Tom Friedman, fresh off being pied by some undergrads, is back with a vengeance and calling out Hillary and McCain:
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.
Being called ridiculous by the guy whose last big idea was that the world is flat has got to leave a mark. This gas tax holiday nonsense is so stupid that even the Cato Institute trotted out Jerry Taylor to CNN to report that it was a dumb idea.
I really can not figure out what is more offensive about this pandering from Clinton and McCain- that they think they can fool you into believing the gas tax holiday will actually lower gas prices (it won’t), or that they think your vote can be bought for the princely sum of 2-3 bucks per week. We’ll call it a tie.
*** Update ***
More here.
Nate
Senator Inhofe is curious about this world being flat talk and would like to hear more.
Throwin Stones
But I could really use that 20% savings at the pump
/McC Math
Pb
Krugman has thought this was a bad idea for some time too, and he called out McCain on it in his column. And then, belatedly, mentioned Clinton as well, on his blog–I guess that part about Clinton just didn’t make it into his column because it just isn’t a major issue, unlike when he’s busily attacking Obama.
John S.
I find it disturbing that voters in IN and NC may actually fall for this pseudo-populist bullshit and give zombie-Clinton fresh brains to gnaw on.
liberal
Another dumb thing is that because of tax incidence issues, it’s likely that 50% – 100% of any such tax holiday would be pocketed by producers, not consumers.
Zifnab
I’m getting $600 in the mail in two weeks. If they shave off the $.18/gallon tax on top of the “public stimulus”, that’s free gas for a full six months. I think this is a great idea. On top of it all, Exxon profits will soar proving that our economy is doing on heckovajob!
We can’t lose!
demimondian
And, of course, the best thing is that real energy policy (mandatory conservation and paired with mandatory minimum levels of electricity produced from fission), both of which would make a real difference, each with a cost…NO WAI!
EPIC FAIL
Svensker
It makes me feel icky to agree with Tom Friedman.
Dennis - SGMM
Note that neither Clinton nor McCain is even suggesting that the lost revenues be made up by repealing tax breaks to the oil companies. McCain’s silence is an understandable part of Republican anti-tax idiocy, Clinton’s is less so. BP and Royal Dutch Shell just announced first quarter profits of $17bn. Exxon will announce its first quarter profits tomorrow and they’re expected to break their own record as well. Meanwhile, friend-of-the-working-man Clinton remains silent on the multi-billion dollar tax breaks being given to these companies.
John S.
Krugman is so full of shit that with that little addendum. Obama’s “breach” is far more serious because he opposes a good policy that will never see the light of day, while Hillary supports a bad policy that will likely pass.
TenguPhule
Make Oil companies pay actual royalties that have some relation to the value of the stuff they pull out of public lands.
Shoot any executives or lawyers who complain.
Everybody wins.
John S.
demi-
Haven’t seen you post in a while. How you feeling? Is your bout with PV going well?
Zifnab
Even the blind squirrel will occasionally find a nut.
orogeny
Personally, I think the tax suspension is a crock. However, you’re wrong to say Clinton isn’t offering a way to replace the revenue. She has proposed a windfall profits tax on the oil companies, the money from which would be used to cover the loss from the $.43 per gallon tax suspension.
vwcat
Just breaking from Southern Progressive and also posted at Kos is the people behind the Black voter robocalls in attempting to disenfranchise them.
Women voices, women vote is a group who among others on the board is John Podesta, Clinton lackey.
along with another lackey in arranging for the Wright appearance at the press club, you have them trying to do a Rove in disenfranchising black voters.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/30/11055/6499/141/506343
Gerald Curl
I agree with Friedman and I’m not even an imaginary Third World cab driver.
Bubblegum Tate
That’s a surprisingly good way of describing the McCain/Clinton plan. Are we sure this column wasn’t ghostwritten?
Pb
John S.,
Not this one, thanks. I saw Obama speak here, and he was great on this, talking about how McCain’s plan for relief is to give us all $25. LOL.
Adam
What an enormous failure of creativity. And here I thought Obama was supposed to be the Magical Unity Pony.
Since it turns out that national policy really is run on dilithium pixie dust — I demand a wormhole connecting my home to my workplace.
Oh, AND I WANT THAT THING SUBSIDIZED. BY THE POT OF GOLD AT THE END OF THE RAINBOW. Someone find Colin Powell some satellite pictures of trailers in Greater Leprechaunia and get him over to the UN, stat.
demimondian
[surprised anyone asked] Yes, I’m doing as well as is possible. My absence hasn’t been entirely due to the illness; my team has been pushing towards a release sometime next month, and life here has been crazy busy. If you’re interested in the gory details, I’m working on a posting for Bohemian Paris a post, which I hoping to put up this weekend — broadly, I’m still waiting for some tests.
ThymeZone
Friedman gets one right. Who knew he was up to it?
Now we know what Hillary and Johnny Mack Pain mean when they talk about being “in touch with the voters.”
They mean telling the voters any absurd thing they think the voters want to hear to make them feel better even it’s stupid and self-defeating. Not unlike the government’s move to save Terri Schiavo, really, is it? Who could argue that it wasn’t an act of mercy to stop those fiends from pulling out Terri’s feeding tube? Or that it isn’t an act of compassion to take a “holiday” from the gas tax?
Barack Obama could take a lesson from this.
4tehlulz
>>She has proposed a windfall profits tax on the oil companies
Which is obviously a precondition to the holiday. No windfall profits tax, no holiday, to keep things revenue neutral.
LOL
Original Lee
I’m probably dumber at economics than McCain, but could someone nicely explain where the 18.4 cents/gallon goes, and why it would be a bad idea to suspend the tax? I get that it’s a bad idea – I just don’t know why well enough to explain it to anybody else.
It would be nice if the oil companies had to pay some kind of excess profits or windfall tax or something, regardless of what happens to the federal excise tax.
BTW, one of the GOP talking points has been that the oil companies deserve these huge profits because they had 10 years of losses a while back. I think this is pure BS, but have no idea how to find out. (The Google hasn’t yet spit out the Oil Company Profits for Dummies link!)
Dennis - SGMM
It’s a small point, but, I know that Clinton proposed the windfall profits tax. I’m against this because the revenues from such a tax will fluctuate while the desire to spend them as if they were at their highest level will not.
jnfr
We’re happier with our Prius every day.
Calouste
And that windfall tax will be passed onto the consumer in the form of higher prices at the pumps. Gotta keep them shareholders happy, don’t you?
Pb
Original Lee,
That 18.4 cents/gal. federal tax goes towards keeping road workers employed and stopping more bridges from falling down, aka the highway trust fund.
Calouste
I just realized that in the end this is class warfare. It’s all about passing money from oil company stockholders to Joe Sixpack who is filling up his car and needs some roads without potholes to drive on and bridges that don’t fall down.
nightjar
from M.Yglesias
I’m not sure it’s a question of predicting either issue to be as bad or worse than it is now. The fact is that the American public have consistently dissed the economic situation even when GDP was 4 or 5 %. Presently 81 percent believe we’re in a recession and that public perception has simply gone from very bad to the worst ever. Americans had already decided that Bush’s GOP reign has rigged the economy to not benefit them while big business is making off like bandits.
As for Iraq, there was a slight uptick in public approval from reduced violence, but every other metric has remained in the basement. And now it’s going south again steadily, but surely.
ResumeMan
could someone nicely explain where the 18.4 cents/gallon goes, and why it would be a bad idea to suspend the tax?
Well, I believe it’s pegged for highway and other infrastructure maintenance. But really it’s just part of the general Federal revenues. So suspending the tax would be further reducing Federal revenues, making the deficit and debt larger.
And it wouldn’t accomplish anything useful by doing so. Even if the tax holiday reduced prices by the full 18 cents per gallon for the whole summer, as Obama and others have said, the savings to the average person would be pretty trivial ($4 gas vs. $3.82 gas???). And it wouldn’t reduce the prices by that much anyway, because the increased demand would just push prices right back up. Thus putting that money in the hands of the oil companies rather than the government. (Yes I realize that to McCain that’s a feature and not a bug)
Incidentally, I don’t have a strong enough constitution to wade into cesspools like Taylor Marsh and Hillis44; are people over there defending this? I mean on the merits, not as “anything’s ok as long as we win” grounds.
Dennis - SGMM
The 18.4 cents per gallon goes into the Highway Trust Fund. Money from that fund pays for the upkeep of the highway infrastructure, including bridges. Approximately 45% of all highway spending comes from the Trust Fund. The Highway Trust Fund is facing a deficit in 2009 and there are calls to raise , rather than lower, the Federal gas tax to keep the fund in the black. Absent that, states will have to turn more and more to privatization (read: toll roads and bridges) to maintain their highway infrastructures.
Zifnab
:p Well then you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. The intuitive thing to do at this point is to get the government in on this gravy train and raise the gas tax.
That said, most of the price of oil is coming from speculators. So the REALLY intuitive thing to do would be the raise the capital gains tax and institute a special fee for trading oil futures. When people stop treating 20 gallon drums like piggy banks, I bet we’ll see a stark drop in the price of crude.
chopper
not just that. as krugman points out, during the summer refineries are going at max capacity. there’s no real flexibility in supply during that time.
so lowering the price of gas artificially will just create more consumption and more demand, which in the absence of an available increase in supply will just cause prices to go back up.
Napoleon
For at least 2 reasons. First, basic economics theory says that price is set by market forces (on the long term its the interaction of cost and demand, although my belief is that on a real short term basis demand would likely win out and set the price regardless of the sellers cost basis). What that means is that if you simply subtract out 18.4 cents on the cost side (which tax is a cost) will not result in the price of the going down by 18.4 (If the market says people will pay $3.30, then people will pay $3.30, regardless of where that money goes to) and the amount that it does not go down by will simply be extra profit to the oil companies. Long story short, effectively the oil companies pocket all or most of the tax break, not the people (by the way I think that is why Clinton suggest the windfall tax, she knows exactly what is going to happen).
Second the worst thing you want to do when you want society to move away from using something is to make it cheaper to use. That is why for years that people have batted around putting a real steap tax on gas, to make people try and conserve it (I believe all or most Europeans do it for that reason). My guess is that it doesn’t matter much in the short term (you are not going to by a Hummer instead of a Prius because of a 6 month break), but all the same its a move in the wrong direction. Its like trying to cure an addiction to a drug by handing it out for free.
smiley
There was a good segment on Real Sports with Bryant Gumball about Obama and basketball. Any one see it?
Chuck Butcher
Oil trading is something that somehow gets a pass in the equation. There is the terrorist fear surcharge, the war fear surcharge and there is increased demand. There is also more going on than that. Yes demand has risen, but has anybody bothered to do the math to see just how this plays out? I’m unconvinced that demand is driving a 400% increase since BushCo took office. I know there are people out there who intimately understand commodity trading who also know how it can be gamed, any takers?
Chuck Butcher
Oh yeah,
thanks to those who stopped by off my link. I’m surprised, though, that this mouthy bunch didn’t have something to say.
Zifnab
Its worse than that. Firstly, Clinton isn’t even pretending to fight the addiction here. She’s proposing we cater to the addicts. Secondly, she’s not even handing out free drugs. She’s cutting a check to drug dealers.
What’s more, it’s too late. Even if she could force the price of gas down a full 18.4 cents, this wouldn’t pull any more oil out of the ground or suck any more from refineries. It would make – marginally – more sense to stop the US Government from increasing the oil reserve stockpile for those summer months. At the very least, this would reduce demand and curb speculation. It would make more sense to move oil subsidies to more renewable industries, driving down the price of alternative energy and allowing people to switch gears to wind or solar. But you’re not going to see any new solar plants being built in the next month, so too late for that.
The real problem – the root problem – is the speculation. When oil is estimated to be 20-30% overvalued strictly because people are using it like some sort of security note, the smart thing to do would be to curb speculation. Perhaps raise the capital gains rate. Perhaps move the 18.4 cent tax from the pump to the stock market floor – tax every gallon of oil futures traded. A higher tax on high trade volumes would discourage people from buying and selling oil like baseball cards.
cleek
note that we also pay the oil companies tens of billions of tax dollars every year in the form of subsidies.
taxpayer income tax $$ ==> IRS ==> FedGov ==> Oil Companies
taxpayer post-tax $$ ==> Local Gas Retailer ==> Oil Companies
cleek
those >’s in my post are all supposed to look like the final arrow on the second line.
harrumph.
chopper
shorter hillary/mccain: basic economics is hard!
Martin
As the others note, the taxes theoretically go into the highway and infrastructure funds. Hillary proposes putting a windfall tax in balance with it to preserve the funding. That sounds like an improvement, but it’s really just a change in how you do the accounting. It really doesn’t change how much you pay for gas. Here’s were people (understandably) get lost on the issue:
We only have as much gas as we have refineries to make the stuff. Our refineries are running full-tilt. We have no meaningful ability to make more gas. Market driven pricing is a tug-of-war between supply and demand for fungible commodities (those things that we buy that are purely interchangeable – Chevron gas and Mobile gas both move your car exactly the same.) As demand goes down, prices should either drop to encourage consumers to buy more (drive more) or production should go down to hold pricing by eliminating excess product from the market. As demand goes up, prices should either go up to encourage consumers to buy less (drive less) or production should go up to hold pricing.
The encouragement to change production is built into the relationship between production costs and market prices. If consumers are only willing to pay a bit more than it costs to refine and deliver gas, then production will go down because profits are getting hit too hard. If consumers are willing to pay much more than it costs to refine and deliver gas, then producers may even be willing to make capital investments to expand production (build more refineries).
The situation now is that producers steadfastly refuse to expand production because they don’t believe they will ever make back the billions of dollars that they would invest in the refinery. It’s not a lack of capital – they all have billions in the bank just sitting there. They simply don’t see additional refining capacity as a good investment.
So, let’s say that we save producers $.20 on the cost of delivering a gallon of gas. What does the producer do? Well, most people would say that the price we pay would go down $.20. The problem is that there is a limited relationship between what it costs to deliver the gas and what consumers pay. There is a hard relationship in that we’ll never pay less than the cost of delivery. Producers will never take a loss. But if producers can get consumers to pay twice the cost of delivery, then they’ll charge that. They’ll charge as much money as they can convince consumers to pay, and above a certain point there is no relationship between costs and revenue in a commodity market. That’s where we are now. Gas prices are purely market driven. If people will buy all the production at $4/gal, someone will increase it to $4.10 and see if people keep buying. If people buy everything at $4.10, then it goes to $4.20. It keeps doing this until enough people refuse to buy (use less gas, take the bus, fly instead of drive, cancel vacation, etc.) that there ends up being some surplus production and producers lower prices to get that excess sold. But you’ll note that the dynamic here has NOTHING to do with what it costs to deliver the gas. Cut the taxes and nothing really will change.
Worse, you have market speculators that can buy the gas before it makes it to the consumers. They buy up gas, shove it in storage, and later, when demand is higher, sell it back to the market and turn a profit. This has the effect of flattening the supply/demand curve but sometimes they guess wrong. If you are going to announce a $.20 drop in production costs and a $.20 increase in production costs, and tie specific dates to those events (speculators are looking at the markets and *guessing* whether prices will go up or down, but what Clinton/McCain are proposing are fixed price increases/decrease on known dates). So, the speculators will simply buy up enough gas on Memorial Day to negate the cost drop and then dump it back on the market on Labor Day to negate the cost increase. They make a killing and we see nothing happen at the pump.
This is all supply-side bullshit economics at play. It doesn’t work. For things like gasoline, it’s ultimately demand driven and in a commodity setting the commodities traders will be the winners.
mikesdak
My wife and I put gas in our cars roughly twice a month, requiring at the very most 36 gallons total. So even if the 18-cent decrease was passed entirely on to us, we would save $6.48 cents a month, or about 1 trip to Mcdonald’s if we used the dollar menu. Yippie.
Dennis - SGMM
BTW, did you know that the Federal tax on diesel fuel is 24.4 cents per gallon? This tax is also levied on biodiesel. If anyone needs help it’s the truckers. They can’t continue to to absorb increasing fuel costs (Typical fill-up for a tractor-trailer rig is around $1200 now) so sooner or later their costs will be passed along to us as well. That will affect just about everything that you buy.
ThymeZone
All well and good. But a question.
The fuel situation hangs on a tree of dependencies that are mostly free market in nature.
You need a couple things to do transportation. Fuel is a big one. But you also need infrastructure, specifically, roads, highways, bridges, tunnels.
We don’t rely on the market to provide the infrastructure.
Why do we want to rely on it to provide the refining capacity?
If the economy, the health of the nation, and the security of the nation hang on fuel availability, as they surely do as much as they hang on the physical infrastructure, then why do we rely on corporate economics to provide the critical refining capacity?
Thoughts?
Evinfuilt
And how will this Tax pass our current Senate and President who have both worked hard to stop a similar windfall tax before.
The Republicans would be more than willing to provide this Tax Holiday, but no way would they let the Windfall Tax go in.
And if it somehow miraculously survives a Veto, the Oil Companies will just fight it in the courts for years to come. Meaning that we won’t get any of the money we lost back till we spend millions more trying.
ThymeZone
That’s a win-win for Clinton. She can take credit for advancing an idea that is “in touch with the voters and their pocketbooks” with the full knowledge that the full remedy cannot be implmented under the current administration.
No matater what happens next, she thinks she looks good.
orogeny
It’s not that ya’ll move the goalposts, you won’t even admit there are any goalposts on Clinton’s side.
General Disorder
Maybe a tax holiday would be a good idea. Think about it: They drop the tax at the start of summer. Without a doubt, the oil companies will slowly jack up the price an additional 18 cents after the holiday commences. (They can get away with anything.) Also, if demand goes up due to slightly cheaper gas, the price will then rise. Either way, when the holiday is over come September, which is, coincidentally, the beginning of serious presidential campaigning, there are going to be lots of pissed off drivers after the price per gallon goes up overnight by 18 cents. And who will they blame? McInsane and Billery. Yes, sounds like a good plan.
I don’t think they thought this through. How stupid. And they want me to vote for them for president? I don’t think so.
DBrown
The MSNBC fact checker on bushwhack’s spech claims that the refineries are running at about 85% capacity and gasoline is down 1.6-8% compared to last year. US gas demand and refinery capacity is not solely driving the price.
Scrutinizer
For the same reason that single-payer health care is impossible in this country: It would make the baby Jesus cry.
One day (not in my lifetime), people in this country are going to wake up and realize that all this free-market bullshit they’ve been sold is a crock of shit. Or not exactly a crock of shit, it just doesn’t exist anymore, and hasn’t for a very long time. The old idea that someone can work hard and raise himself from poverty to a decent living is gone, except as a dream—the barriers to entry are far too high. But dreams and myths die hard, and it’s probably already too late to break the grip of the corporatocracy.
orogeny
I’m just a poor stupid Clinton supporter, but wouldn’t that be a win/win for the Democratic Party as well? The Dems help out the poor and offer a plan to replace the revenue and those fiscally irresponsible, in-the-pocket-of-big-oil republicans blocked the revenue replacement and increased the deficit. Of course, if Clinton is doing it, it can’t be good for anyone but her, right?
Scrutinizer
Oh, Clinton has lots of goalposts. It’s just that they change so fast, it’s hard to keep up with where they’re located at any particular time.
orogeny
You forgot to add “I’m rubber and you’re glue!”
I swear, it’s like I’m playin’ cards with my brother’s kids or somethin’. You nerve-wrackin’ sons-a-bitches.
Svensker
Two BIG contributors to high oil prices that no one seems to talk about, and certainly Obama and Clinton both should be talking about them:
1) turmoil in the Middle East makes oil prices higher. The day we fired on the Iranian boat (maybe), prices jumped a couple of dollars a barrel;
2) the dang falling dollar. Oil prices in Euros have not gone up nearly as much as dollar prices have. Why? Because the dollar has lost about 50% of its buying power in the last few years. We are paying more for oil because Bush wants to keep the dollar low so he can pay for his Excellent Imperial Adventures without raising taxes. Fooled you all, didn’t he?
Yes, without turmoil in the Middle East and with a strong dollar, oil prices would still be higher due to lower refining capacity, higher competition, and steady or dwindling supply. But not as high as it is now.
Blame Bush. This really IS his fault.
Doug H. (Fausto no more)
Except for where the Republicans offer the Gas Tax Holiday without the Windfall Tax, claim Hillary is an “out of touch flip-flopper” for not supporting it, then she caves and agrees to the Republican plan so she can look “in touch”.
Or, shorter: AUMF. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
TheFountainHead
There’s a whole list of others I find myself in agreement with on this that makes me want to scrape my skin off.
There are bad ideas that are just bad ideas, but not everyone agrees.
There are bad ideas that are only bad because everyone assumes that they are such, when the reality could be different.
Then there are those truly shitty ideas where the result is bad and everyone agrees beforehand that the result is bad.
This is that third type.
cleek
and the GOP will counter with:
We wanted to help the poor. But the Dems wanted to tie our generosity to a crazy scheme to take away the means for our oil companies to innovate and prosper at a time when they’re already working as hard as they can to provide fuel to hard-working Americans!
Psycheout
If the oil companies are smart (they are), they will just raise their prices a bit to absorb some of the Gas Tax Holiday, keeping the price relatively stable and reaping a windfall for themselves.
Perhaps the gas tax ought to just be dumped permanently if it is so odious. A temporary reduction isn’t going to have any significant effect. The problem isn’t so much the tax by itself though as it is supply and demand.
Gus
orogeny, even if (and I’m not conceding that point) it would be a win/win for the Democrats, it’s still just pandering. It wouldn’t save anyone anything, and if anyone’s going to make out big on it it’s the oil companies. The best thing you can say about this is it’s pandering. I swear I am so fucking sick of this election. I’ve been a political junky since Watergate, when I was 8. This fucking election is finally getting me to kick the habit.
orogeny
As long as the Dems fight for fiscal responsibility, they come out looking good, even if the Repubs succeed in blocking the windfall talk measure. “We fought the good fight, but we finally had to give in to the nasty old Rebublicans in order to get some relief to the poor.”
From the standpoint of economic reality, the tax holiday is a bad idea. But, from a political viewpoint, it could work well for the Dems going into the Fall.
Martin
This willful blindness shit is wearing thin. We’ve acknowledged that her plan differs from McCain’s in the very first post on it here, near the top of the thread no less:
Those of us arguing that it’s a bad idea aren’t arguing that we lose the tax base. We’re arguing that there is no effect to the consumer. She’s suggesting gas prices will go down, when first year econ majors should be able to see that no such thing will happen. Since McCain has suggested a holiday that would also lose the tax base, it’s a valid point of discussion where that tax revenue goes and why it needs to be preserved. But that’s incidental to the real issue. Neither plan helps consumers.
It’s win in only the political sense. It leaves voters thinking that something is happening when nothing is happening. Most of us here could give a flying fuck about the politics. If you are going to promise gas price relief then actually deliver it. Both McCain and Clinton are promising it knowing full well that they can’t deliver it. It’s pandering for votes, plain and simple.
You inability to see the economics here is the problem.
orogeny
Of course it is! As I’ve already said, as policy, it sucks. But, as a way to get more Dems into Congress, it probably could be effective. In reality, the money lost through the holiday would be peanuts in the grand scheme of things, far less than we’re blowing on the “economic stimulus” checks, and would be well worth it if it meant a genuine majority in both houses. Plus, if the windfall profit tax could be enacted, it could go a log way toward developing alternative energy sources if it were applied to R&D after the holiday was over.
Napoleon
What you say is correct on this technical point, but I think the basic underlying point he makes is correct. I think technically what has happened is that the world has hit peak production, and in fact may have essentially hit a peak plateau in the early 80s (read “Twilight in the Desert”), and now that China and India are rapidly increasing use the only variable in the equation is the price. The refineries may have excess capacity, but there is no available fuel to refine with that capacity (that is why none are being built). So I think his basic point that there is now a chokepoint in the system that means no meaningful increase can take place stands.
Martin
Ah, I get it. Rather than take Obama’s approach and call out McCain on his bullshit and show voters that the Republicans will sell shit for votes, you think we should go along and sell nicer shit for votes. And when the media calls out both parties for lying to voters everything will turn out fine eh?
Guess what. All those voters that Obama is adding to the party are getting added because they’re tired of being sold shit. They want real solutions. They’re not idiots, they know when both the Democrats and Republicans are feeding them a line. Clinton is campaigning on being the ‘solutions’ candidate. p.luc was just in here telling us how she’ll be the one to get it done. Of course, this proposal doesn’t get anything done, as even you note. So, she’s not so much the ‘solutions’ candidate but the ‘appearance of solutions’ candidate.
Your statement above suggests that appearance of solutions is just fine so long as we win. I could give fuck-all about winning. I want the the goddamn problem solved and I think we win if we actually stop lying to voters (I’m a radical, I know). If I was convinced McCain could solve the problems I’d vote for him. I’d vote for Katie Couric. I’d vote for Dick Fucking Cheney if I was convinced he’d get it done.
Dennis - SGMM
WTF? I didn’t disagree with you. I wrote that I didn’t like the idea of a windfall profits tax. How about taking two seconds to comprehend the post before you leap to Clinton’s defense?
Gus
orogeny, sorry I missed that you said as policy it sucks, and I appreciate that the idea is to get more Democrats elected. I’m just sick of the idea that the way to get elected is to nakedly pander. I would love to see American voters grow the fuck up and vote for the best interests of the country rather than vote for what they think will benefit them for the short term. Unfortunately we get the government we deserve. I’m starting to think McCain would be the best thing for the country if only because the sooner shit goes to hell the sooner we’ll start dealing with it.
orogeny
martin, read the posts I’m responding to before you get up on your high horse.
Dennis – SGMM wrote:
Then when I responded by pointing out Clinton’s windfall tax proposal, he wrote:
That’s what I was responding to.
God, that was a good one…funniest thing I’ve seen here in months.
orogeny
Dennis, maybe I misunderstood. I took your post to mean, “Well, yes, she has proposed a way to cover the cost of the holiday, but I don’t like her proposal, so it doesn’t count,” not as “Oh, OK, I was wrong when I said that neither Clinton nor McCain is even suggesting that the lost revenues be made up by repealing tax breaks to the oil companies. I disagree with what she has proposed, but at least she has proposed something.”
If that’s what you meant, I apologize.
Martin
They always run below theoretical capacity this time of year as they take refineries offline to change production (they shift away from heating oil toward gasoline, etc.) It’ll run back up into the 90s this summer.
This year we’re running below historical peak capacities but ahead of last year. Many refineries are rotating offline to retool to increase production, increase safety, modernize and so on, and there are always some seasonal shifts. Plus, even when none of that is going on, there are refinery fires, hurricanes, maintenance, etc.
But in the wake of the 2005 hurricane season capacity dropped to something like 80%. That doesn’t mean that 20% of refineries were idle due to lack of demand, it mean they were knocked offline and couldn’t operate. The ‘factchecker’ gave a perfectly accurate number, but totally failed to provide the context that tells you what the number means.
Andrew
Any temporary windfall taxes are stupid and easily avoided. Furthermore, Hillary knows Bush would never sign a bill with those taxes, thus her precondition will never be met, and so there will never be a gas tax cut. Her pandering is even worse than McCain’s pandering.
What we really need to do is radically increase the gas tax, and give it back to consumers in direct cash subsidies or payroll tax deductions. Part of the tax would be absorbed by the oil companies and the oil producers.
Martin
You were calling all of us out. If you wanted to just smack Dennis around, he has a name. I watched Hillary on Larry King. I knew from the outset that she freshened up McCain’s shitty plan somewhat. It’s still shitty.
Show me a time this year where this place has rallied around bad policy for the sake of political gain.
Original Lee
Thanks to everyone for the explanations about gas prices.
It doesn’t necessarily make me feel better or less angry, but at least now I think I understand the subject well enough to discuss it intelligently.
orogeny
I think we’d all love to see that. But, having worked (as a volunteer) on campaigns for Fred Harris, Paul Tsongas, and Walter Mondale, among others, I have grown to believe that telling the American people the hard, cold facts is the quickest way to get buried. The American people want to be lied to. I remember during the Mondale campaign , after he stated “Mr Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I.” polling showed that a substantial majority of the voters agreed with that statement, but preferred Reagan because he said he wasn’t going to raise taxes…even though they knew that he would. Mondale got buried.
Dennis - SGMM
Accepted.
Martin
I think both of them are assuming that they will be president at the time and a favorable Congress on their side, which is at least realistic in Hillary’s case. But there’s no way she floats this to a Democratic congress. They’re getting slaughtered now for not delivering and this would only add to their problem. If it were arguably beneficial to consumers, they would probably go after it, but there’s way too many people pointing out that it’s crap and won’t work.
orogeny
THIS IS A RESPONSE TO MARTIN
So, directly quoting both of dennis’ posts, the second of which was in response to one of mine, is not enough for you tell figure out that I was responding to him?
And’
evolved to:
Doing a bit of post-moving yourself, Martin?
Andrew
The oppo ad for this gas tax cut seems pretty obvious to me:
[picture of collapsed I-35 bridge in Minneapolis]
The McCain/Clinton tax cut will save you $25 this summer. It will also increase oil company profits and eliminate funding for our nation’s bridges, tunnels, and highways.
[fade to black]
I mean, geez. It couldn’t be any easier.
Andrew
Um, they’re all specifically talking about a tax cut for THIS SUMMER.
scarshapedstar
Yeah, what morons… hey, check out this bitchin’ stimulus check I got, y’all!
orogeny
I remember back during the Bill Clinton Presidency, I got in an argument on talk radio about the effect of the “Clinton Tax Hike” on a the average Alabama taxpayer. Using numbers I got directly from the IRS, I was able to show conclusively that the average taxpayer here actually had their taxes reduced under Clinton. The host’s response was, “OK, but what about the gas tax increase? See, Clinton did increase taxes on everyone.” The folks who called in after that complimented the host on how he showed me to be wrong. That was over a $.05 per gallon tax increase! You don’t think this tax holiday thing will matter to people?
Doug H. (Fausto no more)
“Dems” and “fight” aren’t exactly two words that are often used together. But I’m sure Hillary Balboa will stand up for us hard-working Americans, just like she’s done to every hare-brained plan Bush pushed onto Congress these past seven years, right?
Ah, you gave up and went over to the Atwater / Rove Side. That explains quite a bit now, actually.
PROTIP: People don’t mind being lied to when times are good and the economy’s rolling. Its times like now, when the shit hits the fan, that people suddenly want real answers. Keeping up the charades doesn’t work too well then. Just ask Herbert Hoover.
The Populist
So let me get this straight. John & Hill want to give me a “tax holiday” on the 18% the government takes in taxes, right? Bear with me here…this money goes to fund infrastructure (roads, bridges, etc) right? So basically they are saving me a pittance while the roads go to crap forcing not only a burden on the states BUT lowering my gas mileage due to crappy, pothole roads that won’t be fixed because (drum roll) there is NO money.
So basically I have to service my car to the point it may COST ME MORE to maintain it because the tires, alignment, struts, etc take a beating due to bad roads.
No thanks people. If the government really wanted to fix gas prices, they’d either put a freeze on price increases OR instead of giving us a useless “stimulus” check, take that money and subsidize the prices so they can go down for awhile.
I am not big on this kind of thing, but if people are truly hurting I see no problem in this approach for a short term fix. Better than some dumb Republican talking point (ad nauseum) where they attack more taxes with breaks.
Doug H. (Fausto no more)
You think we’ll actually see a decrease in gas prices?
“Yes, thanks to the Tax Holiday, we really would like to lower prices but we think you’ll find that its worth more if we re-invest it in…”
orogeny
Good one Doug H. I’ve got to say, your skills in argumentation are exceeded only by the measure of your personal charm.
The Grand Panjandrum
I think some Libertarian just got a hard on.
The obvious argument against this “tax holiday” is that the only holiday will be for the 300,000 jobs lost in the highway/road/bridge construction industry. Most of those jobs are good paying union jobs and (for now at least) can’t be sent offshore.
The Populist
Andrew: If I was Obama, I’d make a commercial that basically shows a middle class working person at a Firestone or repair shop getting his bill. New tires, struts, shocks, etc = some outrageous sum of money. The guy is shocked and we fade to the next issue.
I’d then show collapsing bridges and bad roads where people get flat tires and have to avoid potholes. I’d then remind the audience that giving a “tax holiday” to the gas tax is irresponsible and shortsighted.
I think most even handed people would agree with this. Nobody likes to have their car serviced as it is gonna be even harder if folks have to replace their worn down tires all the time.
The Populist
The Grand Panjandrum: Not only that but this would be a blessing for the Republicans who would LOVE to break another union.
firebrand
Tom Friedman actually got something right for a change? Hold a second while I go look out of my window. Yup, those are pigs flying.
The Populist
You don’t think this tax holiday thing will matter to people?
No. It’s pennies in the end. The day I see folks stop driving gas guzzlers in their commutes is the day I will have some empathy.
In the end, anybody who thinks this is a big deal better not whine to me when the roads don’t get fixed. God forbid somebody DIES if another bridge collapses.
Ever see a sink hole in a road that isn’t maintained properly? I have and it could have been a bad thing had I not been parked a block down from the sinkhole.
Sorry, pennies for the amount of money it’s gonna cost me to maintain my car is NOT worth it so some fatcat oil company exec can make a few more dollars.
The Populist
would love to see American voters grow the fuck up and vote for the best interests of the country rather than vote for what they think will benefit them for the short term.
Give it 10 more years and it may finally happen. We are one of the most short sighted nations in the world YET we are one of the richest. We can’t take care of our poor, we don’t care about sick children and we seem to not mind when sovereign nations are invaded on the slimmest of evidence all in the name of “terror.”
I have some hope for this next generation but I fear they will be royally fucked once they realize they won’t even have a pot to piss in.
Doug H. (Fausto no more)
We’re arguing? If you were worth arguing with, I’d put more thought than snark into my comments. But since you’re firm on being a nominal Democratic member of the George W. Bush School Of Doing Whatever We Want As Long As It’ll Win Us Elections, its Full Snark Ahead.
Scrutinizer
The problem, orogeny, is that the problems we face right now will never be solved by pandering to that desire. Yesterday in one of these threads His Pluckiness opined that right now we don’t need a salesman. The truth is we need exactly that. We need someone who can show the electorate in this country that all these beautiful lies about no new taxes, gas holidays, stimulus checks and the like are making our problems infinitely worse.
I’m not hating on Hillary when I say that plans like this gas holiday thing, with or without a windfall tax provision, are exactly the wrong prescription. Clinton is a policy wonk—she knows this is crap, and she is smart enough to see that the consequences of such a plan would result in a net loss to the average guy. We can’t continue to support politicians who buy votes by pushing these types of ill-conceived policies. That applies not only to Clinton, but to the whole breed.
ThymeZone
Sure, maybe to the tune of a couple bucks a week. Wow, that’s almost as impressive as her dramatic reform of healthcare back in the Nineties.
Another bullet point on her monster.com resume!
You made my point for me. It’s symbolic bullshit, and of no real value. How that works for Dems, I am not sure. Unless we are out to out-symbol the useless GOP, and become another party of rhetorical horse manure. Oh wait, it’s Clinton … well, of COURSE that’s what we’d do.
Martin
Fine. I’ll be the idiot here. Still not sure how Dennis is ‘all’ and became the official representative, but I’ll yield.
I figured you were smart enough to understand this. Let’s try: “Most of us here could give a flying fuck about how this policy proposal plays for votes, that is, the politics of her proposal.”
Has anyone here given any analysis of how this policy relates to getting votes for Obama or Clinton, other than noting that the idiots that vote Clinton over this deserve their profound disappointment when they get jack shit in return. There are plenty of good reasons to vote for Clinton. This isn’t one of them. Has anyone talked about how this helps Obama or hurts Clinton? Has anyone suggested that he “do x in order to swing y voters” here? It’s a stupid policy. It’s stupid coming from McCain, it’s stupid coming from Clinton, it’d be stupid coming from Obama. Don’t blame us that Clinton pushed it *after we came out against it* when McCain pushed it. And don’t blame us that Obama came out against it *after we came out against it* when McCain pushed it.
I was being generous extending the willingness of this group to overlook bad policy for political gain beyond the gas holiday bullshit.
ThymeZone
I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were poor.
ThymeZone
First we’re pony people, and then we are on high horses.
This whole equine fasciation thing that the Hillabots have is intersting, and a little disturbing …..
Martin
Oh, that’s just retarded then.
w vincentz
In my opinion, Barack has the correct thinking regarding the Highway trust fund. Keeping 300,000 road construction workers improving our neglected infrastructure is a sane approach.
I’d also add that if I was involved in the Obama campaign, I’d reschedule all plans for Thursday, May 1, and have Barack attend either the Truckers’ protest in New York city or show solidarity with the Long shoremen’s strike at any Pacific port in their protest of the Iraq “war”. Speaking at either event would gain crediblity with “blue collar” white voters and demonstrate solidarity.
Martin
Well, his assessment was harsh and exaggerated, but this is a full-contact place as you’ve noticed.
The problem here is that we’re arguing from two different planes of existence. You’re arguing ‘political reality’ and we’re arguing ‘actual reality’. I think there’s a pretty deep disdain for political reality in most of its forms here.
The argument that Americans want to be lied to is wrong. Some Americans want to be lied to. Most Americans have come to expect to be lied to and don’t penalize candidates for doing it, but also don’t engage because of it. That’s really brought about the rise of corporate politics. But some Americans refuse to be lied to (and even they are selective on that front). This is the shifting of the electorate that has been taking place the last half+ decade. Thanks to the intertubes, the community that refuses to be lied to has an outlet. The community that has merely expected to be lied to has someplace to go to at least check their fears. And the community that wants to be lied to has carved out their own place too. But we aren’t each limited to a dozen or so information outlets like we were just a decade ago and having to decide among them which were least likely to just pat our head.
That’s not to say that the online community isn’t even more willing to lie to us – it clearly is – but at least there are pockets where you can find out what’s really going on if you crank your skeptic meter up to 11 and check the shit out of everything. Regular voters are increasingly tuning in. This is a growing population that we ignore at our peril. And when you have someone like Bush who has lied to the public at levels so outrageous that you have large scale migration along the political spectrum, pretending that they are still receptive to your political reality is even more risky. In case you failed to notice, voters are pissed. More pissed than they’ve been in decades.
The fact that Clinton is having so much trouble getting traction in this environment is suggestive that the political reality is the wrong place to be playing – she’s quite competent there. I’m not about to say that Obama doesn’t live there to a significant degree, but he’s more willing to break with political orthodoxy without veering into the weeds of nuttiness than other candidates and people are rewarding him for that and punishing her.
Martin
Longshoremen? $120K average salary and willing to shut down all trade in and out of the west coast? Bad group to support. I’m all in favor of organized labor, but these guys give labor a bad name. A lot of people feel that way.
D-Chance.
That’s a large part of it. If you put a kink in the garden hose, it doesn’t really matter how open the valve at the faucet is… the output is still limited. The Saudis can pump out every drop of oil and dump it on our doorstep; we’d still be in the same boat we’re in now.
The problem is, then… how and where will be build all these refineries? Not In My Back Yard, I’ll tell ya.
Refining capacity needs to be increased. And I wouldn’t necessarily mind seeing a national (read: government) oil/gas/coal refining network developed, with the fed getting into refining and reselling to privately owned domestic outlets.
Yeah, right. After all the lawsuits that would come from Big Oil, from the environmentalists, and from everyone near the hole where the dart hits on the map for refinery locations, we’d be sitting here a generation into the future and after billions of dollars in attorneys’ fees still wondering “where are all those promised government refineries and why are we now paying $20 per gallon?”.
Gas prices are high; but still not high enough for the public to anything more than grouse and dig deeper into their pockets. And the tipping point where grousing turns to action is nowhere in sight. And have you noticed how they’re now floating the trial balloon of $10 per gallon gas in the not-so-distant future? I don’t see any revolutions in the streets yet…
OriGuy
Obama is running this ad in Indiana and North Carolina talking about how the gas tax holiday is bogus.
w vincentz
Martin,
The International Longshoremen’s Union is quite strong.
They refused to off load cargo from South Africa during the “aparthied” days. They’ve refused to unload cargo that was loaded by scabs.
Their strike is NOT for more money for themselves, it’s in protest of the Iraq “war”.
Obama’s credibility would only increase if he involved himself in the cause of a worldwide union. He needs the support of the workers. Other “blue collars” will watch this. They should be his targeted voters.
There’s an article at common dreams if you’re interested.
orogeny
This describes perfectly how I actually feel about this primary. My man chose not to run and my second choice got buried by the press. IMO, we’re left with the culls now.
I’m going to vote for whichever Dem wins the nomination…I consider Clinton to be the lesser of the two evils at this point. A hard-nosed policy wonk is just what this country needs after 8 years of Bush-league incompetence. Obama doesn’t seem to be a bad person and if elected he’ll probably make a good President (definitely better than McCain).
Problem is, I’m a professional cynic and am turned off by the whole “unity” thing…too new agey for me. I’m a partisan, a yellow dog democrat and I enjoy the rough and tumble, kick ’em when they’re down aspect of politics. I don’t want to change the system, I just want it to work correctly. An awful lot of Obama’s supporters remind me of Ron Paul’s followers…more disciples than political allies, convinced they’ve discovered the new and only way to true governmental nirvana. They sure are fun to argue with, though.
scrutinizer
I wouldn’t define what you’ve described as a system that works. I’d define that as the last seven years.
Original Lee
Well, epic fail for me, people. I tried discussing the gas tax holiday with a McCain supporter, using your explanations from this thread, and was essentially told that the gas tax holiday is intended as an economic stimulus measure, and a relatively cheap one at that. *Sigh* When the person you’re talking to thinks that $25/person is a good way to stimulate the economy, there’s no hope left. I even tried suggesting that instead of a gas tax holiday we should have a diesel tax holiday, but McCainer said he wanted the money back in people’s pockets in a more direct way. I wonder if I apply for my passport now, whether I’ll have one in time to emigrate to New Zealand if McCain wins.
TenguPhule
Of course not. By that time, you’ll probably already be one of the casualties.
Martin
I know the Longshoremen are a strong union. And on the east coast they are a pretty decent union. On the west coast they have the capacity to hold the nation hostage. Only a handful of ports here to receive a massive amount of cargo from Asia so their strike halts about a billion dollars per day in trade. There’s about 10K employees out here, so that’s $100K per day per employee that they put at risk. They can get pretty much anything they want – and they get a lot.
Martin
Oh, you might not be aware of some of the new concessions out here. The longshoremen are guaranteed their job for as long as they want it. If the port introduces automation to make their job redundant or if there is only 10 hours per week of work to do, they get paid their full salary and benefits anyway (I think they only work about 30 hours per week as it is). Average salary for non-supervisors is about $120K. For foremen, about $175K. There are a lot of unions working damn hard for their members just to get fair wages and benefits, but these guys are just abusing the power they have.
Non-union ports are punished fairly harshly. The union can call up other unions around the world and ask that they not unload ships bound from non-union ports. So, they can call Japan and ask that they not unload a ship from the US. And the union there, equally strong, will do it. If your cargo was aboard, oh well.