May 7, 2008
Gas Tax Holiday (John Feehery)
The gas tax holiday took a hit tonight, as Hillary Clinton got creamed in North Carolina and barely edged out a victory in Indiana. John McCain should learn this lesson, drop the idea and move on to talking about the deeper problem behind the steep increase in gas prices, which is the declining value of the dollar.
McCain and Clinton tried to tag-team Barack Obama on this issue. But that played to Obama's argument that he is the authentic candidate who is willing to speak truth to power.
There are a couple of problems with declaring a gas tax holiday. First, it ain't going anywhere. House and Senate leaders declared it dead, and the White House was against it, a rare moment of bipartisan accord. Second, it has been tried before and has done nothing to make the voters swoon. For most voters, it is the same old, same old. Third, compared to the sharp increase in energy prices, the small amount of money that would be returned to the voters is less than minimal. Finally, a gas tax holiday is bad policy. The money goes to shore up bridges and fix roads.
Obama desperately needed to change the subject from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his erstwhile pastor who did his best to sink the Illinois senator's candidacy. The gas tax issue worked quite nicely for Obama.
McCain has a good answer on the steep increase in energy prices: Shore up the value of the dollar by cutting spending. He should go back to his best attribute — straight talk — and drop the talk about a gas tax holiday. It was a loser for Hillary this evening. It will not be a winning issue for McCain this summer.
Permalink TrackBack
Email This Post
Share this post
What's This 21 Comments
»
The Hill welcomes comment from anyone and will almost always post it whether it is favorable or critical, as long as it is substantive and advances debate.
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
people saw through the gas tax holiday fraud because they had a candidate who was willing to tell them the truth. I am noticing something this morning. Where are all the bloggers?
Comment by Yvonne — May 7, 2008 @ 9:51 am
Can you write some more about Rev. Wright, Mr. Feehery? What about Rezko or that weather underground fellar? Obama is gaining traction, real fast. We must distract the electorate before they catch on to the Obama wave.
Comment by Lester — May 7, 2008 @ 10:37 am
John;
This is one of the few times that I agree with you. Over this campaign, Obama has talk to the voters like adults and it has gotten him more support. We know what is going on because of the vast array of information that we can feed from. Now that our battle is over with, McCain "Straight Talk" is going to be in for a world of hurt. It is about time.
Comment by Mike Coleman — May 7, 2008 @ 11:18 am
i was going to vote for hillary shes the one with the plan if berok hussain wins im voting for mccaine
Comment by don finley — May 7, 2008 @ 12:04 pm
berock has no plan hillary does if berock elected will vote for mccaine
Comment by don finley — May 7, 2008 @ 12:10 pm
Check out the New York Times today. There is an article there that shows Barack knew he had a Reverend Wright problem over a year ago. That means that alleged civil rights speech was totally phony. On top of that, if the biofuels program was ended gas would drop approximately the same amount it has risen since the act was passed. Don't expect it to happen. The Congress is stocked with opportunistic phonies in both parties who could care less about screwing the American public.
Comment by Robert Rosencrans — May 7, 2008 @ 12:56 pm
McCain should stop being irrational and get behind drilling in ANWAR and in the Gulf. Advocating releasing oil from the strategic reserve when we could get into a war with Iran at any moment is also not the best idea in the world. He is already fine on the ethanol subsidies, and if he could create a comprehensive (there is his favorite word) agenda for solving the energy problem, he could hammer the Democrats with it.
Comment by Igor R. — May 7, 2008 @ 1:48 pm
Does anyone know Obama's official website?
Comment by John Simmons — May 7, 2008 @ 2:16 pm
Uh, Igor, the GOP has no (zero, nada, zilch) credibility with Americans when it comes to energy policies. And besides, ANWAR will NOT have any effect, whatsoever, on todays (or next years) price. Igor, your hydrocarbon ignorance is very obvious. That is what you get for counting on AM radio for your education.
Comment by Lester — May 7, 2008 @ 3:12 pm
Lester, you forgot to mention FOX news. I thought Brit Hume was going to cry last night. They just knew with all of their negative coverage of Wright, Hillary was going to win. They even had the nerve to say she was going to upset and take North Carolina!
Comment by Yvonne — May 7, 2008 @ 3:44 pm
The lesson should have been learned when Bill Frist tried to con the folks with that $100 because-we-let-them-gouge-you-at-the-pump check. People soundly rejected it because it was a gimmick. What they wanted was for our leadership to address the problem and quit showering big oil with legislation that benefited them. Nothing has changed.
Comment by andy42302 — May 7, 2008 @ 4:23 pm
Lester, what hydrocarbon ignorance? Everybody says it will be ten years if you start drilling today, but those who know say we can see something in two years. And it is you who don't understand how speculation in oil futures works: if you start creating more steady American supplies today, you'd be seeing lower prices tomorrow. Bill Clinton vetoed drilling in ANWAR in 1995 so the Democrats have no one else to blame but themselves.
Comment by Igor R. — May 7, 2008 @ 4:30 pm
Igor, care to put a ball park figure on the "lower prices tomorrow" that you mentioned? While you're at it, how about 2 years from now? How about 10?
Comment by andy42302 — May 7, 2008 @ 5:09 pm
Andy, if I were THAT good in oil futures I'd own the world. I know we can replace the imports from Saudi Arabia for a decade, and I know that burning oil for transportation is a temporary phenomenon. If I were to have to guess, if the US went after the oil prices aggressively through new production without artificial roadblocks, I would say we could half the price per barrel in two years. Nuclear, non-food cellulose straight to hydrocarbons, solar plants in south-western deserts, wind, and tide will all play a part. There's just no reason to pretend like drilling in an area the size of a few blocks which is a part of an area bigger than some states will make any environmental difference of note. There's also no reason to desperately try to declare polar bears endangered with the express purpose of stopping all new drilling off the coast of Alaska while pretending like you only care about the fate of polar bears.
Comment by Igor R. — May 7, 2008 @ 7:22 pm
Talk about Orwellian!
From Nancy Pelosi today:
"Drilling is the failed energy policy of yesterday that has brought us record gas prices today." — why of course, the more you drill, the higher the oil price goes, isn't that just basic economics???
"By threatening to veto legislation that will help families with the price at the pump, the President is forbidding us to move our nation to a 21st century energy policy. " — giving free cash money to people is no energy policy? Welcome to the 21st century, I guess.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20080507/pl_usnw/pelosi__bush_administration___s_energy_policy_is____drill_and_veto
Comment by Igor R. — May 7, 2008 @ 7:51 pm
Talk about Orwellian!
From Nancy Pelosi today (won't let me post the link):
"Drilling is the failed energy policy of yesterday that has brought us record gas prices today." — why of course, the more you drill, the higher the oil price goes, isn't that just basic economics???
"By threatening to veto legislation that will help families with the price at the pump, the President is forbidding us to move our nation to a 21st century energy policy. " — giving free cash money to people is no energy policy? Welcome to the 21st century, I guess.
"Before Memorial Day, we will move updated and expanded legislation to hold OPEC accountable for price-fixing. " — under the laws of the intergallactic alliance? The witch is nuts!
Comment by Igor R. — May 7, 2008 @ 7:52 pm
Are these twins to blame?
http://patdollard.com/2008/05/world-oil-near-record-highs-iran-venezuela-to-blame/
Comment by Igor R. — May 7, 2008 @ 9:40 pm
Yea Igor, I agree peloasi is nuts, but only half as nutty as your neocon as$. Obvious from your post above Igor, you think we can turn a switch or sink a drill bit and, voila, there's more oil to place on the market. That's about as crazy as your global cooling theory. Igor, try some supplemental reading to supplement your Fox News education.
Comment by Lester — May 8, 2008 @ 10:10 am
Igor, although there's no exact math, your figures are more than generous to your argument. Energy experts believe there's about 11 billion barrels of oil and would pump at just under 1 million barrels a day. This would send a signal of increased U.S. interest in domestic energy production. However, in the long run, it likely would not significantly impact oil or gasoline prices. And it likely would have little impact on today's prices.
As for your statement: "I know we can replace the imports from Saudi Arabia for a decade", well experts predict that oil imports would drop from around 68% to about 64%.
This doesn't calculate the increase in demand due to the new drilling.
As for a 30 year forecast,assuming this really did help us out, we'd be out of oil and back to where we are today. Once again, a few coins are tossed to the peasants while Big Oil rolls in the wealth. This is why ANWR drilling isn't the answer.
Comment by andy42302 — May 8, 2008 @ 12:26 pm
Lester, I don't watch Fox often enough to know if they have discussed global cooling. In the last two weeks both NASA and IPCC admitted to the coming global cooling (which of course they had to caveat only serves to mask the man-made global warming) and I certainly didn't learn that from Fox or the fact that there has not been any warming since 1998 or that the last winter was so cold that it snowed in many areas of Iraq, Iran, Israel, China, as well of a lot of South America where it hasn't snowed in a long time.
I think preventing people from drilling because the libs don't like the idea is wrong. I understand the delays involved in getting oil to market. Lester, in addition to your anti-neocon rants you claim such basic ignorance of facts for me that is just not supported by anything that I say.
Comment by Igor R. — May 8, 2008 @ 4:18 pm
Andy, we will NEVER, or at least in the lifetime of the infants born today, be out of oil. No commodity just gets exhausted, only prices rise. And just like the recent discoveries of the Brazilian coast indicate, they always find more in more difficult places. They've been mining gold since the Bronze age and it's still going on, only they stopped picking it up from the surface.
Until very recently we have been importing 1 million barrels from Saudi Arabia, so what I said was correct. Given that Saudi is #2 and #1 is Canada, #3 is Mexico, and #6 is Iraq, it wouldn't take all that much drilling if you include the Gulf to replace Venezuela and Nigeria as well and have a fairly stable supply.
There is no one answer, and of course ANWR is not THE answer. The fact of the matter is that renewables are totally non-competitive today without subsidies, and won't be for a long time. I have a lot of hope, but not really confidence in cellulose-to-oil production, and similarly in the discovery of non-energy intensive solar films that can cover huge areas. It was gratifying to hear about a new company that will grow algae for biodiesel near the Texas coastline.
But the liberal position, collectively is: don't drill, don't do nuclear, don't build coal plans, do subsidize ethanol, solar, and wind. Why? Because we said so, it's good for you otherwise Al Gore will come on his private jet and take away your gas money.
People are dying all over the world today in food riots. Whose fault? An evil coalition of the farm lobby and liberals, the same exact coalition that has brought us open borders.
To just let oil stay in the ground because some day it will be gone is like saying "why not kill myself, I'll be dead some day anyway". It's a philosophical question, but as a matter of philosophy I believe in as little government interference as possible.
Comment by Igor R. — May 8, 2008 @ 4:33 pm