Yeah. Sadly, a lot of voters are just going to hear that Obama wants to maintain the gasoline tax. They won’t do the math and figure out how little money they’d be saving. They won’t wonder where the money that they “saved” is coming from. They’ll just hear that Obama was against it, and McCain and Clinton will benefit.
[/forward thinking] 30 bucks? That’s like two cases of Natty Light! I could use that this summer!
This is what really pisses me off.
I mentioned to my Wife the other night that I think both Clinton and McCain want to be president more than they want to help our country.
Clinton and McCain can’t be in their position (Senators) and be that stupid about the gas tax can they?
How out of touch can you be? Ummmm… The USA pretty much runs on its roads. The gas tax maintaines them.
At least Obama is honest. That’s someting we need.
Big time.
Talking to us like we had the good sense God gave a goose. And yet has some potential for actually being elected. By us. Sumbitch. Gives rise to this strange sensation, the sense that even the bad shit isn’t permanent, minds change, chains are snapped, the walls tumble.
Wait, that’s “hope”, isn’t it? Ah, what the hell, its a great buzz and we’ve already suffered the hangover.
Sorry, that shit Obama is trying to pull only works in Bizarro World.
I especially love the way that John McCain is twisting himself into a pretzel over the gas tax issue, by arguing for a suspension of it on one hand, and then pointing out the collapse of the Minnesota bridge on the other hand, without once bothering to notice that the gas tax helps pay for bridge repairs.
Explain?
By Bizarro world, you mean in a world where voters actually think? Good call.
It’s kinda like when one’s wife is fooling around. Lots of people say they’d want to know, but in reality they’d rather just be oblivious. The wife keeps cheating, the man keeps pretending she’s not, but doesn’t divorce her, because he’s being lied to.
“We’re going to go after oil companies…”
This shit really pisses me off!
In a free country a business should be able to charge whatever they want and whatever they are able to get.
I’m semi-retired and driving a Mustang GT. Cost me $65 to fill up last night. But I would rather have to pay $1000 a gallon for gas than to have the government stick their nose in like this!
I feel your pain. There’s only a couple places left where I can air up my bike tires for free.
(Of course, if I could have a Shelby like Steve McQueen had in Bullitt, I’d burn down the whole damned rainforest. Fuck a bunch of bugs…)
For the most part, I agree with you. But most sensible people agree that essential commodities like water, electricity, and fuel should be regulated since normal market pressures affect them in such a different way.
You could do it at home if you’d get a little pump or small air compressor. Yard sales often have them for, like, a dollar.
That’s fine when you are talking about iPods. It is something different, as noted above, when you are talking about basic commodities that pretty much everyone needs.
It also changes when you consider the oil companies may be considered an oligopoly. And different still when those oligopolies form a cartel (perhaps illegal to do that in the US but that does not stop OPEC).
Then add in our government subsidizes the oil industry both directly and indirectly (lower taxes for oil companies, lower sales taxes on gas, government funding of some research oil companies could do, etc.).
All the money the oil companies and their products do not contribute to the tax pot the rest of us have to make up somehow.
So, they should be able to charge $1000/gallon of gas? Fine. Tell them to pay the same corporate tax rates everyone else does. Raise taxes on gasoline at the pump to reflect the general sales tax on any other good in the area. Make the oil companies fund their own research and exploration and what not.
And oh yeah…at $1000/gallon of gas hope you enjoy a loaf of bread that costs $100 or a beer that costs $500 or a band-aid that costs $25 a pop.
So, not quite in the same realm as an iPod is it?
I was impressed that he was willing to say “yeah, we can do this superficially pleasing thing but it won’t really help” - but I wonder about the oil company price gouging line. He says that if they removed the tax, you’d save maybe a tank a year. But if we completely forbid oil companies to make any sort of profit, wouldn’t that have less of an affect? Their profit amounts to something like .15-20 cents a gallon. The windfall profits are a result of the same margin on higher base prices - arguably they could get by on a smaller margin, but I’m not sure it’s accurate to call what they’re doing gouging.
So on one hand, he’s not after the superficial feel-good problem fix (that takes money out of the government’s pockets), but then he may be trying to cash in on the “fuck rich people” sentiment for a feel-good fix going after oil companies.
Still, his position is superior to the other two.
Edit: Had he said we’ll look at the breaks oil companies get in terms of subsidization and corporate welfare, I’d be right there with him.
Oh brother. Suggestions that would be done by his opponent as well, except she’s recommending doing both: short-term that hurts the oil companies a little with the windfall tax that lays the tempo for long-term solutions that are identical to what’s laid out in that advertisement. Which candidate is against alternative fuels?
Nobody.
The real core of that commercial is what’s the core of his candidacy: the music in the background. Style over substance. In this case, style and substance (his recommendations are good; and would be done by Hillary too). But it’s the style, the music, the feel-good idea of this neophyte that inspires the easily-inspired.
Do you plan to support the democrats if Hillary does not get the nomination?
Sounds more and more like a paid advocate. Nobody drinks Kool-aid like that without the geedus.
Oh come on. It isn’t as if Obama doesn’t pander himself - he just chooses to pander on other causes. His preferred boondoggle isn’t the gas tax, it is things like ethanol and biodiesel - which are starting to look quite silly now that food prices are going through the roof.
When McCain went to Iowa, he flat out told farmers there that he not only didn’t support ethanol subsidies - he didn’t support farm subsidies, which were getting us into huge trouble with the WTO. Will anyone on these boards give him credit for this stance?
Probably not.
Everyone picks their battles - I think we all would have learned this by now.
So, a link to a commercial qualifies as an OP in GD these days…? Sheesh. Anyone can get some canned applause in a freakin’ campaign ad.
Oh, Obama witnessing, I guess.