Memo to GOP: Eliminate all gas/oil taxes now
By gamecock Posted in Archived — Comments (7) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Originally posted at The Minority Report
The rise in the price of energy is hurting the economy. It is pushing up the price of necessities like gasoline, heating oil and food. It is greatly reducing the standard of living for low income families and the middle class. It threatens to push the US economy into recession.
Very soon, the Democratic Party will seize upon this issue and propose policies that they claim will help the poor, but which will actually hurt them. They will play class warfare politics and they will demonize heartless republicans and the media will help they play this game as they have for over 75 years.
Again, the GOP is looking at a softball they could hit for a home run and go a long way towards refuting the lie the liberals have make conventional wisdom, i.e. that the GOP doesn't "care" about the poor. Of course, the results of our policies refute the charge. But the perception persists because we are too polite and wait to react.
GO ON OFFENSE FOR ONCE FOR GOD'S SAKE!
To whom does the rooster crow?
President Bush, John McCain, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner in the District. All GOP governors in the States.
Please beat the democrats to the punch for once.
End all taxes on gasoline and heating oil. End subsidies for ethanol.
State and federal.
And while you are at it, push for opening up new areas for oil drilling and reducing regulations on nuclear power and oil refineries.
Americans face the possibility of $4 per gallon oil.
Food prices are rising.
CALLER: Rush, I've been in business for 30 years. I've been successful. I have been delivering food to the state of Delaware economically, spectacularly, winning awards. My credentials are impeccable. I can't bring the food any more to the table at the price I'm bringing it because of Delmarva Power & Light, which is really not their fault, it's our governor. It's Joe Biden. These people are out of their minds, Rush. We don't need free health care. That is not the problem in this country. We're being crippled with energy. We can't bring oil out of ANWR, we can't drill off your estate at Palm Beach. No one wants to look at a derrick.
RUSH: I wouldn't mind.
CALLER: I know you wouldn't mind. But there's something crazy taking place. The price of my kilowatt is a dime because they want to take the CO2 and put it into a cave and save it. They can deliver it at three cents. American Electric Power has been in business for a hundred years. They know what to do. Governors telling them what to do, how to build the plant, not to use coal, demonizing oil, a woman named Jane Fonda sits on a cannon and stops an entire world from delivering nuclear power with this movie she made --
RUSH: Exactly right. In fact, I watched a little bit of that yesterday. It was on HDNet movie --
CALLER: How does this happen, Rush? How does this happen?
RUSH: Fear.
CALLER: How do intelligent Americans allow -- why can't we build nuclear? We can create 40,000 jobs by bringing oil in from ANWR. We bring it by a pipeline, not with a tanker, no spill, no Exxon Valdez. What is going on, Rush?
RUSH: What's going on, it is --
CALLER: Twenty-nine states with 29 different grades of gasoline? We're paying over three dollars for regular. Rush, I don't care. I got the money. I drive only 12-cylinder cars.
RUSH: Thank God.
CALLER: I wouldn't put my grandchildren in no little mini-boxes. But I'm not talking about me, and I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about working America. They think they need free health care? They need two dollar a gallon gas, this country will explode. They're heating their houses. You think there's a subprime crisis, Rush? Yes, there's a subprime crisis. That's not the problem. People bought a house they thought their energy was going to be $250. They get a bill, it's $385. They go to the gas station, they spend another $40, so they stop coming out to my restaurant. They stop buying 24/7. They don't buy a newsletter. Rush, there is a domino effect taking place. It's energy. We bring down the price of a plasma television set. I bought one for $10,000, a Fujitsu. It's now $1,100.
RUSH: I've been there.
CALLER: We bring down the price of phones. We bring down the price of computers. Why do we bring up the price of energy? Why do you allow the Sierra Club to run this country? What is going on? These people are walking through the country and telling us to go on a bicycle? I need Larry David to drive around for four years in Curb Your Enthusiasm with a Prius? What is going on, Rush? We're out of our mind. People are calling up and saying he's liberal, he's conservative, he's this, he's that. They're driving themselves into a barrel. They're not going to get out, the Bo Snerdleys of the world. I'm talking about young couples. I've got two boys. They're trying to bring children up. They're getting energy bills that are knocking their homes out of sight. Nothing, nothing is more important than to bring -- energy is what makes this world tick. We're beholden to Chavezes and Castros and Putins; we want to go dig here, dig there. Can you dig in Alaska? Oh, no, we're going to kill a caribou. This is nonsense. This doesn't make any sense. How do we allow these idiots to get on television and talk about foreign oil? There is no -- Rush, you have got to lead a charge. It is not that McCain is reaching over the aisle, he's a global warmer
Redstaters, our prosperity is at risk. We can't wait till January 21, 2009 to address this. Action is vital now.
Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
The HinzSight Report
The Minority Report
Race 4 2008
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
And the NS mind, as you have caused me to change mine quite a lot. Your agreement on this makes GC crow!
Mike "Gamecock" DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
If the rules are transparent and clear, and if the state has no authority to license businesses or restrict exports and imports, there will be no opportunities to pay bribes in those areas. Mart Laar
Mike "Gamecock" DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
http://thehinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
www.race42008.com
"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson
It is only when people stop using energy wastefully and indiscriminately, and start making economic choices regarding its use, that the price begins to reflect the commodity's true value.
From 1984 to 2004, the price of gasoline, taxes included, was much less than its economic value. I can only conclude that the economic value of gasoline is somewhere north of $3.00.
This is reflected here at RedState: everybody & their brother blogs about gasoline when the price is $3.00 plus. Below $2.75, it's a less popular topic than athlete's foot.
Gasoline reached its (still) highest real cost ever in 1981. At that point, crude oil price controls and the windfall profits tax were still in effect. Prices are only now beginning to approach those levels. With the growth in income levels, a household's energy outlay is less than it was in 1981. Source for the graph below.
There are real steps the country could take to help the domestic energy supply situation. Open access to the Outer Continental Shelf and areas like ANWR and Alaska offshore. Use common sense in balancing the reproductive rights of the sage grouse and the pronghorn antelope with mineral development. [Just today, my firm turned down a proposal to participate in a Rocky Mountain project in large measure because BLM restrictions mean drilling and construction can only happen four months per year.] Set national policy such that anal-retentive federal and state bureaucrats do not have the power to indefinitely delay oil and gas development. Realize that oil industry profitability is a good thing. The more money that can be made in the oil business, the more capital will flow into the industry, resulting in more wells being drilled and therefore more plentiful supply.
American companies aren't the enemy. 70 to 80% of the world's reserves are in the hands of national oil companies, mostly in countries hostile to the U.S.
Sorry to disagree, GC. Taxes aren't the problem. If we eliminate gasoline taxes completely but don't do anything about the problems above, then we just stimulate demand, and in a few months we'll be right back where we are now.
There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life. - Frank Zappa
What if the elasticity of demand isn't enough that the tax cuts will increase use of oil by all that much? Then the tax cuts will benefit people without leaving us in the same situation later.
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"If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work." – Barry Goldwater
I got into a discussion with a individual just two days ago about dropping oil and turning to "alternative" fuels like ethanol. So we "grow" our fuels? And when needed crops aren't there because of flood, drought, or disease then what? We either return to oil or turn to other countries. His argument was on getting away from Saudi oil, so now we turn to Brazilian ethanol? Aren't they in the same boat as us? One bad season or crop and again, then what? Food prices are already rising because of corn and sugar cane fuel processing. I say better the devil you know than the devil you don't.
--roxer
I agree on the taxes:
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"If we want to take this party back, and I think we can someday, let’s get to work." – Barry Goldwater