And the benefit to consumers? About $28. We can't afford more Republican economics like this. This article is only for the state of Washington so imagine this across the US.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., is chairwoman of the Senate Transportation Appropriations subcommittee and has endorsed Clinton. She doesn't support a federal gas tax suspension.
"She has a firsthand look at what's going on with our transportation systems, our roads and our bridges, and from her perspective, this is bad idea," said her spokeswoman, Alex Glass.
There's no guarantee that the plan would result in lower gas prices, but it would deteriorate highway funding, Glass said.
"The gas tax funds the Highway Trust Fund, and there are a number of critical infrastructure needs -- roads and bridges across the country -- that need to be maintained and repaired," she said. "We just can't afford to have crumbling infrastructure."
First we must solicit your confidence in this issue. This is by virtue as being utterly confidential and "top secret".
We are SENATOR HILLARY CLINTON, the wife of the former United States head of state, PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON, and also SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN, friend and associate of current head of state PRESIDENT GEORGE W BUSH. We got your contact through business inquiries as we were searching for contacts of a citizen who can help save our and our family's political careers since our country has been frustrating us.
We are top officials of the United States Senate Government who are interested in importation of oil into our country with funds that are presently trapped in the FEDERAL TRANSPORTATION TRUST FUND dedicated to improving transportation. We wish to send this money to overseas accounts in the MIDDLE EAST but cannot due to restrictions in Congress Transportation Equity Act requiring that this money must be spent to build roads, bridges and high speed trains.
If you accept we will deliver to your a sum of 30 DOLLARS in the summer 2008 in form of a "GAS TAX HOLIDAY". You will then deliver this money to accounts of our friends in Middle East by taking it to your nearby gasoline station where they have information to forward the money. Please supply your bank account, social security number, address and your vote in DEMOCRATIC PRIMARIES AND NOVEMBER GENERAL ELECTION.
But bear in mind that this transaction requires absolute confidentiality. Do not visit WWW.GASTAXSCAM.COM where there is information about dangers of our proposal and a petition to stop us from this diversion of funds.
PLEASE NOTIFY US URGENTLY OF YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF THIS PROPOSAL
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.”
Of course, in 2000, Hillary opposed her gas tax plan too. (In all fairness, it's John McCain's gas tax plan. Hillary simply stole it.) Does she really think that, were she to steal the nomination, the GOP wouldn't have a field with "Hillary is a flip-flopping liar" ads in the fall? On issue after issue, from guns to NAFTA to this gas tax, Hillary shifts her position with each new poll, hoping voters won't notice that all of her previous positions contradict her current one. People aren't stupid. They're going to figure out that Hillary appears to lie about everything. I mean, she's got enough baggage already. Half the public already hates her, then she's going to have to deal with the Republicans bringing up Monica and all of Hillary's own scandals, like Whitewater and the cattle futures. And now she's branding herself a serial liar. This isn't the definition of electable. It's the definition of a train wreck.
Here is President Clinton at a press conference in 2000 explaining that a gas tax holiday would not pass the savings to the consumer:
Q. Mr. President, in light of the fact that OPEC has decided to increase production, do you see it as a mistake for the Senate to proceed with a bill that would suspend the gas tax? And if it reached your desk, would you veto it?
A. Well, I don’t expect it to reach my desk because there seems to be bipartisan opposition to it in the House, including among the leadership. But the problem I have with it, apart from what it might do to the Highway Trust Fund and the spending obligations that have already been incurred by the acts of Congress, the budgets, is that I’m not sure that the savings would be passed along to the consumers in addition to that. So I think there are a lot of questions about it. But I don’t expect it to pass.
I'm watching the video of the "Townhall Meeting" that ABC's George Stephanopoulos held for Hillary this morning and it's astounding how bad Stephanopoulos is. Let me give you two prime examples.
1. Gas tax.
Stephanopoulos' first question is about Hillary's plan to rescind the gas tax this summer. Does he tell the audience, or ask Hillary about, the fact that she opposed rescinding the gas tax - she opposed her own proposal - when running for the Senate in 2000? No. That would be the hardest question of all to answer, the question that goes to the issue of her credibility on this and every other issue, and Stephanopoulos doesn't even mention it. Here is George's really tough question for Hillary:
STEPHANOPOULOS: Good to be here.
Gas tax has become the defining issue in this primary and in North Carolina. You and Senator McCain called for suspending the 18.4 cent federal gas tax. Senator Obama calls it a gimmick. He says it's pandering. He says it won't really bring any help to consumers, and he also said this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: Same thing that John McCain's offering on the cheap. That means we're not presenting a truthful response to the challenges that we face in America.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: What's your response? He says you're not being truthful.
He says? How about "YOU SAID during your first campaign?" Jesus, George. Come on.
2. NAFTA.
Hillary totally rolled over Stephanopoulos on this one. She started by saying, oh George, during the 1990s you and I were in meetings where we both opposed NAFTA. Stephanopoulos says nothing. Not only does he tacitly agree with her claim that he was in meetings with her and that she did oppose NAFTA in those meetings - which is a lie - he doesn't respond by telling us what actually happened in those meetings, that Hillary was such a NAFTA booster it wasn't even funny (see the video below), and worse, he doesn't note that Hillary publicly embraced NAFTA during her time in the White House. They have her on film doing it. Stephanopoulos doesn't even note that she's again flip-flopped on the issue. Hillary lied in front of Stephanopoulos on national TV, invoked Stephanopoulos' name to "prove" she was telling the truth, and Stephanopolous said nothing when he knew for a fact that she was lying.
Here's a video showing just how much of a NAFTA booster Hillary was in the 1990s:
And here's the video of Hillary rolling Stephanopoulos, invoking his name to "prove" her point against Obama, and him saying nothing in response, including him not even noting that she publicly came out for NAFTA in the 1990s. Also note how 42 seconds into the video it seems, suddenly, that Stephanopoulos has come to life. He's going to ask her about her flip-flop, about the fact that she's lying, invoking his name to prove her lie, and he isn't going to stand for it! But then he doesn't:
Now here's the transcript of that video:
CLINTON: Now, you remember this, because George did work in that '92 campaign, and George and I actually were against NAFTA. I'm talking about him in his previous life, before he was an objective journalist and didn't have opinions about such matters.
(LAUGHTER)
STEPHANOPOULOS: (inaudible) opinion.
CLINTON: Yes, but we were in meetings together where we said, look, we think there's going to be a lot of downsides, and we're not really thinking through that.
But in the 20th century and until relatively late in the 20th century, we dominated the world economy. And we had an...
STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator, what...
CLINTON: ... opportunity to really see our jobs grow here by being smart about how we traded.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But Senator...
CLINTON: But then we've got to make changes.
STEPHANOPOULOS: ... you really have it both ways there. You talked about being against NAFTA in 1992, 1993. Yet President Clinton has said time and time again, NAFTA and free trade agreements were part of the economic success in the 1990s. How can you claim credit for the good things but not take blame for the bad?
Now do you understand why we have a problem with you, George? Now do the rest of you in the media understand what we mean when we talk about bias? When we talk about how you people have no spine whatsoever? How you've become court stenographers rather than reporters? You know the truth, you know these people are lying, and you say nothing to stop them, to contradict them, to put them on the spot. And in so doing, you are complicit in these people lying to the public with your stamp of approval. and you wonder why so many Americans have lost faith in the media.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has come out strongly against the idea of a gas tax holiday, versions of which are being proposed by Sens. Clinton and McCain:
"First of all, there's no reason to believe that any moratorium on the gas tax will be passed onto the consumer, first and foremost. This has not been the history, of a lowered gas tax being passed onto the consumer. Second of all, it would defeat everything we've been trying to do to lower the cost of oil. ... There are other remedies that are much better than that, and again, have a direct impact on the problem that we're trying to solve. I think the biggest answer to our challenges is to invest in renewable energy resources and to do it now."
The advocates of a "gas tax holiday" are exaggerating the benefits to consumers from their proposal. If the Illinois experience is a guide, there is likely to be some reduction in the price of gas, but it would fall well short of the size of the tax reduction. In order to pay for the tax cut, the government would have to cut back on highway construction and maintenance or find some other way of plugging the shortfall in revenues to the Highway Trust Fund.
During my recent visit to the US, I was shocked at how empty a local Macy's was just a few weeks before Christmas. I walked in to a nearly empty store (on a weekend) and went to the checkout with only one person ahead of me in line.
Sounds like the high gas prices hurt budgets this year. Maybe Cheney was wrong again, but when was he ever correct?
When did the Republican Congress prod anyone on anything, especially America's business community? There is a positive role for government in America, and a positive role for prodding business to do the right thing.
I was walking by a gas station last night (I don't have a car), and prices were above $3.00 again. This is abominable. And equally abominable is how the public simply acquiesced to gas prices soaring under George Bush's leadership. Bush promised us he'd get the Saudis to keep gas prices (oil prices) low. That means that not only did Bush fail, but he put into play the issue of whether a president has jurisdiction over gas prices - per Bush, he does.
Let me remind you of how quickly things have gone to hell. Gas prices averaged $1.60 a gallon in February 2003. Then Bush went to war in Iraq one month later, and prices have soared ever since. So there is a very real issue as to whether George Bush directly caused the doubling of gas prices in America. You can't blame September 11 for the increase beyond $1.60 - the $1.60 price was a good year and a half after September 11. And four months before September 11, gas prices were averaging $1.70 a gallon. And actually, gas prices fell in the months following September 11 - for example, gas prices averaged $1.24 a gallon six weeks after September 11. Thus, September 11 had no effect whatsoever on long-term (or even medium-term) gas prices.
Yes, China's consumption is voracious and it will affect oil prices in the long run, and a lot more (and just what attention ARE we paying to China under Bush and the Republicans? None.), but we're to believe that gas prices doubled in four years simply because of China? Excluding a very short-lived post Sept 11 bump, gas prices didn't increase at all from 2001 to 2003, but then they doubled from 2003 to 2007. China's economy has been soaring for years. The "new" factor in 2003 that's continued to date: George Bush's little adventure in Iraq. And in fact, Bush argued that the Iraq war would actually lower our gas prices:
Laurence Lindsey – President Bush’s senior economic advisor at the time — argued in 2002 that the Iraq war would increase oil supplies and lower prices. From the Washington Times, 9/19/02....
“The key issue is oil, and a regime change in Iraq would facilitate an increase in world oil,” which would drive down oil prices, giving the U.S. economy an added boost.
Incompetence, and the myriad of lies that led to the Iraq war, come at a cost.
