All The Info

You may have heard, but the latest campaign issue is support of a summer “Gas Tax Holiday”. The idea is that the government would stop collecting it’s 18 cent a gallon gas tax for three months over the summer to help the common man pay for his fuel.

This was an idea that seems to have surfaced from the McCain camp, but has been wholeheartedly embraced by former First Lady, Hillary Clinton. She is supporting this ‘tax holiday’ on the premise that it will help the common man, the idea that taxing the oil companies is more intelligent and blasting Barack Obama for not supporting it. Barack is a little more reasonable and sees this for the bait and switch that it is:

“There is not a single economist or editorial that I’ve read that says that this is a good idea, and the reason is, is because it’s not being honest with the American people,” Obama said on NBC’s “Today” show. “People don’t need symbolic relief, they need real relief.”

It’s understandable that Obama’s opinion doesn’t carry much weight with ol’ Hil, but neither does any of the economists who say removing the tax will just cause the gas prices to rise and make the oil companies more money.

Why doesn’t cutting the gas tax this summer make sense? It’s Econ 101 tax incidence theory: if the supply of a good is more or less unresponsive to the price, the price to consumers will always rise until the quantity demanded falls to match the quantity supplied. Cut taxes, and all that happens is that the pretax price rises by the same amount. The McCain gas tax plan is a giveaway to oil companies, disguised as a gift to consumers.

Hillary, of course, has a witty response to this

Sen. Clinton has been undeterred by the outcry. “Well I’ll tell you what, I’m not going to put my lot in with economists,” she said over the weekend. “We’ve got to get out of this mindset, where somehow, elite opinion is always on the side of doing things that really disadvantage the vast majority of Americans.”

Being the “man of the people” she is, she just isn’t going to trust all of those crazy scientists with their numbers, figures, calculators and such.

Hmm… so let’s take a look at this as your average guy who is NOT an economist.

In the last year US Gas prices have risen $0.559 to a nationwide average of $3.613 per gallon. The federal gas tax rate is 18.4 cents per gallon. This means that, on average, right now, even if we get a ‘tax holiday, and even if the price of gas doesn’t increase to absorb this tax, you and I are paying $0.374 more per gallon of gas than we did last May. In the mean time, the economy has been slow and we are not making any more money than we did last summer. If we DON”T go on vacation, and buy, say 15 gallons of gas a week, and we have a tax holiday, our summer is going to cost us $67 more than it did last year. If we don’t get the tax holiday, the difference will only be $33.12.

Remember, the average price of gas is $3.613 per gallon, reducing the price by $0.184 is only a 5.1% discount in price. Heck, I can get almost that much by using my Safeway card.

All of the math, figuring, analysis and speculation aside, what I really love about this is Hillary’s disdain for the educated people. The democrats have spent the last eight years for Bush’s alleged low intelligence, and generally ridiculing conservatives in general for skepticism about Global Warming, belief in Intelligent Design. Now one of their two chosen candidates, arguably an elitist intellectual herself, is telling us we shouldn’t listen to these elitist intellectuals. She’s saying that she, as a lawyer and politician, knows more about what’s going to happen than trained economists.

The whole thing reminds me of a joke from the old Soviet Russia days:

Why do policemen always walk the streets in teams of three?

The partners in the police team are always chosen in such a way that one of them knows how to read, the other how to write, and the third one, naturally, has to keep watch over those two intellectuals.

Thankfully, Hillary Clinton is here to keep us safe from those educated people.

Popularity: 9%

Share This

Wow, it’s been yet another week of political craziness. Can’t wait to see how this plays out.

• Bill Clinton ‘misspoke’ this week with more incorrect information on Hillary’s Bosnia trip - seriously, who lets this guy out without a leash. Does he WANT Hill to lose?
• Obama shows how arrogant he is by telling us all we just cling to Guns and Religion because we don’t know any better
• Hillary, in response to Obama’s comments shows her support for guns and god
  

  “I was raised with Midwestern values and an unshakable faith in America and its policies,” she said. “Now, Americans who believe in the Second Amendment believe it’s a matter of constitutional right. Americans who believe in God believe it’s a matter of personal faith.

  Good stuff coming from the woman who’s philandering husband passed assault rifle bans and other nonsense gun control legislation.

• Meanwhile, youtubers have been having a heday with all the political fallout. The McCain Girls,“Real” Bosnia footage and Sexy Obama Girl are keeping the politics even more interesting. Great thing about the Internet - lampooning is not left to the Johnny Carsons of the world anymore
• McCain is about the only one not making real headlines. I guess some old guy hitting the early bird special at Denny’s really isn’t worth talking about.

Popularity: 6%

Share This

“This is like deja vu all over again.” - Yogi Berra

The New York Times has an article comparing the late 70’s inflation to our current situation in 2008.

That got me to thinking, the 00s are a lot like the 70s, at least from a national perspective.

• Early 70s, the US was caught in a foreign war that was sucking the economy dry and causing civil unrest at home.
• 00s, the US is caught in a foreign war that is sucking the economy dry and causing civil unrest at home.

• 1979, unrest in the mideast caused oil prices to jump and created higher fuel prices/gas shortages.
• 00s, unrest in the mideast and global demand for oil causes oil prices to jump to over $100 a barrel.

• 1976, a country shocked by two tems of Republican incompetence elect a democrat to office.
• 2008, a country shocked by two terms of Republican incompetence will likely elect a democrat to office.

I could think of some more, but it’s interesting we haven’t really learned any lessons in the last 30 years. Looks like this country is repeating more of the same. The next president, republican or democrat, is going to have a long road. They will inherit a complete mess, and likely by demonized for issues beyond their control with the 2012 election rolls around.

Popularity: 8%

Share This

Popularity: 5%

Share This

I thought this was a good addition to my recent post on the 2008 Presidential Election Candidates on the Issues website.

The 2008 Candidate Calculator lets you pick your most important issues, and then see which candidate matches up best. Seems like a good way to pick the right guy (or Hillary).

Popularity: 6%

Share This

Amazing. One of the largest news organizations in the world appearantly doesn’t have any idea how the U.S. Presidential Election process works.

In today’s article on the Nevada caucus CNN published this statement:

In a presidential race that’s increasingly coming down to who has the most delegates, a win helps Romney.

Amazingly enough, the presidential race is ALWAYS about who has the most delegates, that’s how you get the nomination.

Morons shouldn’t have been asleep in civics class.

Popularity: 7%

Share This

Looks the the 2008 Presidential election is shaping up to be yet another “lesser of two evils” situation. If you are curious about who to vote for in your local primary, I would suggest taking a look at the 2008 Presidential Election Candidates on the Issues.

It will be interesting if, as the next 11 months go by, to see if any third party candidates are added to this list. It would be very interesting to see how a Green Party or Communist Party candidate voted on these issues. Maybe I’m a commie and don’t even know it.

Popularity: 5%

Share This

Boulder Colorado, A city known for two things. Wacky liberal people and CU.

Today liberal Boulder turned Redneck. City officials are ’scrutinizing’ a new Perl Street Strip club on the grounds that it’s violating zoning laws.

This sounds like a tactic that would be more appropriate for Buford T. Justice than Gandhi.

Of course, not all residents are against the Nitro Club, some bloggers actually recognize that Boulder should stand by it’s convictions.

Just goes to show all that tree hugging, drug taking, civil rights loving rhetoric goes right out the window the first time something they disagree with comes up. So much for “diversity”.

Popularity: 4%

Share This

Maybe I will vote for Fred, if this ad is true…

Popularity: 6%

Share This

The Democrats are catching a lot of flack right now for not ending the war in Iraq. Congress currently has one of the lowest approval ratings in a decade - only 23% of Americans think they are doing a good job. This is only a 2% improvement the December rating of 21%.

There is plenty of hand wringing and finger pointing being done by the democrats over this issue:

In winning control of Congress from
President George W. Bush’s Republicans last November, Democrats told voters they would move swiftly to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq.

But they now say voters must understand they need help from Republicans to clear procedural hurdles, override presidential vetoes and force Bush to change course.

Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware said he explained this recently to anti-war demonstrators. “‘We know. We know,”‘ he quoted them as replying. “But we are so disappointed.”‘

Biden, seeking the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, said: “Voters are going to be mad with us until we end the war.”

House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said some Democrats understand “we can only do so much.”

Bottom line, this is all a lie. Congress controls funding for the War, all it has to do is not approve the funding and the situation in Iraq will come to a screeching halt. In fact, Congress had an opportunity to do this about a month ago. They played chicken with the President by attempting to include timetables for withdrawl in the bill. President Bush vetoed the bill, so Congress removed the provision and passed it anyway.

Democrats dropped troop withdrawal deadlines because they were unable to overcome a veto and unwilling to risk cutting off money for the troops, reports CBS News radio correspondent Bob Fuss.

There is a large percentage of Americans that are against the war, both those who never supported it and those who are currently disenchanted with the whole concept. The first person/party that stands up and makes a serious stand against the war has an opportunity to make history. Unfortunately that position also carries a significant risk. The public is fickle, and when the Bush administration stops paying soldiers and blames Congress there could be serious fallout.

I believe the war, in it’s current state, is unwinnable. The region is incapable of stability and self government. The only two options are to evacuate our troops or to forceably occupy Iraq, collect reparations and govern it like occupied Japan was post WWII.

Neither of these are going to happen, politicians will continue to compromise, whine, point fingers and lie about the situation - and it will cost the Democrats in 2008.

Popularity: 3%

Share This