Letters to the Editor
FredrickBernanke
Published Letters: 170 Editor's Choice: 8
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Oil: Crude & Otherwise
[Read the article: McCain's gassy tax relief]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The "expert's" opinions in the article carry within them certain presuppositions that are taken for granted and serve as the foundation for many of his arguments.
Chief among them is that federal gasoline tax revenue is dedicated to infrastructure (road) maintenance and construction. The implication is that the benefits of road maintenance and construction accrue only to those driving on those roads.
But, who benefits from the existence of roads in this scenario:
A 75-year-old non-driver receives emergency medical care from an ambulance team that has used I-80 to reach him in time to save his life? Did I-80 benefit the hospital? The ambulance driver? The neighbor of the victim who drives 1200 miles a month on I-80?
The "expert" is fond of "real" pricing--namely, adding (subjectively determined) social costs--to the price of fuel. But, curiously enough, the "expert" conveniently ignores the "social benefits" accruing to non-motorists from the existence of roads.
It's just another example of the unfortunate tendentiousness has has crept into academic scholarship...this "expert" is no more "detached" than would be a Yankee fan commenting on the Red Sox.
Infrastructure spending should be funded from general revenues of the federal (and state) governments, not from a tax that assumes only people who consume gasoline benefit from the existence of roads.
I live in the West. I grew up in NYC. When in compact, densely populated geographies line NYC and San Francisco here in Cali, I use mass transit. It sucks, for sure; but it's efficient. In San Diego County, where I live, and which is itself the size of Connecticut, mass transit systems on the scale on NYC or SF are virtually cost prohibitive, and in the case of buses, produce commutes of mind boggling time-consumption (is that a cost the "expert" wants to quantify?)
[The bulk of gasoline taxation nationwide comes from state taxes, and this format prohibits me from detailing the complexities associated with state by state variations on policy.]
The United States is not France or Italy or Great Britain or Germany. Those great nation would be mere states--in size--by our standards. So comparisons with them are sketchy at best.
Gasoline costs have the same effect as taxes, just as would radical food, water or electricity costs; they reduce consumer spending on other non-discretionary goods and services...not a good thing during recessionary times in particular. They also are regressive taxes, as even the liberal "expert" would agree.
And, finally, the surge in oil prices has as its most mendacious effect the large scale transfer of wealth from oil consumers like the USA to the oil producers such as Russia, Saudi, Iran, Venezuela & Co. This dynamic is not only an economic calamity, but also a national security one as well.
Short Term: Eliminate all state and federal taxes on fuel, which would reduce a gallon by something like 50 cents, on average. This would be a tax cut whose benefit would accrue most to lower income households.
Long Term: Federal government--they are the only entity with the resources to do it--launches a Manhattan Project venture to wean our economy from oil dependence, which is largely a technological challenge, at which we are very good.
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Salon as a Journalistic Incarnation of HRC
[Read the article: Attention, pundits. It ain't over]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]To: Joan Walsh, Editor
From: Little Ole Me
Subject: Joan Walsh
From the graphic to the article itself, you sure know how to edit a tendentious magazine.
This would not be a problem if Salon just had the nerve to come out and announce proudly that it has endorsed HRC. That would be fine.
But this insidious, surreptitious kind of support you are lending her doesn't do Salon's rep any good, and, in fact, kind of mimics the campaign tactics that HRC has used to secure defeat for herself.
I hope Salon does not, therefore, have the same fate for itself, because overall I enjoy having Salon around.
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Polar Opposites: Harry Truman & Hillary Clinton
[Read the article: Playing the bin Laden card?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The only aspect of the ad that offends me is HRC using a quote from her antithesis as a politician, Harry Truman.
Truman has a legacy. Agree or disagree with his policies, Harry Truman=Blunt, Unvarnished HONESTY.
If Hillary has any legacy it will be: Hillary Clinton=Self-Serving, Pathological LYING.
Harry's probably cursing in his grave at this ad.
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A Parody of Political Commentary
[Read the article: Why Jeremiah Wright is so wrong]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If this article appeared under the name of Lanny Davis, James Carville or some other obvious Clinton surrogate, it would not trouble me in the least.
But the Editor of Salon.com's name is the author.
There are only two possible explanations for an article like this one appearing on Salon:
1. Ms. Walsh is a closet Clinton surrogate; or,
2. The Clinton campaign apparatus has actually convinced the media, including but not limited to Salon.com, that not only is the Wright/Obama relationship and important issue, it's THE most important issue!
In the midst of a presidential election that finds the country mired in 2 wars, the capital markets undergoing a revamping unseen since the days of the Great Depression, the housing market imploding upon itself---values are down by 40% in some parts of the country; when we see the nation's wealth being transferred abroad to countries like Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran and Venezuela; when the economy sits flat in recession mode and the average citizen has to endure gasoline prices that have the same effect on their household budgets as do tax hikes....
Salon's Editor is doing an exegesis on the text of sermons by an obscure pastor from a little church in Chicago.
Let's check and see if McCain has an old Navy buddy that he's known for 20 years who may have made some outrageously racist, for example, comments. Or maybe HRC had a prof at Wellesley during her college days that she's kept in touch with and who proudly to this day considers herself a Marxist (the prof, that is.)
Instead of helping citizens understand the real and complex issues that the nation and its leadership must confront, the media unwittingly is parodying itself by lavishing coverage on nonsense.