Archives for 2008

Tonight the New York Times will explain why Hillary’s Gas-taxofacism Awareness Week is more than just the ordinary kind of stupid.

Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida has been fighting to cut 10 cents from the state’s gasoline tax for two weeks in July. Lawmakers in Missouri, New York and Texas have also proposed a summer break from state gas taxes, while candidates for governor in Indiana and North Carolina are sparring over relief ideas of their own.

If experience with such gas tax “holidays” is any guide, drivers would save less than politicians suggest. But that is not necessarily the point.

“It’s about trying to serve the people and trying to understand and have caring, compassionate hearts for what they’re dealing with at the kitchen table,” said Mr. Crist, a Republican.

He added, “I’m supposed to respond to the people and try to make them happy.”

[…] When Illinois and Indiana suspended about 7 cents of their state gas taxes in the summer of 2000, prices fell by an average of only 4 cents, according to a study by the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, which opposed the plans. Drivers saved no more than $2.50 a month, while each state lost tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue.

Previous gas tax holidays caused other problems, too. During the last gas tax suspension in Florida in 2004, people hoarded gasoline, driving up demand and prices.

Hillary obviously didn’t write these proposals herself. So what? Gas tax holidays have zero support from experts, a terrible track record and would mostly languish among the other symbolic clutter that state legislatures push around every day if Hillary didn’t push the issue to the front of the news. Her support gives a dumb idea credibility.

Many state legislators are not that bright in the best of days. Add frantic constituents and the recession economy playing merry-merry with no-deficit state budgets and you have a population of people looking very anxiously at the next election.

A good number will follow Hillary’s lead right over a cliff. Or off a bridge.

The Toxic AvengerPost + Comments (22)

James Hrynyshyn went to a Hillary rally:

In the hours following the speech, which was delivered before a pair of the largest flags I have every seen draped across the width of Main Street, I got more and more depressed. Not only did Clinton’s speech avoid anything remotely resembling a respect for the challenges and contributions that science poses and offers society, but she seemed to go out of her way to appeal to an anti-intellectual strain that her advisers must have told her holds sway in the largely Republican county in which she found herself.

First there was the repetition of her support for a gas tax holiday, which, as Jake has ably pointed out at Pure Pendantry, is perhaps the stupidest idea yet mooted in this campaign. How she squares this with her not-quite-a-plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions 80 percent by 2050 is beyond me. Or anyone else, I would think.

Such an idea is, as an educated friend of mine who very much wants to support Clinton told me as we waited for Clinton to arrive, an insult to her intelligence. But then, there was Clinton, insulting the intelligence of her audience every chance she got. The only common theme to emerge from the 30-minute ramble was an attack on our enemies. China is the enemy for selling us lead-contaminated toys and poison pet food. The Saudis are the enemy for exploiting our addition to oil. The rest of OPEC, too. And worst of all are those evil, parasitic “middlemen” who pop up in every corner of the economy, ready to take a cut and give back nothing.

I am waiting for the bus and just listened to Hillary, at a rally in NC, say all of the above and declare that we need to change our laws so that we can sue OPEC for anti-trust violations. Along with that gem were the usual spiel from her these days, including the assertion that not only does Obama not want the BIG EVIL OIL COMPANIES to pay the gas tax for you this summer, but that he wants you to pay for it yourself.

Why doesn’t she just change her name to Huey Long? Seriously, though- when did this happen? I remember when Hilary was the detached policy wonk, who coldly and coolly analyzed problems, and now she has morphed into some unsophisticated bubba who hates the man, hates ideas, and hates everything but joe six-pack and his shotgun and coon hound. I fully expect her to show up to her next rally in the General Lee.

It is depressing, really. Granted, I have a long history of Clinton hatred behind me (and now I think it was a well-founded Clinton hatred), and while I may have thought it was cured and was fully ready to vote for her last October, that has since passed. My Clinton hate clearly only went into remission from 2002-2007, because it has certainly flared up lately. I thought she had turned into a pretty respectable middle of the road Senator, but now I just see crazy every time I look at her. Her foreign policy seems lifted from the Weekly Standard, her domestic policies from the Kingfish, and the faux-populist nonsense seems designed only to dumb down the debate enough to grab a few more votes in the hopes that the supers decide to change their mind and throw the race to Hillary.

Even for a Clinton hater, her decline has been a sad spectacle, and I find the idea of the so-called “Unity ticket” to be horrifying. I don’t want Hillary any where near the White House any more, and Tim was right last night- the kind of crazy Hillary is spewing right now is no different from the David Horowitz crazy we have been dealing with for years. She isn’t campaigning or trying to sell her ideas- she is publicly airing an enemies list. Does anyone really doubt Hillary would propose a Gastaxofascism Week if she thought it would win her two percentage points in NC?

*** Update ***

A link to the OPEC suing nonsense. I can’t believe this is not getting more attention, it is so damned crazy.

When Did She Become Bubba?Post + Comments (117)