Posted on 02/08/2006 6:57:59 PM PST by Nomorjer Kinov
His State of the Union speech was yet another indication that our president, George W. Bush, lives in an alternative universe.
After hearing what the president had to say last week, one might think that he was unaware of the actions of his own administration, as well as those of his Republican Party, for the past five years.
Are we supposed to be impressed that Bush just realized that Americans are addicted to oil? Where has he been? And doesn't he know that his polices and those of the Republican majority in Congress continue to reinforce America's addiction to oil?
Doesn't the president know that he and his Republican Party provided tax incentives for Americans to purchase big SUVs?
Doesn't the president know that he and his fellow Republicans provided the oil industry with billions of dollars in tax cuts last year, even as Exxon announced that it made $35 billion in profits during 2005? Maybe he should ask that those tax cuts be returned. Obviously, the oil industry didn't need the money.
The president said that the U.S. needed to invest more in alternative energy. Meanwhile he and his fellow Republicans have cut funding for alternative energy research within the Department of Energy by over 50 percent.
The president made a big deal in his speech about how the U.S. needs to remain competitive with the rest of the world, specifically India and China, by ensuring that American students get a better education.
But doesn't the president know that his fellow Republicans in Congress voted - the day after his speech - to cut $12.7 billion in student loans for poor and middle class college students? Will someone explain to me how he plans to keep America competitive with China and India by sending fewer American children to college?
The president boasted during his speech about giving $880 billion in tax cuts to Americans during his first five years in office. That's nice. But what he neglected to say is all of that money had to be borrowed, and that our children and grandchildren will be picking up the bill. He also didn't tell us that the majority of that money went to the wealthiest top 5 percent of Americans.
Nor did the president tell us that his policies have added trillions of dollars to our national debt, which is growing rapidly as we spend $1 billion per week in Iraq.
Speaking of Iraq, one week after the president said no to a $50 billion plan from a bipartisan task force to rebuild the Gulf Coast, he asked Congress for an additional $150 billion to rebuild Iraq.
How does the president and his Republican Party plan to dig us out of this fiscal hole? Pay attention to the president's proposed budget for fiscal year 2007. From what we know from early reports, social programs for Americans will see big cuts.
Isn't it interesting how Bush and the Republicans in Congress gleefully cut social programs for Americans while they don't blink an eye about spending hundreds of billions for social programs in Iraq?
What you didn't hear the president talk about during his State of the Union speech is the relationship between his cuts in the federal government's Mine Safety and Health Administration and a series of tragic mine accidents in West Virginia, why 47 million Americans still don't have health insurance or why Republicans in Congress are not fully funding the president's own No Child Left Behind program.
Bush is a good case study for why America would be better off with a Chief Executive serving one six-year term of office. And may I suggest that we implement that change effective immediately, or at least before we have to listen to him give another State of the Union address devoid of reality.
Tom Zirpoli writes from Westminster. His column appears Wednesdays. E-mail him at:
tzirpoli@mcdaniel.edu
I remember the introduation of the SUV prior to the election of W. in fact, here is a list of recalled SUV's from 1985. It's not likely these SUV's were sold as a result of the tax policies of a future president.
More likely they were produced as an inevitable result of market forces that impelled auto manufacturers to look for a replacement vehicle to the dying station wagon. As we remember, the station wagon was classified as a car, thus subject to the CAFE standards. People still needed the interior room but the auto manufacturers couldn't comply with arbitrary mileage requirements. The station wagon officially died in 1996 when the Caprice and the Roadmaster ceased production.
As a reminder, the impeached former president, clinton was in charge in 1996. As the station wagon died, and men rejected their wive's minivans, they turned to SUV's, during the tenure of the first impeached elected (and black) president.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
With the US economy in a free-fall, yes, the Republican-led Congress and its Republican president established tax incentives to encourage people to purchase American-made products: SUVs.
At the time, oil was plentiful and economic activity wasn't.
It worked.
Meanwhile the issue is not so much that America is addicted to oil, but that China has a newfound bottomless thirst. The American economy is vastly more efficient than China's, on a BTU-per-dollar-of-GDP basis. That means China's thirst for oil due to its economic growth is very highly leveraged. There's a discussion of this towards the end of http://www.speakeasy.org/~dervish/recession.pdf --lots of interesting graphs that illustrate the economic free-fall that Bush, by a miracle, managed to pull the country out of.
The station wagon was replaced by the minivan.
Unbelievable - and this from one of the few GOP counties in Maryland. Oh well, the dead tree media is dying, we won't have to hear from this cocooned Lefty for much longer.
IIRC, the tax incentive offered was $100 thousand that could be expensed in year one for capital investments. Did it specify American SUV's or was that the result of decision-making on the part of the business owner?
Actually, the Democrats live in an alternative universe where they make up stories which prove that Bush is either an evil genius or a nincompoop. The primary purpose of these fables is to compensate them for the fact that they are out of power.
"I remember the introduation of the SUV prior to the election of W."
True. However, it is also true that tax incentives were added to pick up the largest, heaviest SUVs on the market. Rather than leave things the same or provide an incentive to conserve, an incentive was added to use more gasoline and oil.
And as for the station wagon dying in 1996, I suppose you forget the numerous wagons that have been on the market since then. The Saturn S-series, L-series, Ford Taurus, Ford Focus, etc... There were plenty on the market post-96. Until recently the Taurus wagon still had more interior room than almost every midsize SUV. It was personal choice that drove people to SUVs, not a lack of wagons on the market.
Today there are 35 different station wagons available in the US. Audi has 3 models, BMW 2, Chevrolet 1, Chrysler 2, Dodge 2, Ford 2, Jaguar 1, Kia 2, Mazda 2, Mercedes 2, Pontiac 1, Saab 3, Scion 1, Subaru 4, Suzuki 2, Toyota 1, and Volvo 3.
"cut $12.7 billion in student loans for poor and middle class college students?"
I don't know this but I bet the cuts targeted students of pointless ultra-left liberal arts programs or PhDs in rodent psychology.
More ideas, fewer complaints.
Well, you clearly don't know. The cuts were in limiting consolidation of loans, and large increases in loan rates (Stafford goes from 4.7% to 6.8% and PLUS goes from 6.1% to 8.5%)
Let's hope.
The tax incentive was targeted to vehicles with more than a 6,000 pound gross vehicle weight rating (meaning vehicle weight + load).
Most big American SUVs fit into this category (as do a few foreigners, like the BMW X5). The tax benefit was indeed up to $100k and was intended to allow small businesses to invest in new transportation equipment with pretax dollars-- in a hurry.
More at http://www.selfemployedweb.com/suv-tax-deduction-6.htm
It has been roundly derided by the anti-petroleum Left, as in the article that tops this thread. However, it's not a new concept: equipment (including those evil planet-destroying, globe-warming, puppy-crushing SUVs) has ALWAYS been deductible over a depreciation schedule. This just was an accelerated deduction on a class of capital equipment generally made in the USA, intended to kick-start domestic economic activity after the Clinton Recession, the Clinton stock-market crash, the Clinton tech-economy collapse, and then the horrors of 9/11, which followed Clinton's inattention and cowardice in the face of metastasizing global jihad.
(What, your leftist neighbor objects? They claim Clinton's stewardship of the economy was nonpareil? ...Some folks have highly selective memories! Go back to that link I provided, http://www.speakeasy.org/~dervish/recession.pdf and take another look at those graphs, and note when they fell off a cliff. Calmly point out to your lefty friend that the eeeevil spawn of Halliburton, Chimpy Bushitler, took office in late January 2001. The economy was swirling down the drain well before that. Thank you, Bill Clinton and Robert Rubin.)
Back to the "SUV" tax credit. As I said, it was a good idea and it worked. And if that spins a few lefty heads around, fine. Facts are facts, and this economy is roaring.
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