It’s been a while since I’ve done any single issue Nightly Ramble. A couple months, I believe. This won’t be one of them, but… let’s try it this way, just once and see how the format works. A longer subject at the lead, followed by some shorter ones. I just want to see how this looks.
I noticed something a couple of days ago that I think labels the Democrat attitude on taxes very well indeed. Gasoline taxes.
* I note with interest the continuing argument between the presidential candidates, as regards the question of whether or not we should suspend the federal gasoline tax, for the duration of this high price period. The Democrats, of course, being a tax-and-spend types they are, are totally against the idea of giving the little guy a break on taxes, with prices being so high at the pump. Families are struggling to make it by to keep both gasoline and the tank and food on the table just now. The Democrats, the party of the little guy, supposedly, aren’t interested in giving said little guy a break. To her credit, while she didn’t come up with the idea herself, at least Hillary Clinton has visibly been open to the idea, though the truth of that little ploy is that she plans to tax the oil companies to make up the difference, (Calling it windfall profits) instead of encouraging them to use the money to find and drill more oil, which in reality is the only way to solve the issue. It figures … a typical Clintonian move. Claim you’re doing something for the little guy, while you’re reaching around for his wallet. Where does she think those taxes on the oil companies are going to come from?
One of the stated objections I’ve seen floating around on the web the last 48 hours is that gas consumption will go up as prices drop.I’ll grant you that it might have a tendency to raise the amount of gasoline consumption some when the price goes down. However, since we are only talking about $.20 or so per gallon. I for one cannot imagine there being that great a difference in gasoline consumption on a price difference of that amount. I can’t help but think that that’s a rather fragile argument to be offering in support of a tax.
One of the other arguments I’ve seen floating about all of this, is the idea that those taxes are supposed to be used to maintain the roads. While that is technically true, let’s be honest enough to point out that those taxes a been used for everything but, particularly of that bridge up on 35W in Minneapolis is any indication.
Bruce McQuain [1] notes that Robert Byrd calls such a tax relief plan dangerous. He notes correctly that what’s really dangerous in Byrd’s view is the idea of actually being able to step away from a tax and having the public noting that the government doesn’t fall in on itself under those conditions. I should also make note of the fact that Obama is basically echoing Robert Byrd.
(An aside; personally, I would be very happy if Obama was out of the running utterly for several reasons… one of them just now is the idea that there isn’t a speech to text program around that can properly handle his name!…. at least, not without screwing up other parts of the vocabulary on record. Sigh)
Let’s remember too that Mr. Obama has been running rather loudly on one of his first priorities been to rescind the Bush tax cuts, thereby creating the largest tax hike in history. this seems to me of a piece with his insistence that gasoline taxes not be cut just now.
I’ll also point out that similar proposals have been floated up here in the vampire state. The reactions are similar; The State Democrats are dead set against it, saying it’ll throw their budget out of whack. Of course the possibility of spending less on govenmental largess to people who never pay into the system, never enters their heads. Like, it’s STARTED out of whack, which is exactly why the New York Budgets are famous for being months late, every stinking year.
If this affection for a tax-and-spend doesn’t label the Democrats as what they are, and cause some serious repercussions for them at the polls, I do not know what will.
Does it strike anybody is strange that we never hear any presidential candidate offer no new governmental program, no new level of tax-and-spend, no new 20 point plan, and no reaching into our pockets? Wherever such a candidate comes from, it clearly isn’t going to be coming from the Democrats anytime soon. Nor, alas, is it going to be coming from the Republicans in this cycle.
Speaking of which let’s deal with other matters.
- Yes, Patrick Hynes, I got your e-mail, and I know you’re sorry I feel that way [2]. Sorry, though means it won’t happen again, and I have to tell you, the chances of McCain not pissing off the base again seem between rather slim and invisible to me. Look around you, buddy, and you may notice that most of the people your guy, McCain, is claiming as friends are ready to take a bite out of his backside over this North Carolina ad thing. Michelle, Mary Kate, and any of a couple dozen major conservative voices screaming about this. I’m a fairly small timer, but I’ve been screaming about this one for days, now. My problem is this; McCain had a chance to some out swinging for the truth of the matter, and he backed down. I do not trust someone who places politics over truth. It’s that simple. Not many conservatives will, and that’s something you’re going to need to deal with. Does McCain actually care about the base, past some manipulation to keep himself in the running? You’d not be able to convince us based on this move. And yes, I know you’re reading here, just in case you thnk my trackers can’t follow this stuff and we can be ignored.
- Alex [3], do you really think John Cole lends any credibility to your argument? Trust me, he doesn’t. Your argument was lightweight enough as it was, it didn’t need the help.
- I make you a prediction should Obama ever attain the White House:. You may recall Jimmy Carter? I tell you now… Obama will make Carter look like a walk in the park.The blowback from the electorate will be commensurate with his performance. This has nothing to do with race, but with his marxist views, which seem to stand a fair chance of making it into his policy. Like Carter, the result will be landslides for Republicans for the next three cycles at least, I suspect that there will be those who will look askance at the candidacy of any black for quite a while by that same token. And that part’s sad, really. There’s a few blacks I’d like to see in that role. Doctor Sowell, for one. And yes, I know I’m opening myself up for charges that I’m racist, now. But look again, folks. I’m suggesting that an Obama Candidacy will not help the cause of advancing the plight of anyone at all, and blacks and other minorities particularly. A quick look at what happened under Carter, and what is happening under Crazy Uncle Hugo just now should be your clue on what I’m talking about. Robert Mugabe. Everywhere socialism has been advanced under the guise of helping the Black population, the exact opposite has occurred. Those who don’t learn from history, are Democrats.
[4]I do wonder how many people are going to find Barrack Obama’s imitation of Claude Raines… “I am Shocked.. SHOCKED… to find that Reverend Wright is such a screaming racist” a credible one. Remember, these are people who would like very much for us to give Obama the benefit of the doubt… but frankly to do that I have to igniore all the evidence in front of me. The people who want me to ignore this evdience were the very same, who as Boortz points out today, weren’t too interested in giving Fuzzy Zoeller the benefit of the doubt not long ago… or come to think of it, Trent Lott before that, and Thurmond before him… yet swallow the line of Robert Byrd that he’s no longer a racist. The bottom line is that nothing that Wright said at the National Press Club the other day has revealed anything new. There is, therefore, only one believable reason for the change in the senator’s attitude toward Reverend Wright and that is that the senator finds himself in trouble. He’s found himself in a position where he needs to toss someone under the bus. Since the guy he called his freind, his mentor, and his spiritual advisor stood between himself and political power, guess which he chose? You take that as you will, but the way I get it figured there’s no way in the world that Obama could possibly have not known that Wright was the way he is. He’s been preaching that nonsense for 20 years now, because that’s what he was taught to preach at the feet of one James Cone. If we are to take the Senator at his earlier word, we must accept the idea that he’s been sitting in the pews for the last 20 years, and enabling this racist, and believing what he says. Frankly, that doesn’t strike me as an overly attractive presidential candidate. Then again, I’m not a Marxist, either. Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air [5] raises the question as to whether or not Obama’s repudiation of Jeremiah Wright has lanced that particular boil. Obviously my answer is no it has not. Even assuming that the act of his was credible to enough people to sway the electorate as a whole, there’s simply not enough time to make it work. He’s got two more primaries, and he’s got to play to them within the next week, neither one of which he’s doing well in, and believe me when I tell you that numbers drop off a lot faster than they go up. A fair enough example of numbers dropping rapidly via stupid actions on the part of the candidate would be Howard Dean, Mike Dukakis. And yes, the aforementioned Jimmy Carter.- I mentioned the other day about how Al Franken owes a lot in back taxes and in workers comp bills. Apparently the Minneapolis Star Tribune [6]has been doing some further research on the subject and they now say that he owes something on the order of $70,000 in back taxes in 17 states. Maybe it’s just me, but that doesn’t strike me as overly attractive senatorial candidate. Nor, frankly, does it strike me as even remotely credible when he talks about how we’re supposed to be spending tax dollars, when he refuses to contribute to the system. But then what do I know, he’s just a comedian, after all. Isn’t that what he’s been saying about Limbaugh? Now, you watch. Franken will claim it’s all just an accounting error, and unintentional. (Update: Confirmed [7]. Apparently, Franken has his Willie Nelson imitation down pat. )
- Oh, speaking of Limbaugh… I can’t get a show at work, (Who designed this place to be RF tight?) but I did notice some chatter on the wires about how he had called an operational pollens in Operation Chaos. [8] Frankly, I’m loving this stuff. There is a reason that the foulmouthed, weak minded crowd over at air America doesn’t try this, They couldn’t alter the course of an election if they tried. Trust me, they’d ahve tried if they thought they could do it. They simply don’t have the listenership. Well, perhaps that’s not fair. Limbaugh after all isn’t altering the course of an election, he’s altering the course of a primary, which is a substantially different item. It’s interesting, though, that so many that were waving the flag over open primaries, are now suddenly mute on the subject. I will guarantee you that as a result of operation Chaos, there will be a great number of calls over the next four years for closing those primaries in the various states, and much in the way of legislation moving in that direction. Laws, and ideas, are only valid in the eyes of the Democrat, when they help the Democrat party.