Hillary's for it, Obama's against it.
I'm talking about the suspension of the 18 cent federal tax on gas for the summer driving season.
Opponents of the plan say the savings, "will only amount to $30."
Not in Texas it won't.
Add our 20 cent per gallon state tax to that 18 cent federal tax and you see a 38 cent per gallon savings. On a 15-gallon tank, that amounts to a savings of $5.70 per tank.
Based on one tank a week over a three month period, I'd save about $70.
Opponents bawl that it's a gimmick; that the tax revenues are essential for highway infrastructure, blah, blah, blah.
Hillary said the oil companies should pay for it by means of a windfall profit tax.
Obama said they'd just raise prices.
So? Tax them on that, too.
Since when does the legislature lack the ability to levy new taxes on corporations?
Has it been so long since Americans heard the term "windfall profit tax" that we've forgotten it exists as an option?
Saving $70 might not seem like much to some, but it's enough to pay my water bill for 2.5 months.
It's enough to pay for a weeks' worth of groceries.
It's enough to add seven new CD's to my collection.
It's enough to pay for baby Jake's neutering.
It's enough to pay for 25 car washes and vacuums at the local do-it-yourself place.
Some of you may be behind Obama on rejecting the summer relief on gas taxes. That's fine with me--that's your prerogative.
But since that $70 savings means something to me, would you mind stuffing an envelope with a 50 and a 20 and mailing it to me?
Thanks, honey.
16 comments:
Saving the federal gas tax this summer is a great idea! Maybe I CAN take that trip to Yellowstone with the kids this year! I'm gonna vote for the only candidate who has shown any true understanding of what us regular Americans are going through: John Sidney McCain!!!! Go Republicans!!!
That's real nice, anonymous.
Perhaps after you explain to my readers exactly why you think that senile old son of a bitch deserves to be president and continue the Bush line of treasonous insanity, then you can take your kids to the nearest military recruiter and sign them up for Iraq. No worries if they aren't old enough- with your boy McCain in office, you can be assured that the war will still be going on when they are ready.
As for understanding what true Americans are going through, I'm sure the son of an admiral who was educated in boarding schools all his life and ended up marrying a mega-millionaire knows so fucking much about average Americans.
By all means, explain your choice to us. I'd love to see the rationale for voting for a man who calls his wife a cunt.
I like your photo. I wonder how much that guy stands to save with a 18 cent per gallon savings this summer. Oh wait, maybe nothing. He probably doesn't buy gas. Man, that's crazy! Imagine trying to get around under your own power and not (or minimally) contributing to the petro-economy. What planet is he from?
p.s. Please don't confuse me with the other anonymous poster. McCain is the worst choice facing us in Nov. 2008.
Obama has yet to offer an alternative. All he does is poo-poo the idea. At least Clinton is offering *something*. If Obama doesn't think it's a good idea, then he should not only state why, but then offer us a different approach. I haven't seen either.
It's getting fucking ridiculous. We both traded in our SUVs for 4-cylinder PT Cruisers for better gas mileage and thanks to the out-of-control gas hikes, we're paying over $43 for a tank. Could you imagine if we still had our SUVs?
I doubt they can get this passed by summer anyway. You know how fucked up Congress is--it'll be fillibuster city.
Besides, using more gas because the price finally goes down isn't really that great an idea either. I do agree with Hillary that we need to end this corporate welfare system we've got in place--start taxing the fuck out of the oil companies, then use the increased revenue to build more refineries.
Of course, the hippie in me says "GO SOLAR." But whatev.
I think Baby Jake just threw his support behind Obama.
Who said anything about "using more gas"?
Does anyone really think saving 38 cents a gallon is gonna make any of us want to jump in our cars and drive cross country?
Let's not drink the Kool-aid and believe all the noise we're hearing. It's pretty simple- do we want a little temporary relief on summer gas prices or don't we?
No, I asked Baby Jake and he said he wants Hillary because I read him a bedtime story about Socks the Whitehouse cat.
Besides, Obama's married to that Rottweiler and they don't like kittens, except to eat them.
I like you're thinking about saving the 20 cents state tax above the 18 cent US tax. Of course that would have to be passed by your governor and the congress in Texas, right? Here in big sky country, we could be saving 46cents per gallon with that reasoning. My tank holds about 25 gallons, so that's almost 10 bucks per tank! My Chevy Suburban get about 12 MPG/14 MPG so roundtrip to Yellowstone would save me about 30 bucks. Sweet!
I don't understand you people. If you all want lower taxes, gas and otherwise, vote for John McCain! He already says he won't raise taxes and will even cut them. All the democrat party wants to do is raise taxes higher and higher for everybody.
Texas is already on board with the plan to suspend the 20 cent tax if the feds suspend their part.
You must be kidding about "if we want lower taxes, we should vote for McCain."
First of all, the GOP tends to *maybe* lower taxes a few cents for us normal people, but then they lower the FUCK out of taxes for corporations and the richest of the rich. The trickle down theory was exposed years ago as a pile of bullshit. Keep up!
You cannot lower taxes and wage war at the same time without ruining the economy, haven't you made that observation yet?
You think it's wise that Bush has borrowed trillions of dollars from communist China to fund this war?
You think we can afford to keep doing that?
Wake up- seriously.
The economic policies of the GOP and especially these neo-cons have been the worst in modern history.
You seem to prefer paying $4 for a gallon of gas and $5 for a gallon of milk in exchange for the 'promise' that the GOP will cut your taxes by a percentage point or two, which will result in savings so negligible they in no way will compensate for rising comsumer costs.
Rather than relying on hackneyed cliches like "tax and spend Democrats" why don't you do some independent thinking for yourself and make an honest assessment of the job the GOP has been doing for the last seven years?
Here are a few points to ponder:
Ignoring the constitution
Nation building
Condoning torture
Invading sovereign nations
Condoning treason (outing a CIA agt)
Sqandering the surplus
No Child left behind
Stem cell research
Katrina
Stop-loss deployments
Inadequate treatment of veterans
Global warming
No bin Laden
Unfunded mandates
Failed diplomacy
...and so much more.
What exactly HAS the GOP party done that's right for America?
These days, we Democrats have far more traditional American values than these sociopath fascists in office.
Anyone who can still support them has to have some serious character/morality issues. Either that, or they are too numb to notice reality from political sloganeering.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOO
OOOOO
O
Whooooosh......
kz...
here i will disagree with you
suspending the gas tax is a bad idea
i know that the $70-$80 you save could pay for a water bill or some other bills
but the downside is pretty bad
1. people will top their tanks off al the time thinking they are getting a bargain (the psychological part of economics) -- more gas will be sold - upping demand, upping prices.
2. if you tax the oil companies to make up the difference (and they should be taxed up the kazoo) they will just raise the prices. they are corporations beholden to a board of directors -- they care about profits not people.
3. the hole created by the lack of tax dollars wont be filled by the oil companies. a lot of that gas tax goes to road maintenance -- watch tolls and other taxes go up to replace that money.
4. there is actually a silver lining to the high gas prices --- people should cut gas consumption, should conserve, this can hopefully give incentive to find alternative fuels, maybe GM can get off their fat asses and develop an engine that gets 70 mpg.
4. watch what happens when the tax gets re-started and the prices have already gone up due to increase demand and oil companies covering their tax burden
i hate the high prices, i HATE the oil companies and the tax breaks they get, they should lose their breaks. but we should be building better engines, should be using solar energy.
this is pandering pure and simple -- yes $70 is good for you, and you deserve it AND MORE. instead of cutting the tax they should just mail everyone with a car $50.
bush has so fucked this economy, gimmicks like this, while good politics are actually really bad economics. we are in this oil situation because of Iraq, our sabre-rattling at iran, speculators playing the market with our emotions (think california energy during Enron - think the phony rice shortage)
there are 2 things that need to be done
1. get off arab oil
2. get bush in shackles and to be someone's girlfriend in abu graibh
signed
d-cap
MA, Economics, NYU, 1983
D-Cap, thank you for taking the time to provide us with a reasonable rationale for skipping the state and federal tax breaks on gas for the summer.
However, I think American consumers have suffered long enough, and even a largely symbolic, temporary gesture is warranted.
A three-month period won't cause oil companies and infrastructures to collapse.
After 7 and a half years of getting corn-holed by the feds, I think a lot of us would welcome even a tiny gesture like this.
All I know is this:
some very nice group blogs went fucking nuts over this gas tax shit and had some very nasty blog wars with other blogs over it.
that my friends is bullshit. If we attack our own over a fucking "idea" we are no better than the neocons.
I think we can do without the friggin symbolism...we need something major to be done about alternative energy and getting off Angry Arab Oil. So I toss my lot in with what DCap said.
And like the nastyness that transpired between Corrente and Sadly No, I pray to Buddha we don't see it here on Zippy's blog. :)
We only import 17% of our oil from "the Arabs," (aka OPEC).
I truly believe gas prices have more than tripled since Bush got into office because all of his cabinet members had ties to various large corporations who've profited mightily in the last 7 years.
Condi was with Standard Oil.
Cheney was with Halliburton.
Rumsfeld was with Pfizer.
The list goes on.
I think BushCo had a master plan to line the nests of their favorite corporate giants, and they used the war in Iraq to accomplish their goal.
The gas tax suspension, to me, is a bad idea only due to the programs that would lose funding. While Bush is in office, you can be sure social and education programs would be the ones tapped for the loss. I'd rather pay $.18 a gallon (and donate generously) so Midnight Basketball programs could give inner city youths something positive to occupy their time. I'd also like to ensure that he pro-choice organizations can continue education about the option a woman has when faced with an unexpected pregnancy. I can support a woman's informed decision to abortion a lot more than an undereducated decision to do so.
State taxes are another matter, and are usually spent on schools and road improvements. Again, I'd rather spent the $.50 a gallon making sure the local kids know where Iraq is (and that they don't ever wanna fucking go there) and that my vehicle won't be swallowed up by a sinkhole spawned from Winter's Wrath.
I also think the Federal government should worry more about defending our borders than liberating countries where women are treated like property, even in a democracy. Let each state have more of a say of what goes on. And counties should have more of a say than states. Then again, I like my government small and my liberties large.
Meh, it's still better than Canada for now.
Post a Comment