God how you do go on and on and on....
There's enough domino straw men in your diatribe to fill a barn. And enough capitalizations, hyphens, quotations, and quasi-prose to weigh down 'War and Peace'.
The Clinton McCain 'holiday' is quite obviously pandering to voters who would be hurt the most by it. "Some" economists agree with Obama? More to the point, which economists didn't side against Clinton-McCain on this issue?
Another 'below-the-belt(way)' analysis from a proud member of the 'Lost Touch With Reality Community'.
I am waiting with baited breath to see if Clinton will repeal the Clinton gas tax.
Posted by phidipides at May 5, 2008 10:12 PMPlease don't use the word liberal. These people are progressives, a whole different breed.
Liberals have remained true to the old tried and true principles.
Progressives seem to have morphed into some form of neo-libertarianism (see their admiration of Ron Paul).
tfitznc, you're distorting reality on this by equating clinton's and mccain's plans.
clinton pays for her plan by increasing the taxes on the oil companies, while mccain doesn't pay for it at all. simply put, her plan is progressive since it shifts the tax burden to oil companies. mccains is reckless, since it will decrease revenue by billions of dollars. (this isn't that complicated.)
none of these voters will be 'hurt' by her plan like you say they will (since the tax revenues will be made up). and there is a legitmate argument that it will help the consumers. even if it doesn't help people out that much, she has a long-term plan that will help with energy costs.
clinton pays for her plan by increasing the taxes on the oil companies,
Of course, an academic exercise. Hillary has never moved legislation, and couldn't move this until 2009...riiiggghhhtt
Posted by phidipides at May 5, 2008 10:44 PMYour thesis seems to be that the Gas Tax Holiday is in no way a political gimmick, a shiny object for the rubes, or in any way a meaningless-to-pointless reflex. or a faux-liberal ball of cotton candy.
Not all things that would be DOA in Congress are made of the same stuff. Impeachment would satisfy the nation's foremost moral imperative; not so much for the Gas Tax Holiday. You're straining at a gnat here, eriposte, since Clinton's (and McCain's) proposal is fluff, political junk food.
I suppose the only way to know how Satanic the respective candidates for president are (on the sliding scale of Satanism) would be to know how the 3 Senators voted vis-a-vis the recent secret session vote, to crank up the covert war against Iran.
Your Lady Clinton has been sleeping with the enemy, hasn't she? I don't mean Iran. I'm referring to the sleazy outfit Mark Penn fronts for. I'd say there are fewer degrees of separation between her and the vile underbelly of the ruling class, than between Obama and his (former) pastor.
But it is typical of you to ignore Clinton's unpleasant qualities, and her unwholesome moods and reveries concerning the obliteration of small countries, and sundry gutter-sniping at Obama.
Posted by Copeland at May 5, 2008 11:28 PMSo Clinton will be able to become president by June? The whole premise is absurd.
And now Liberal means the DLC status quo that has done so much to move Liberal ideas? Please!
All triangulation ever did was advance right wing idealogy while making Dems look like pathetic wimps.
Even now the right is gushing in their praise about how Hillary is running a classic right wing campaign. Scaife, Murdoch, McCain? Any of this ring a bell?
Liberals have remained true to the old tried and true principles.
Which is pander to the black vote, then give them nothing. Sell out your base for a shiny nickel whenever possible. Always compromise your principals in the off chance Rush might say something nice.
Sorry, the status quo is on the way out. You boomers blew it with your constant drama and acting out, your failure to keep from being distracted by trivia, and your inability to actually enact meaningful change. The only exception is those who fought for civil rights, and those were mostly the blacks who you try so hard to keep in their "place".
So now you loose your place at the wheel, and deservedly so. Sure Hillary is quite the fighter when it comes down to the coronation she feels she is entitled to. In congress concerning every day "progressive' issue, not so much. Just like boomers, ready to squeal and fight over there imagined due, but actual issues that matter?
Not so much.
The time for "I am a low information voter and proud of it-worship me!" has come and gone. People realize that is what got Bush where he is and us where we are. Willful ignorance has no place in this ever increasingly complex and dangerous world. Get information or get left out. That's your choices.
Posted by SnarkyShark at May 6, 2008 04:23 AM
Duncan nails it.
...to put it another way, if you think people should get an extra $40 this summer (an extremely optimistic view of what a gas tax holiday might save them), then give them an extra $40.
Argue with that, I dare you.
Point is mute, because as Hillary knows, nothing is going to happen anyway. Congress isn't going to pass it, and Bush isn't going to sign it. It was always a cynical ploy and more politics as usual.
Do you hear that flushing sound? That's your former credibility being flushed down the toilet. You crossed the line from passionate partisan into la la land some time back.
Posted by SnarkyShark at May 6, 2008 04:46 AMOOOPPs....trackback link no workee. Just go to Atrious. You know where it is.
Posted by SnarkyShark at May 6, 2008 04:57 AMeriposte,
I hate to agree with the others here but your credibility really is going down the tubes. Here's a clue: the attacks on senator clinton are sexist and misogynist and all the rest of it but she has *still lost the nomination* and Obama is still going to be the nominee absent what she is actually waiting for which is not *the will of the voters* but Obama's implosion. Continuing to write about how much people hate her is beside the point. And oddly enough, you aren't making people hate her less. I started this campaign neutral between the two of them, I still like HRC quite a bit, but there is no point flogging a dead horse. And by continually calling out and calling into question fantasy obama supporters you aren't doing clinton any favors. You can't convince anyone who went for obama that they shoudl have gone for clinton, and you can't convince any clinton supporter to magically double their vote. So what is at stake here in continuing to stir the water?
aimai
Posted by aimai at May 6, 2008 05:12 AMIf Hillary wants to avoid the Satanic tag, maybe she should embrace this plan
"Someone's making a lot of money and it's really, really wrong," added Twyman, who founded the Prayer at the Pump movement last week to seek help from a higher power to bring down fuel prices, because the powers in Washington haven't.The half-dozen activists -- Twyman, a former Miss Washington DC, the owner of a small construction company and two volunteers at a local soup kitchen -- joined hands, bowed their heads and intoned a heartfelt prayer.
"Lord, come down in a mighty way and strengthen us so that we can bring down these high gas prices," Twyman said to a chorus of "amens".
"Prayer is the answer to every problem in life... We call on God to intervene in the lives of the selfish, greedy people who are keeping these prices high," Twyman said on the gas station forecourt in a neighborhood of Washington that, like many of its residents, has seen better days.
Should work as well.
HT to Micheal D at Balloon Juice.
Here's a clue: the attacks on senator clinton are sexist and misogynist and all the rest of it
Some are and some aren't. The reason that Clinton supporters are descending into parody is because they believe their candidate is infallible, therefore every criticism must be sexist or some such(apparently a trap you have fallen into as well)
I started out between Obama and Clinton slightly in favor or of Cinton due to my former fondness for Bill. She earned my animosity on her own merits, and Obama earned my support by his earnestness and willingness to talk to the American people like adults, forgoing the usual bumper-sticker sloganeering.
Pretty much everybody I hear call in to Thom Hartman or Lionel whining about Obama can never say anything specific about whats wrong with Obama, only that his supporters piss them off with their haughty ways and propensity for factual arguments.
I could associate Clinton with her rabid followers here, but I refuse to do it. I listen to her words, and make my judgment by her behavior and actions.
And frankly those only get worse as time goes by.
As to the rest of your post, it was well reasoned and spot on. And good advice.
Posted by SnarkyShark at May 6, 2008 05:32 AMGas tax "holidays", in whatever form, with whatever offsets, are re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic---that's what I object to. As well as describing the (overwhelming consensus) opinions of the nation's economists as the brayings of out of touch, callous "elites" who shouldn't be listened to in the slightest.
Hillary: "I won't put in my lot with elite economists!" Oh, Greaaaattttt..........
This is just more evidence that massive national problems simply produce more of the same worthless political proposals and discourse, with Hillary happily out on front, misleading the low information voters and vilifying the experts as "not on the side of the people". To advocate (and presumably desire to implement) stupid, wrongheaded policies for electoral purposes is something that we've had quite enough of over the past 8 years.
Posted by euzoius at May 6, 2008 05:41 AMMore misogyny and elitism
More than 200 economists, including four Nobel prize winners, signed a letter rejecting proposals by presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and John McCain to offer a summertime gas-tax holiday.Columbia University economist Joseph Stiglitz, former Congressional Budget Office Director Alice Rivlin and 2007 Nobel winner Roger Myerson are among those who signed the letter calling proposals to temporarily lift the tax a bad idea. Another is Richard Schmalensee of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who was member of President George H.W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers.
Write some more of your "everbody is being unfair to Hillary posts", I dare you. You are only digging the hole deeper and deeper.
You're going to need wheelbarrow loads of Prozac when this thing has played out.
BTW..you will notice I never link to the 'Big Orange Borg' or any of the other sites that the real sexist people here refer to as the "boys club". I try to use only generally approved sources like, oh you know, the NYT and such.
And you continually link to the ever dwindling pool of the Hillary circle jerk blogesphere almost exclusivly.
Another reason why your credibility is on par with Pee Wee Herman.
Posted by SnarkyShark at May 6, 2008 06:07 AMI don't know that your links prove how "depraved" the creative class is, but they sure prove you three have mastered the art of Republican talking points about tax cuts.
Posted by Tim H. at May 6, 2008 06:15 AMI don't know that your links prove how "depraved" the creative class is, but they sure prove you three have mastered the art of Republican talking points about tax cuts.
You mean like this Republican?
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.
Or maybe you meant this Republican
Here is the Pander Bear herself debating Rick Lazio in 2000
And one of my fundamental disagreements during this campaign with my opponent was when he called for the repeal of the gas tax. Now, the gas tax is one of those few taxes that New York actually gets more money from Washington than we send. And we are totally reliant on it to do things like finishing I-86 in the Southern Tier, or the fast- ferry harbor works up in Rochester, as well as the work we need to do here in the city.
I have already posted the link in the "Tax Bruhaha" thread if you want to read it, but being a low information voter and all, I'm sure you wont.
Let me revise my previous quote....Get information or get pw3nd.
Posted by SnarkyShark at May 6, 2008 06:28 AMI don't know that your links prove how "depraved" the creative class is, but they sure prove you three have mastered the art of Republican talking points about tax cuts.
You know what? I did a double take, and I can't even tell what the hell your trying to say. You could be agreeing with me for all I know. It's hard to make anything out of all that incoherence.
Care to clarify? Or was this just a drive by post?
Posted by SnarkyShark at May 6, 2008 06:33 AMIt is always nice to see Obama supporters respond to my posts by changing the subject and criticizing arguments I did not make. I am not arguing that Clinton critics are misogynists or sexists by criticizing her on the gas tax holiday - you can make up that claim if it makes you feel tingly and nice all over but this post has nothing to do with sexism or misogyny. Further, this post clearly says it is justifiable to criticize her over the merits of the proposal.
SnarkyShark - the letter from the economists is here:
http://gastax08.blogspot.com/
I particularly like the statement: "it would encourage people to keep buying costly imported oil and do nothing to encourage conservation". This is funny because when people have no choice but to drive and there are no options but to use gasoline if they can't afford to buy an expensive new hybrid, they have no choice but to use gasoline. The whole idea of a gas tax holiday has little to do with conservation (it is a very short term measure to address soaring gas prices during high vehicle use months) but an attempt to reduce the pain for low income workers for a few months. Further, as expected, what they are really criticizing is a "suspension" of the gas tax, which is not what HRC is calling for. They may be *assuming* that HRC will not be able to pass her version of the proposal - but it is not OK to assume something that is not true about her proposal and then criticize her for it. This is silly stuff.
I perfectly accept criticisms of HRC for dismissing the opinion of economics as "elitist" because not all economists are elitist (although many are and have always been pretty elitist), but it is not OK to keep clubbing McCain's and Clinton's proposals together as if they are the same when in fact they are quite different.
Posted by eriposte at May 6, 2008 06:45 AMIt is obvious that neither of the two Democrat candidates are truly liberal or concerned with the health of the planet. If they were they would be calling for even higher gas/diesel prices as we are running out of time to save the earth from global warming. Al Gore preached that we needed $5 a gallon gas to make us burn less and stave off global warming.
What happened to liberals being FOR high gas prices? If Bush and his oil buddies are getting obscene profits off of high gas prices, you should be singing their praises. They seem to be the only ones concerned with doing more than just talk about saving the earth.
As usual the libs are only blowing hot air regards global warming.
All hat, no cattle.
Posted by manapp99 at May 6, 2008 06:48 AM"I particularly like the statement: "it would encourage people to keep buying costly imported oil and do nothing to encourage conservation". This is funny because when people have no choice but to drive and there are no options but to use gasoline if they can't afford to buy an expensive new hybrid, they have no choice but to use gasoline."
They won't have to worry about "driving to work" when their cities are under water and there is no food due to droughts.
SnarkyShark,
Here is a great example illustrating well-intentioned elitism, from the Bloomberg article. Clinton backer Rivlin: "If anything, we need higher gas taxes." So, lower income people are feeling pain at the pump and rather than alleviate that, we should be increasing the taxes on gas so that they use less and what, um, stop eating one meal a day to pay for it? Rivlin is well-intentioned but his goal is to reduce oil consumption - which is a very different goal and people who have no choice but to drive to get to work will consider this elitist whether we like it or not.
Posted by eriposte at May 6, 2008 07:01 AMbut it is not OK to keep clubbing McCain's and Clinton's proposals together as if they are the same when in fact they are quite different.
They are the same in that they are both pandering to the low information crowd. And Hillary knows that there is no way that this is going to even come up for vote. And if it did it wouldn't pass. And if it did, it would get vetoed.So once again,
we are reduced to playing "what if?"
McCain on the other hand might even believe his own bullshit, he's just that stupid. But Hillary isn't, and thats the point of the original criticism you responded too. And I suppose for dessert we can call those 4 Nobel prize winners elitist and the "creative class"
I guess that's what pisses me off the most. I never thought Democrats would be the ones Orwell wrote about with the whole Orwellian Language thing.
But then I remember that Hillary has decided to join the Lieberman party, and then I feel better.
Once again, if $40.00 is going to save the middle class, then just give them the $40.00. All the rest is smoke getting blown up the asses of the rubes.
Posted by SnarkyShark at May 6, 2008 07:02 AMYou know what? I did a double take, and I can't even tell what the hell your trying to say. You could be agreeing with me for all I know. It's hard to make anything out of all that incoherence.
Hey, it's still early. But that comment was for eriposte, not you.
My own opinion is, gas tax cut or no gas tax cut, it's likely that gas will be close to $5.00 gallon by the end of this summer. Nobody's going to save money on gas ever again.
Rivlin is well-intentioned but his goal is to reduce oil consumption - which is a very different goal and people who have no choice but to drive to get to work will consider this elitist whether we like it or not.
Insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. The low information voters are like crack addicts who expect politicians to pander to them and celebrate their stupidity.
Like crack addicts, they will finally have to not be enabled anymore.
Tim H. after having his morning cup of joe gets it right "My own opinion is, gas tax cut or no gas tax cut, it's likely that gas will be close to $5.00 gallon by the end of this summer. Nobody's going to save money on gas ever again."
A democrat is going to win the White House and run the Republicans out of congress. We have a historical opportunity to kick our addiction, and yet Hillary would destroy that opportunity out of her own monstrous ego.
She made her bed when she choose the inevitability meme and surrounded herself with the usual crew of consultant losers, who sucked up all her money and positioned her as the second coming of Bush the warrior king.
Obama refuses to pander and thats points in his favor with me. Your mileage may vary. I am not thrilled with any of the energy plans, so I will go with the one who will at least acknowledge the truth.
McCain and Hillary's approach is the same in that they both have no realistic chance of passing anything this summer. Hillary knows it, McCain is stupid enough to believe his own bullshit. That is the point. Thats why a lot of people think Hillary is being cynical and opportunistic. I can even hear her going on about the rubes when she is alone with her trusted advisor's.
Hillary could win me, and probably every progressive over by saying "Lets get the hell out of Iraq, and use that money to do what Brazil has done. We'll buy their technology if we have too, but lets quit pouring our hard earned money down that sandbox from hell."
But I have never heard her say that. Why not?
Posted by SnarkyShark at May 6, 2008 07:48 AM"No-body's going to save money on gas ever again."
Ahhh, but if Ms Clinton is given the chance, she will make all this happen BEFORE MEMORIAL DAY, cause as far as I can tell, that's the traditional ramp up of summer driving.
And on top of that, she will make sure Big Oil doesnt just pocket the savings cause she is
SOOOO convincing.
Don't believe it??
I'm sure eriposte will "splain it" to you.
eriposte, the "gas tax holiday"
- is bad policy
- is ineffective policy
- ignores the advice of every economist
- is a really obvious pander
Calling such tripe "liberal" only gives liberalism a bad name.
Posted by CA Pol Junkie at May 6, 2008 07:58 AMeriposte,
that comment about how Rivlin is "elitist" because driving up gas prices hurts "people who have no choice but to drive to work" really proves the point that you don't know what elitist means, or that you've lost your mind. Gas prices are *going to go up* and they aren't just going up at the pump. They are going to go up because of larger forces that have nothing to do with our taxes and they are going to drive up the prices of foodstuffs in a way that the pump tax doesn't affect at all. The pump tax actually *pays for something* that is necessary which is roads and etc... As people have pointed out you can pay at the pump or you can pay when your bridges and roads fall down. Removing a tiny percent of the cost of the gas to the end consumer at the pump not only doesn't fix the overall inflation caused by rising gas prices but actively hurts the consumer by preventing cities and towns from paying for needed repairs. So its a *regressive* move, not a populist move.
What you are refusing to acknowledge, and what HRC's plan obfuscates, is that the country and all of its workers and citizens face a hugely difficult time and little bitty buy offs of people with cars--and you know? plenty of people already can't afford cars--is not a compromise that will help us long or short term.
I fault her very much for offering this fake solution to a real problem, for letting herself fall into the phony anti intellectualism of the republicans, and for leaving her supporters with nothing to defend but the indefensible. If she's no better than obama she's got a hell of a way of showing it.
aimai
Posted by aimai at May 6, 2008 08:03 AMI dunno, eriposte: McCain's gas-tax holiday is a bad idea, for sure; he includes no way to pay for it, making it both actively harmful and deeply cynical. But where Clinton's is better because she includes the windfall profits tax on oil companies, Obama's stance is to include the windfall profits tax AND skip a gas tax holiday which wouldn't necessarily save people anything, since it's based upon the premise that the oil companies will not raise prices to make up the shortfall. There is nothing preventing them from doing so, and in fact, should they be hit with a windfall profits tax, I can see an incentive for them to do exactly that. Then, there's also the bit about it being not possible to pass while George Bush is in office, period. That, to me, remains the biggest reason to call bullshit on the entire idea: not because the effects of it are essentially unknowable due to the impossibility of predicting the oil companies' response to it, but because it will not pass, period. I just don't think this is a matter of taking a principled stand for a bedrock moral issue which truly matters, even if it has no chance of success. It feels much more like what so many have said it is, whether it comes from Clinton or McCain: an election-year pander for votes which has zero chance of providing even any of its theoretical benefits. The windfall profits tax, which both Obama and Clinton support, however, is something which could be enacted in January, should one of them defeat McCain. It wouldn't be in time for summer, and wouldn't contain any immediate (and immediately-observable) relief for regular people, but it could likely be done, and would have far-reaching results.
And Somerby's flag-burning bit? Still a bad idea. And yes, still a craven cave-in, by whichever supposed liberal does it. I'm not sure why, without evidence, you'd suppose that Obama supporters or anyone else on the liberal side of the political divide would suddenly start endorsing such a thing only because they discovered their chosen candidate once supported it. Sounds like just a way to take a swipe at those you have decided are "the opposition," if not "the enemy" (given your seemingly angry and dismissive assumptions about their likely behavior). Haven't we learned, if anything, over the past forty years, that the old "United We Stand" idea has never been more true for liberals than when it comes to winning elections and forging majorities against the GOP? Do we really need to create yet ANOTHER political divide within our own ranks? Because recent history has shown us that as soon as we do that (or at least as soon as we allow the right to do that to us), we lose. "Circular firing squad," they used to call it. And no, Obama supporters who do the same by demonizing Clinton inaccurately aren't excused, either. But there's a difference between saying that a given policy idea is a bad or pointless one - and a pander - and making baseless accusations about the ways in which an entire group of people is now likely to misbehave because of X,Y,or Z. Let's all try to aim just a little higher and get back to that time in January, when most of us said repeatedly we'd be happy with any good Democrat - unless you're comfortable getting used to saying "President McCain" for the next four-to-eight years.
Posted by Phenobarbarella at May 6, 2008 08:07 AM"DOA in Congress"
Nancy is busy not doing the people's business in the people's House (which is empty, again, at the moment, so much for five day work week). The horrified voices you hear are the ones who might have to go on the record, with a (gasp) vote, against a gas tax holiday, regulations and a windfall tax on oil company profits.
Besides that, they are busy figuring out a way to give amnesty to telecom companies, and planning another recess. Watch them vote and skip town. It's a new (since 2007) dem congressional dance called "Capitulate and Run". Obama supporters used to hate the dance, but now they love it, as long as it benefits their candidate. Everything is relative, you know.
Posted by joanne leon at May 6, 2008 08:30 AMP.S. It's a bit disconcerting reading these comment threads as the user named SnarkyShark becomes seemingly more and more obsessive. Very strange. Just sayin'
Posted by joanne leon at May 6, 2008 08:38 AMP.S. It's a bit disconcerting reading these comment threads as the user named SnarkyShark becomes seemingly more and more obsessive. Very strange. Just sayin'
You're more than welcome to argue on the merits. I will defend my positions, and have been known to acknowledge my wrongness when slapped silly by superior logic.
Or you could just do your little cluck cluck thing like my grandma used to do when she didn't approve of my hair length.
Just saying.
Here...I will even agree with you
Besides that, they are busy figuring out a way to give amnesty to telecom companies, and planning another recess. Watch them vote and skip town. It's a new (since 2007) dem congressional dance called "Capitulate and Run".
agreed! Spineless bastards...I hate em.
I want Reid and Pelosi run out on a rial.
Now to burst your bubble, Harry Reid has announced the schedule and gas tax is nowhere on it.
That says everything.
Posted by SnarkyShark at May 6, 2008 09:04 AMI want Reid and Pelosi run out on a rial.
And if nobody has any Iranian currency, a rail will do.
Posted by Tim H. at May 6, 2008 09:51 AMi.e., until this primary and until The Precious decided he would oppose it (after enjoying the benefit of supporting it when he was in the IL state senate) - at which point it became the Satanic Gas Tax Holiday.
Oh for god's sakes, eriposte, what did those strawmen ever do to you to justify such abuse?
Posted by Fledermaus at May 6, 2008 10:05 AMAnd if nobody has any Iranian currency, a rail will do.
Oh noes....its teh spelling police! Run away!
Posted by SnarkyShark at May 6, 2008 10:22 AMEriposte,
I don't think that the TM after every few words is as funny as you think it is.
Posted by John Barley at May 7, 2008 10:27 AM