Letters to the Editor
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A bad analysis of a bad plan. Here is why.
There are a couple of trememendous flaws in George Frost's analysis of the Clinton gas tax elimination plan.
The first is the assumption that the infrastructure improvement funds which come from the gas tax will necessarily be replaced with a tax on windfall oil profits. Simply put, those are two separate things- an existing tax which can be easily cut (something which Republicans will cheerfully assist any president in doing in a heartbeat) and second, a windfall tax which Republicans will fight tooth and nail- and have already succeded in blocking once before- in the middle of a Democrat-controlled House and Senate!
It is all too likely that Republicans presented with such a two-step plan would "compromise" by allowing the tax cut and blocking the windfall tax, leaving us with an even more neglected infrastructure of crumbling roads and bridges.
That same crumbling infrastructure- which needs to be repaired with funds that ultimately must come out of the public pocket, one way or another- may be one of the reasons why Obama stated that the consumer ultimately did not save as a consequence of his own experiment with eliminating the gas tax.
Even in the best-case scenario on record (which Frost so happily provided), consumers wound up losing a whopping forty percent of the savings they were supposed to get as a consequence of the tax's removal- which means that, even in the best case scenario, consumers will save far less in the short-term than Clinton claimed.
It gets worse. Oil companies have not shown the slightest inclination- even while garnering record profits- to release the gasoline inventories which Frost claims they will release to absorb any increase in demand while keeing prices stable. on the contrary, Mr. Andrew Leonard of How The World Works has released several articles stating that the failure of oil companies to do so may be an indication that they no longer have confidence in their ability to match increased demand with increased supply. If that is true, they certainly will not release their inventories when the price of oil can continue to rise to astronomical levels. And the Clinton tax cut plan makes no requirement that they do so.
So where does that leave us? Well, it leaves us with the choice between a two-step plan which may backfire spectacularly (Clinton's) and the single-step plan which Barack Obama has been advocating for months- keep the gas tax to repair our infrastructure, and push as hard as possible for a windfall tax on oil companies so that eventually we can break the Republican gridlock.
That may seem ironic, considering Clinton's posturing as a 'partisan' Democrat and Obama's as a 'unifying' Democrat, but it is consistent with their political careers on the whole- Obama held fast when it counted the most, while Clinton got hoodwinked, even when chorues of people tried to give her good advice. Ultimately, some experts are better than others.
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If Hillary ...
... truly wants a gas tax, why doesn't she bring a bill to the floor of the Senate and push it through?
I thought she was about solutions.
I thought she was against cheap rhetoric.
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State gas taxes are paid at the pump, federal are not -- It's a BIG difference
The big difference between what was done in Illinois (and supported by Obama) and what Clinton/McCain is proposing (not supported by Obama) is that state levied gas taxes are paid at the pump. The federal fuel tax is paid by the oil companies out of revenues (profits).
Now, let's assume you're an oil company and you're told, "Hey, you know that 18 cents/galloon you've been paying us? Well, keep it." Where do you think that additional profit is going to go? To the shareholders, not to consumers.
So, suspending a state tax will create an immediate drop in fuel prices. Suspending federal fuel taxes will only further enrich the oil companies and make zero difference at the pump.
If we really wanted to be able to manipulate the price of fuel in some meaningful way, the only option is nationalizing the oil industry. But people don't care about lower fuel prices THAT much.
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George Frost is Sidney Blumenthal's alias
Just a guess.
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Wasted breathe
A lawyer tells how right a plan about economics is that ALL economists explain, in laymen terms, is wrong. Rather than avoid the coming shit-flinging comment section outburst, Salon posts it as a headline article. I am sad. Finally, I can ask(with no facetiousness) a liberal publication as to why they hate their country.
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George..bravo for the courage
As a fellow Berkley resident I congratulate you. Bravo.
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No, he's right
How many people did Joan phone before she found one who would make such an ludicrous argument?
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OMG! My BS Filter Just Redlined!
Hoo Boy! Another pander surrogate just weighed in.
Let me first promise -- If Billary manages to steal this nomination (An outcome which seems increasingly unlikely as the uncommitted delegate count dwindles and the inexorable mathematics takes hold) I will not vote for her under any circumstances. I will not vote for the vile past which has brought this great country to such a sad pass.
As to the panderer's "gas tax vacation" -- In the first place, it is DOA because, fortunately, rational people are still in control of Congress and so this particular piece of BS will simply not happen, ol' shot and a beer Hillary's finger-to-the-wind politics notwithstanding. In the second place, we don't need to be removing 10 billion dollars from the highway trust fund at this point because we need that money to keep more bridges from falling down (as happened in Minnesota last year, if you recall).
In 3 weeks, just after Memorial Day, I will make a 2,500 mile trip from Youngstown, OH to San Francisco, CA. I just did a calculation on what my maximum fuel savings might be given an 18 cent reduction per gallon times 83 gallons on my 30MPG 2002 Ford Focus. Here it is. Wait for it! A grand total of $14.94 on an estimated total cost of $332 (based on a likely average of 4 bucks per gallon). That would be a gigantic savings of 4.5%! Woo Hoo! This is assuming that the oil companies wouldn’t raise their prices pretty much immediately to grab that measly 18 cent sliver back for themselves, which they would undoubtedly do.
What a goddam insult to a working man’s intelligence! I may not be a lawyer, but I know my grade school math and I know how to use it to determine when someone’s trying to hoodwink me.
My god! Anyone with half a brain should be able to see through the absurdity and phoniness of such a political ploy! Now comes this little twerp Frost with his 11th hour sh*t-spewing spectacle in the face of overwhelming and rationally based objections to this latest Clintonian farce.
Ol' loose crotch Bubba and his co-dependent need to move on back to Arkansas to a nice trailer park, retire, and rail against the elitists who are all in favor of evolution and science and other dastardly signs of rationality.
I am hopeful that, come the convention in Denver, it will be officially “Adios Clintonistas.”
GO OBAMA! OBAMA’S MY MAN! He is going to be our next president because he’s the only one of the three remaining contestants who is truly qualified for the job. He’s got the smarts, he’s got the character and he’s got the vision to tackle the immense problems that immediately face this great nation, greatest of all nations.