Posted on 08/05/2005 7:02:12 PM PDT by wagglebee
RUSH: Now, I want to get back to this gasoline business because I, ladies and gentlemen, was a bit flippant with a caller from Farmington, New Mexico -- and her name was Elizabeth, and she was upset at the price of gasoline, and I wasn't flippant... Well, I was flippant. We had a call from an Exxon station owner. What was his name? I'm having a brief mental block on his name. Brett, what was the Exxon gas station owner's name? Okay. Well, whatever. This guy, it's a good thing he called this program, because if he'd have called a liberal program he would have been blamed for part of the problem for owning a gas station, polluting the planet and all that. He called the right place. He made a point. All of these different formulations in gasoline that the EPA requires, you don't know how much that adds to the price of gasoline, folks. It's phenomenal. We have over 40 blends required in this country. California has its own. I think southern California has its own, versus northern California. So if you run out in any particular region of the country you just can't go get it from anywhere else. You have to go get the same formulation, otherwise you are in violation of the law. The costs mount, you know, we don't have any new refineries in, what, 20 years? We haven't built any new refineries in 20 years, can't go out in ANWR and drill for our own oil. But there's a website out there, it's an inflation calculator basically. In 1974, everything -- it was Joe in Ramsey, New Jersey; that's right. As I say, good thing he called this program. If he'd have called some other program he would have been hung up and shouted at and vilified and insulted for participating and causing a problem, as a gas station owner, "How dare he?" This website calculates the inflation.
Whatever it was that cost one dollar in 1974 would cost about three dollars and ten or 20 cents today so gasoline prices way below that. So the inflation rate still exceeds the price of gasoline. Doesn't matter. In real terms it's up there and it affects everybody's back pocket. So what are the things that can be done about this? Well, you wouldn't believe the number of taxes that are in a gallon of gasoline. And it's just like you wouldn't believe the taxes in your phone bill. Do you know you are still paying taxes on your phone bill to make sure that farmers have phones? The Rural Collective Phone tax? You're also still paying a tax on your phone bill for those buildings that Clinton and Gore personally wired for the Internet. Well, it's no different with gasoline. There are so many taxes in a gallon of gasoline, and if all these politicians were that concerned about the economic impact, ladies and gentlemen, the price of gasoline, they could temporarily suspend some of these taxes; they could permanently cut some of these taxes. Oh, no, but they won't do that because there's one thing government will never do without and there's one thing that government will never even do less of, and that's money. Oh, yes. When our taxes are raised, they don't give one thought to whether or not we could absorb it and afford it. But when tax cuts are proposed, the people in the government ask, "Well, how we going to pay for this? Well, how we going to pay for it? How we gonna make up for it? We can't do without that!" But we're expected to. Everybody else is expected to. So the next time you hear some politician trying to get on your good side by bellyaching and moaning about the price of gasoline, why don't you ask him, "Why don't you do something about it, then?"
Since we can't do anything about imports right now, since we can't go into ANWR, since we can't drill anywhere else and since we have all these stupid, silly different formulations, why don't you just temporarily suspend some of the taxes in gasoline? Just ask him that. If you're really concerned, if you really want to help us in the back pocket, really want to help us at the family dinner table, really want to help us out here with the family economics and the income, just get rid of some of the taxes in it. It's not that hard to do. And you just watch their reaction. "Well, we need a majority to do that. I don't know what kind of legislation that would require. That's a good idea, we'll put it in the hopper, I'll throw it around with my staff," blah, blah, blah, blah. Nothing will ever happen on it. As I wrote, ladies and gentlemen, in the recent issue of the Limbaugh Letter, "No Oil Shortage" was the title of this article. Let me just read to you what I wrote in the final graph. "Also, as I've been telling you, the Futures Market has had a significant effect on gasoline prices. 'Prices are clearly advancing because of rampant speculation,' says industry analyst Michael Fitzpatrick according to Air Finance Journal, and Julian Switharno of Capital Economics says, 'The degree of speculation in the present markets [this is the oil markets] has been underestimated as an important component in present prices," and if you go look at the latest federal budget figures as they put them out periodically you'll find that the actual cost of a barrel of gasoline is nowhere near the 60 bucks. Sixty bucks is the futures price because you've got people betting on it one way or the other. But the bottom line here is we're in for a bit of an oil futures bubble.
What we need to do is precisely nothing, because capitalism eventually corrects itself. Now, there are tough times, and it is stressful and painful, and there are immediate steps people could take like getting rid of some of those taxes, but they won't do it. No, you'll hear, "We need to release some of the oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve! Why, we need to get smaller cars! We need hybrids. We need," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. What was that statistic we heard yesterday about hybrids? Oh, I know what it is. If miraculously tomorrow -- get this, folks; I heard this from an automobile company executive. These people, they're interested in selling hybrids, because there's the demand. If all 220 million vehicles in the United States were automatically made hybrid vehicles tomorrow, it would only take six years for us to be back right where we are today in terms of gas supply, price, usage, and all that. The point is that everybody going hybrid is not going to save that much fuel. It will only take six years to get us back to right where we are today in current usage levels. If every car were a hybrid tomorrow, we'd be right back in six years where we are today in terms of how much we consume, how much we consume. There is no question about it. So don't even buy that silly argument. It's not about conversation. It's about production. It's a growing economy. Growing means producing. We've got to go find more supply. There's plenty of oil out there. Don't let anybody tell you there's not.
RUSH: John in Chicago, I'm glad you called, welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Hello, Rush, nice talking to you. Friends of mine who are Democrats can't answer this and maybe you can. Oil prices have gone from $30 a barrel to $60 a barrel, yet the American economy keeps growing and growing and growing to the point where Greenspan has to increase interest rates so we don't have any inflation. Unemployment is 5%. Real wages were announced today, up again. The last two years there have been $100 billion reductions, Rush, in the deficit, and I ask my Democratic friends, "How can this be? How can this be?" and I don't get an answer, and I simply say, "Market economy forces and tax cuts in the right places." What do you think?
RUSH: Yeah, you've nailed it. Leaving as much of the free economy alone as you can and cutting taxes, which allows people more usage of their money to hire people or engage in commerce or what have you. There's an old saw here that you can't reduce deficits while reducing inflation, and we proved them wrong twice on that. We did it in the eighties and we're doing it now.
CALLER: Well, it's about time a Republican president got the credit and got the benefit of good economic policy, don't you think?
RUSH: I think a Republican president is in the minds and hearts of the people. Again, don't get confused by what you see in the mainstream press. The mainstream press, they'll report the job figures but they'll leave it alone after that. They will not put it in context and they will not talk about the roaring economy because shortly after the job figures report will be an interview with a Democrat who will talk about all the suffering, and while the economy may be good for the rich and may be good for the upper class, there's still a lot of misery out there. John Edwards is trying to make a career on the two Americas and, of course, since the press is allied with the Democratic Party, they're going to go ahead and portray that vision, because no matter what they do, John, they're not going to credit George W. Bush with anything. If the economy comes back they're going to find some other reason to credit it, Greenspan or who knows who, but they're not going to credit Bush. But this is where the liberals in the press and the Democratic Party are missing it. The American people are living it. They know it, and they hear all this gunk about the economy being in the tank and being horrible and no jobs out there, and to the extent that it's believed, it's not believed by people by themselves, but the danger in this is people say, "Well, I'm doing okay but my neighbor must be in real trouble." That's the one fallacy in my argument, but the economy is on fire and, by the way, one other statistic to add to this when you talk to your liberal buddies, because this is key. We just found out that one of the primary reasons the deficit is down is that tax revenues are up. Now, you ask your liberal buddies, "How in the hell can that be when we have cut taxes, when we have cut income tax rates and cut income taxes? How can tax revenue be up?"
You ask them that, and they won't have an answer and they will tell you that you're lying about the tax rates being a factor and the deficit, they'll tell you you're lying about tax rates being up, but it's true, it was a Treasury Department story. IRS numbers back it all up, and it happens every time it's tried. When you lower marginal tax rates, you spur economic activity, which results in more people being hired, which creates more taxpayers -- and so you get more tax revenue because more people are working. At the same time, when you do this, you take people at the top of the income scale, the, quote, unquote, rich, and they become less inclined to shelter income from taxes. They're more comfortable reporting it if they're paying fewer dollars in taxes. I'll report that dollar as income, rather than put it in some trust or something that shelters it. And it all results in more revenue to the treasury. So not only are jobs up, not only is the economy roaring along, housing starts, manufacturing, it's all up. So is tax revenue. And according to the left none of this is possible. We have to raise taxes on the rich to bring back the economy. Now, you stop and think about this. We have to raise taxes on the rich. If we really want to get the economy going -- well, maybe we don't even want to get the economy going. We just want to make it "fair." We want to punish people at the top, whether it helps peep down below or not we want to punish people at the top because we want the people down below to really feel good that other people are suffering, but it doesn't do them one bit of good because the economy doesn't come back under their way. So you just add to everything you tell them that those tax cuts caused increased revenue and that's 60% of the deficit reduction and you will have them so stymied that they'll walk away in frustration, unable to talk to you, shouting and calling you names all the way.
He did a good job too of explaining why the dims plan of "tax the rich" is counter productive. Like Rush said though, the dims want to punish the "rich" to make the lower income people "feel" better and after all, that's what the dim party is all about - feelings.
"Mr. Tony Blair, Tear Down That British Empire International Controlled Refinery Colonial Tea-Oil-Tax WALL!"
Hmmmmmmmmm
Look at your phone bill, look at your hotel bill, look at your airline receipt... the list goes on. People who whine about paying another dime for a gallon of gas don't have a clue; other than looking at TAXES. Cigs, here in NC are $2.35/pack. In NYC... $8.00/pack. Now the libs want to regulate internet cigarette sales. Marx would be proud.
I know, I live in Virginia and our tobacco taxes just went up (Virginia would probably lose Phillip Morris, but there's not really anywhere else to go). I bought six cigars on which I paid over $12 in tobacco tax in addition to sales tax.
Kill A Commie For Mommie
Seven Dead Monkeys Page O Tunes
Rush sometimes has a knack for stating the obvious - isn't this view one that has been typed/preached here on FR for several years???
What took Rush so long to jump on the bandwagon??? Duh...
Maybe then we the people will get the idea that they have been screwed by the gasbag-spend-aholics in congress.
Rush, righteously on!
Here's the information on federal and state by state taxes on gasoline (and diesel)
The federal tax: 18.4 cents per gallon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_tax
State taxes by state (click on State Motor Fuel Excise Taxes)
http://api-ec.api.org/policy/index.cfm?bitmask=001001005000000000
For my state (Texas) it is 38.4 cents combined per gallon unchanged since at least 2002.
There is a lot at work here regarding gas prices.
You want to bet that while we are gouged, that somehow there will be a massive profit made by the gas companies?
As we see their massive profits, the question will be, "What part of that profit is from gouging"?
Then we have to ask, "Do they have the right to gouge being all the companies operate more like a monopoly rather than like competition with each other"?
A new internationale oligarchy-monopoly called,....."Gas-Ron"....?
:-(
Well, this Gas-Ron manages to make big profits at a time when we are paying historic prices.
IMO, I see a connection!
It was open line Friday and that called from NM named Elizabeth called in on that topic, saying she can't afford it anymore. That's why Rush had that topic for today.
Another illogical Rush rant...jeez.
The latest tool of the elites for scaring the general public is something known as the Global Peak Oil Theory. That will undoubtedly be a term more in the lexicon in the next few years. They're about due to resurrect the "we're running out of oil" myth to artificially pump up prices. Global Warming Theory alone was not enough for the radicals to stampede the public toward their agenda, you see. This latest bit of apocalypticism is a real piece of work. Check out this kooky read that was in the April Rolling Stone Magazine:
This article is a real hoot. The author basically re-creates FX's "Oil Storm" and envisions a world where Suburbia, Wal-Mart, and all the Red States are destroyed while only New England survives (read: Blue States). Particularly laughable is this little honey of a quote:
"I'm not optimistic about the Southeast, either, for different reasons. I think it will be subject to substantial levels of violence as the grievances of the formerly middle class boil over and collide with the delusions of Pentecostal Christian extremism. The latent encoded behavior of Southern culture includes an outsized notion of individualism and the belief that firearms ought to be used in the defense of it. This is a poor recipe for civic cohesion."
I guess Civic Cohesion is highbrow for Liberalism. And the author insults the folks of the West by suggesting we'll kill each other if the A/C quits working. I've never heard of a song called "A City Boy Will Survive", folks. Urban environments are always the hardest to get to stick together and allocate resources within.
A Long Emergency, indeed.
"The last year has been a good year for those inclined to fear the end of oil. High prices usually bring the worst out, and it doesn't help that Royal Dutch/Shell reduced its stated reserves by the equivalent of 4.5 billion barrels of oil (that's Saudi Arabia's total production for 16 months – an "accounting error" that has made Shell the poster child for how not to run an oil company) and that a couple of wise analysts have accused the ever-secretive Saudis of improperly managing their reserves to the point of exhaustion. But every since OPEC gained its feet and was able to exercise some power in the market beginning in 1973, high prices have always prompted panic that the global oil tank is running on empty."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.