless people feel like they only have 10 or 20 years left to live anyway and don't give a shit what happens after that. So, in a nutshell, just caring an awful lot about how we are going to cope with these two changes (which when you also consider our incredibly irresponsible fiscal mess, means the future ain't real bright for us, unless we redefine what we mean by bring and can find joy and satisfaction in living with less "stuff"). |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 5/1/2008 8:16:14 PM | show profile you know what notpriveleged, I think Clinton would make a fine president, especially compared to Bush (who wouldn't). I'm sick of the whole primary and there is no way I would vote for McCain over her. But I do continue to support Obama. I just want these primaries over because it seems to me the longer they go on the more likely McCain will win. Honestly I think whoever becomes president will come out battered and beaten, whether Obama, Clinton or McCain, and it's probably about the worst possible job I can imagine. My issues are far bigger than who is the next president, it's about how will we as a country get through these next few decades without totally falling apart. I don't think Obama can save us from this. Neither can Clinton. And neither can McCain. |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 5/1/2008 8:22:17 PM | show profile And also notpriveleged, I know you aren't one of the people who may be here only 10 or 20 years (or 30?) and doesn't care about what happens after that. That's very clear that you do care. I think there is a small minority that really doesn't care, maybe more prevalent in people without kids/family, but even people without kids I think can have a tremendous amount of compassion for the rest of humanity. |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 5/1/2008 10:32:10 PM | show profile novel, you might be right. I hope you are. I'm willing to consider the possibility! Nice to meet you, by the way! |
