Letters to the Editor
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Dumb & Dumber Choose the Next President
Unreal, this political season has been akin to living in the Twilight Zone. And if 60% of $30 will benefit you over the long term, you seriously need to relook at your career path choices.
Clinton has no problem knowing the lowest intellects in the country may help secure her a nomination. Calling experts "elites" puts her in the same category - she not only cannot utilize her "expertise" to form a studied opinion (that would be elitist and out of touch), she has now succeeded in closely aligning herself with the mentality of George W Bush. He doesn't care what the "experts" think either, it's his way or the highway... "I'm saving you". Hello, Hillary - you wouldn't know where to find a clue if clues were on sale at every gas station in town. Especially if they were dispensed like coffee, via the bright red PUSH button.
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I was wondering if there was a rational argument..
The debate about the gas tax was depressing to me in that it seemed that Hillary Clinton had banked her only real chance on the premise that the American public is so stupid that they would go for this. We will see today if this "gamble" worked. After all George Bush was elected and then astonishingly re-elected, so maybe she is right. Since ever economist was against this, it had no chance of being passed and even less of having the wind fall tax added to this (so by chance it was passed then it would only rob the care of the roads), I wanted to see if an intelligent defense could be made of this. If this was given to me to defend, is there another side? Not really. This article tried it, it seemed wanting to me.
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Really?
My favorite line that purports to show there is, in fact, a benefit to this sham gas tax suspension idea: "In fact, Polley concludes that consumers would get a nickel a gallon or more benefit -- not much, but better than nothing."
A whole nickel a gallon! Man, that's a lot of money 50 years ago.
This article is the journalistic equivalent of Clinton's gas tax idea.
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Here is the truth of economic fallout.
If you are old, uneducated and from a third world country the world doesn't want you. If you are over sixty the world will not take you in it will leave you to die.
This is the truth learned by every third world child who wants to emigrate. This is the consequence of what happens when America goes bankrupt.
Do you of the older generation really want lower taxes if it means America cannot pay its bills? Or do you think that the younger generation, which can go elsewhere, is going to hang around forever and pick up your tab?
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Results are not conclusive
The retail prices decreased 3%, then it went up 4% after. So, the net was +0.88%. [For the math challenged, if gas was 1.00, after the 3% reduction, it was 0.97. Then, after the 4% increase, it was 1.0088 which is an 0.88% increase.)
BUT, Clinton states that oil companies would make up the difference in a separate tax. So, the two ideas are different in implementation. And, comparing this study to what Clinton is proposing is ignorant at best. Remove one tax and add another to the prime producer will not work because the tax will just be passed on from the top. In fact, I would be surprised if this made things worse because the initial cost of gas, before the state taxes are added as a percentage, will be higher creating a higher total tax from states.
All in all this idea is dumb. It will not work, and it is playing on the fears of voters; this is something that republicans have used to their advantage for decades. And, most Democrats condemn these tactics. Too bad Clinton is taking this route. It will be difficult to vote for her if she manages to win the nomination.
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works in one state, not nationwide
With a fixed supply of gas, one state's lower taxes can indeed lower prices. Nationwide, however, lower gas taxes would increase overall demand for gas, and thus the price. In fact, every low-tax gas state probabably increases the nationwide cost of gas that all of us pay.
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Stupid gimmick
The gas tax break is a stupid gimmick, gimmick being the key word in this scam to pander to voters. It gives the public the idea that the gasoline crisis can be solved by easy gimmicks instead of by a radically different, intelligent, progressive and comprehensive comprehensive new approach to energy consumption.
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Obama is wrong about the gas tax
When is America going to come to grips with reality? Energy costs are going to go up up up and up. Obama's tax break is merely a vote buying gimmick little different than the free beer at the local tavern after voting the "correct" way in the early 1900s. Obviously a lot of facts are unknown about the supply and/or demand situation. If all the facts were evident it is likely something akin to the Manhattan project would be underway to free America from dependence on foreign oil. As an aside it is rather ironic that while homeland security is insanely paranoid about Canadian "terrorists" no one seems to be concerned that Canada supplies about 1/3 of America's oil needs It is also ironic that in a country where the idea of universal healthcare, overseen by the state is total anathema yet politicians are offering "big brother" handouts and people are apparently lapping them up!
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red_gti2000
Yeah, you and just about every other American I have met in the last two years (You know, when denying that he is about as useful as sniffing cyanide to cure a cold) didn't vote Bush. Riiight. Meanwhile he won in 2004 and came close enough to steal the elections in 2000.
Besides the "You" is in plural. It is the level of America that still goes on about "Elites" after the non-elites proved to be so successful at screwing everything up this last few years.
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inkredulous
You might want to review that post.
Hillary is proposing the tax break. Obama is opposed to it.
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National trends
Frost ignores one basic trend that occurred during the tax suspension: prices at first did fall, but that's because prices went down for the rest of the nation as well! Doing a normalization and disentanglement of the state data to account for this price fluctuation -locally- is an exercise that should be taken with great caution and warnings, even if it is done by the top minds at NBER...