This is significant for a number of reasons. Miller is a senior Democrat, he is a close ally of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, he heads up the Democratic Policy Committee (which Pelosi personally appointed him to), and is a House committee chair. He is a significant and powerful member of Congress, not just some guy. And he's blasting Hillary's gas tax plan (which is John McCain's plan that she simply stole), he's comparing her to John McCain, and he's calling her out for threatening members of Congress (she basically told members of Congress that she was going to force a vote and try to embarrass them - embarrass Democrats in Congress on a vote that Republicans could use against our own members of Congress in the fall elections - if they didn't support her kooky GOP political stunt of a proposal).
So Hillary's plan to foment a civil war in the Democratic party moves along as planned. Now, in addition to disenfranchising blacks and alienating the Netroots (and its messaging and fundraising potential), Hillary is now starting a civil war between herself and Dems in Congress - something the media will love. But you know what? The DNC and the Dems in Congress seem to be just fine with that. They're fine letting Hillary rip the party apart even though she's already lost the nomination, and can give us no scenario by which she wins the nomination. So now we can spend the next month-plus with the media focusing on how the Democratic party is falling apart at the seams and on the verge of civil war. Hope you're all happy, because it's only going to get worse (I promise you). And in the meantime, none of us are focusing on John McCain. And we won't, until the adults step in and put a stop to Hillary's madness. She lost. It's time for her to go away.
Here is Miller's statement:
“The call by Sens. Clinton and McCain to temporarily suspend the federal tax on gasoline is a short-sighted stunt that will hurt consumers and do nothing to reduce the price of gas.
“American consumers and our economy need a real solution to the energy crisis, not an empty trick. You can run cars on a lot of different fuels, but snake oil isn’t one of them.
“In the hopes of winning votes, the Senators are preying on consumers’ justified anxiety about the economy without offering a solution to their real problems. There’s nothing in our history to indicate that oil companies will pass on any savings to the consumer. So despite the McCain and Clinton gas tax holiday, the price at the pump will continue to rise and oil companies will take even more of the profit.
“My constituents are reeling from the highest gas prices in the country. But they understand that we can only break the oil chokehold and bring prices down by investing in highways and mass transit, new technology, renewable energy, and energy efficiency.
“Siphoning off the political energy from these necessary steps to focus instead on a plan that some political consultants favor is cynical politics. Taking a break from the federal gas tax and the hundreds of thousands of jobs it produces is harmful to the long-term economic well-being of our country.
“Sen. Clinton knows it is not easy to pass a windfall profits tax on oil companies. We have been trying to rein in record oil profits for years, and the House has repeatedly passed legislation to roll unjustified federal oil subsidies and invest instead in renewable energy – but President Bush and Senate Republicans have blocked us. Some of the subsidies we are trying to eliminate started under President Bill Clinton’s administration.
“Sen. Clinton is trying to intimidate members of Congress into validating her bad policy prescriptions. Congress should reject her and Sen. McCain’s idea. Relief from soaring gas prices will only come from smart investments and real change in our energy policy.”
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