Real Integrity: Outing the "gas tax holiday" GIMMICK. (YES OBAMA !)

[RBInMaine]

OK HillFOLKS, just try to defend your candidate's latest integrity slash and burn. In a grotesque showing of the worst, slimiest kind of political pandering and typical Washington-politician political expediency, she has jumped wholeheartedly onto the "gas tax holiday" GIMMICK wagon. Not a single economist is endorsing it, and both D's AND R's are calling it a political gimmick non-starter that actually serves to INCREASE oil company profits by allowing them room to further raise prices, would result in precious little savings to consumers in this short term scenario, and would cut a gaping hole in the highway repair trust fund. Hillary's notion of a windfall profits tax offset has no chance of passing in the near term as any such plan would be instantly vetoed and sustained by Bush and his congressional R's. My state's R's floated such a gimmick a few years ago, and it rightly fell flat on its face and made them look like a bunch of fools.

Barack Obama has the INTEGRITY to call out this GIMMICK for what it is, and he is being praised by most honest pundits and others for this brave move in an atmosphere of steadily rising gas prices. Typical Hillary. Say ANYTHING. DO ANYTHING for a vote. SHAMEFUL ! Nevermind this media-fabricated attack on this good man's integrity over Wright. As he has on many occasions, this man is showing what integrity really is. GO OBAMA !!

[John Q. Citizen]

1. Also, it will increase CO2 and global warming, Not that Hill worries about global warming.

[Cha]

3. It will increase it because more gas

will be bought and used, right? hilary reminds me of bush after 9/1l.."Go Shopping".

I haven't had a car for 3 years but I know a lot of people around me are thinking of new ways to conserve their gas.

[Ravy]

2. You can't call it Real Integrity when you say it would put a gaping hole in the highway repair trust

fund.

Bills such as this are tied with a funding source. Bush doesn't have any sort of line item veto to veto the windfall profits tax and allow the tax cut if her proposal passed.

McCain doesn't want to fund it in any way, so that is true of him, not Hillary.

You shouldn't post about integrity and then try such bait and switch.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

4. Bush won't sign it with a windfall profits tax. And Clinton knows it.

Which shows where her integrity is.

[Ravy]

6. Perhaps not. But that doesn't mean it is wrong, or that she shouldn't

be judged on who she wants to help and who she wants to tax. And, it gets people talking about the huge profits the oil companies are raking in under the Republicans.

She is not promising to do it if elected, the summer will be long over by then, she is just saying it is a good idea to do.

[RBInMaine]

7. We can check, but I understand that Congress controls sources for current appropriations, but

any new tax revenue sources, even if established as an offset provision, must still be signed by the executive. If not, would the congressional R's in the Senate still not have cloture leverage (60 votes needed) and the filibuster? If so, still blocked by congressional R's and a non starter.

[Ravy]

8. Ending the war and national health care are non-starters by the same definition.

Should the candidates stop talking about those?

Saying she would like that solution and proposing it as good policy is not the same thing as saying she can get it done.

[RBInMaine]

12. Those are not examples of quick-fix political pandering.

[earthlover]

5. This tax gimmick is a giveaway to higher profits for oil companies....

People have shown they will pay high prices for gas. With lower costs due to the tax break, the pump price would theoretically be lower. However, not necessarily. The oil companies could easily just lower it part of the way, putting that much more into their pockets! More profit per gallon, and since the price of gas would be lower, more gallons would also be purchased.

This is pandering to the voters in the most bald way. Something McCain, another Republican besides Hillary who is also running for President favors. Peas in a pod.

Obama is stupid to put principle first. It will cost him votes. Those of us who value integrity will support him. The rest are the sheeple who gave us 8 years of Bush and don't exactly think things through much. Would it hurt Obama to pander just a little bit? There is some sarcasm here, but seriously, faced with the bull shit of Hillary and McCain, i would forgive Obama for a little pandering.

[vixengrl]

9. If I want to be serious about the plan--the simple math is bad.

Take me as your evil example. I drive a late-model Honda Civic, so I have relatively good gas milage, and I mostly am driving highway milage on my work commute (but I commute Philadelphia to Trenton--so it's a smidge over 20 miles from my house --in the Far Northeast of the city, to my job in the Capital complex of NJ. I do not let my gas tank go considerably below a quarter of a tank--so let's say I probably fill up every week (I do have incidental driving to my parents and errands) and say I am putting 10 gallons in.



My fill-up, since I refill at a 3/4 low, is actually about 10 gal. (I round, obviously. It's usually nine point something. A little over $30 bucks, in real terms, per fill-up--my commute accounting for something like 250 miles a week and incidental driving to see my folks, shop, and have a social life, intruding.) So I have ten gallons, and with the gas tax holiday, I'd see $1.84 savings every week. Others might have less gas milage or worse commutes. They may have as much as $3 they could save at the pump, provided the gas concerns really decide to adjust price based on this gas tax reduction.

Now, at a $1.84 a week, I will not decide--"WHHHHHEEEEEE! WE'RE DRIVING TO LAS VEGAS!" If I saved a rounded-up $2 in a jar for the 15 weeks of the gas holiday, I'd have about $30 dollars to eat out at --well, not a great restaurant. But one I'd usually go to. It wouldn't cover my bar tab, though.

But that would be supposing the oil companies lower prices based on the gas tax. They don't need to. You see, I do not have an incidental driving allowance I can cut back on--my commute is simply a smidge over 20 miles both ways and driving is still better than public trans for me. Since demand won't change, why lower prices? Duh. And the price of oil--or gas at the pump--goes up by more than that regularly. Add a tax on the "windfall profits" of the oil companies, and you have a possibility of cost carried on to consumer.

This is so dumb, and easy to see as dumb.

We need a long term plan--even if short-term, we don't have anything. Regulation of gas milage--our US car makers are losing money, but Toyota makes money--could it be our industry needs to modernize, and make the fuel-efficient vehicles we need? Could we talk about how the refined gasopline in our cars came from the same bubbling crude that heats homes, etc? We can do nothing about supply--but demand?

Can we go more solar for heat & light? Subsidize it? Make the choice to go solar better for many people (Mandate and give credits to HUD properties--and gov't buildings , including the White House.) Recognize energy is not so much a commodity, but after the solar revolution, it will be merely a license to use the grid. Employ many millions of workers to convert the energy industry, equip homes, boost the technology, and preserve the grid (think TVA.)

This would be a better, more sensible, long term solution. I think Obama has the elements of an idea of how to make a comnprehensive energy strategy. Better than The GOP--since Cheney classified the White House's.)

(Duh, it said: "Invade Iraq for oil, be sure to use Halliburton so the grandbabies can eat." So sayeth I--but I are an energy crank, and a sometimes conspiracy theorist. But we certainly did decide Iraq was worse than Notrh Korea. Worse and terrorfabulistic. So we went.)

[bhikkhu]

10. "holiday" isn't bad...but "festival" sounds better

"Gas Tax Summer Festival" has a really nice ring to it.

A bit of re-branding and things will be fine again!.

[vixengrl]

11. There is something to be said for the terminology:

Gas--necessary. But--Tax, Bad. Holiday, Good. We all like to go on holidays. We dislike taxes and need gas--it has all the elements of a wedge issue, because it hits certain notes that might transcend logic or even simple math. But in practice--not a great plan. Not even a little.