Gas Tax: Tempest in Teapot?
I think this is an essentially MINOR "issue", to be 100% honest. It is a brief opening salvo in the coming serious and comprehensive debates on overall Energy Policy. It will probably not be enacted. It would have minor impact in EITHER direction if it were (although I guess it's hard to argue with the, "every little bit helps" school of thought). It won't bankrupt the highway fund. The media herd will lumber off after something else before very long.
Most importantly,it won't confirm the worst fears of Sen. Obama and his supporters: (ie, That the rubes will rush-out en masse, keys in hand, to go vote for Hillary, and then spend the rest of the day oblivously cruising the strip in their 4WDs).
In really sustantive terms, it is pretty much a tempest in a teapot. There IS a certain symbolic value to it: It does tend to reinforce the vague idea that Sen. Clinton is a down-to-earth "doer", in touch with the masses, while Sen. Obama is a head-in-the-clouds "talker", more worried about the bean-counters than the problems of ordinary people.
It may move a few votes one way or the other, but it is unlikely to be decisive. No matter what happens, I'll be suprised if we're still discussing it in 2 weeks.
That said, I get a little tickled at the mass noise campaign to discredit the poor little fellow. It seems out of proportion to any possible substantive importance it might have Its' value is basically political, in whatever sense you look at it. It's hard for me frankly to understand the commotion it has apparently caused.
Before the gas tax proposal, I thought an Obama-Clinton ticket was worth considering. I thought I understood Senator Clinton's principles and knew what would happen if a tragedy put her in the Oval Office.
I was wrong. Between that nonsense, the slap at economists, the gun mailer,and the claim that she can break up OPEC, I finally see for myself that she'd say or do anything to get a second term.
There may be a principled policy wonk in there somewhere, but the principles will never get to call the shots. The political animal will always decide. She'll always do what the polls say give her the best shot at staying in power.
Two weeks ago, she seemed fit to be Vice-President. That's over now.
May 6, 2008 10:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Amazing, isn't it? This is essentially a gimmick issue, but it has come to take on a disproportionate symbolic weight, at least here.
I think it is a psychodrama about educated liberals (which is pretty much everyone here, whoever they support in the primaries) and the political Id. We wish that politics were more like Washington Week in Review and less like Chris Matthews - or to put it more simply, we wish politics weren't so damn political.
Hillary is the whipping girl in purity circles because she is not afraid to be political. She'll to to a Jewish neighborhood and talk about Israel, then go to a Polish neighborhood and talk about Poland. She doesn't go around telling voters they should eat their vegetables, and even when she does she makes it sound like Popeye eating his spinach. If you're looking mainly for moral uplift, she is not your girl.
May 6, 2008 10:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Agree completely. Not to assume too much, but we seem to be of the variety that thinks of politics as having more in common with perhaps PLUMBING REPAIR, than with CHURCH.
I think that somewhat describes the Dem split of the moment - perhaps even more so (as you put it so well), the split between ends and means that we argue about with each other, and even within ourselves.
May 6, 2008 10:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Plumbing Repair versus Church - yep, that nails it. You correctly infer that I am in the plumbing-repair school, a distinct minority here.
May 6, 2008 1:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Keep in mind that Hillary Clinton's people have been polling this "issue" and advertising on it and hitting the news channels to bash this over Obama's head so I don't think this is about Obama & his supporters fears but rather the hopes of the Clinton team.
They wouldn't be pushing this with everything they have left if they didn't think that as you said: "That the rubes will rush-out en masse, keys in hand, to go vote for Hillary".
I agree with you overall that this is a non-issue and won't get passed; which that alone makes it pandering!
May 6, 2008 10:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Most importantly,it won't confirm the worst fears of Sen. Obama and his supporters: (ie, That the rubes will rush-out en masse, keys in hand, to go vote for Hillary, and then spend the rest of the day oblivously cruising the strip in their 4WDs)."
This assertion is ridiculous and insulting. The idea that people are going to drive more during vacation season doesn't seem like much of a stretch. The price of gas goes up in the summer EVERY YEAR. That's reality and there is a real-world reason behind it. The problem with this particular pander is that it directly obscures the impact that a "gas tax holiday" would have. For "the rubes," it would mean approximately one tank of gas. For the oil companies, it would mean increasing prices (and revenue) so that the price of gas remained constant in spite of the "holiday". And it would mean approximately $9 billion that wasn't being dedicated to roads, bridges, dams, levees, etc. Maybe in Hillary land $9 billion dollars isn't a big deal, but I don't drive in Hillary land and I know that that one tank of gas will be burned up pretty quick if the price of gas doesn't actually decrease and I'm driving on detours because of poor roads. The worst fears of Senator Obama and his supporters are that people will actually support a measure that is ultimately, in a big picture sense, harmful to them.
"In really sustantive terms, it is pretty much a tempest in a teapot. There IS a certain symbolic value to it: It does tend to reinforce the vague idea that Sen. Clinton is a down-to-earth "doer", in touch with the masses, while Sen. Obama is a head-in-the-clouds "talker", more worried about the bean-counters than the problems of ordinary people."
Vague ideas are vague for a reason. Usually that reason is because somebody knows that they work well in obscuring important facts. And the facts point out exactly the opposite: Senator Obama opposes a bad policy that seems simple and pain-free on its face, but has hidden costs that the average consumer might not think about. Senator Clinton will say and do anything to get elected, and doesn't seem to know or care about the long-term consequences of her actions or her votes. I wonder if she was being a down-to-earth "doer", in touch with the masses, when she joined the masses in the Senate in authorizing this debacle of an Iraq War. If you ask the bean-counters, they'll tell you that the price of gas has gone up significantly since Spring 2003.
May 6, 2008 10:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree that it's a minor issue on it's face. It does, though, serve to point out what Senator Clinton really thinks of us: that we are sheep-stupid dupes who will joyfully vote for her in response to a brazen confidence game.
May 6, 2008 11:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
The issue itself is a minor policy point. But Hillary's attempt to defend it in the face of EVERY independent economic analyst, and in fact dismissal of economists in general as irrelevant to to a discussion of tax policy, clearly defines Hillary as just another politician and Obama as the responsible adult in the race. Hillary had only given hints that she had left the "reality-based community" previously by her acting like she can still win the nomination. Her defense of the gas-tax holiday shows she has joined the Rove/Bush/Cheney/Rice/Rumsfeld/Global-Warming-Denying/McCain wing of politicians who don't care about anything except advancing themselves, and their allies.
May 6, 2008 11:30 AM | Reply | Permalink