Posted on 11/20/2008 2:13:59 AM PST by Halfmanhalfamazing
NEW YORK (Fortune) -- The big game in Washington these days consists of running around dealing with the problems of the Detroit Three automakers, formerly the Big Three.
But all the to-ing and fro-ing about how (or whether) to keep General Motors, Ford and Chrysler out of bankruptcy is ignoring the elephant in the room - lower gasoline prices. As you doubtless know, they've fallen about 50% from the record levels they reached in July, making them one of the few bright spots in our economic picture.
So let me fulfill my traditional role of skunk in the garden party, and suggest that these lower gas prices aren't an unalloyed good thing. Let me also suggest that we jack them up, sharply, by adopting a big honking tax on gasoline.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
I see that the WaPo is also out there calling for increased taxes. It's sad. But I'm glad that they're emboldened to make their biases so well known. It'll help us defeat them.
That’s going to help drive up demand and get the economy running!
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Yeah I don’t see the logic there either.
Stupid seems to be contagious after the Obama-dama-ding-dong victory...
No the idea of increasing fuel taxes now is to extend the tentacles of control around one more vanishing American freedom. The "predictability" vanishes as soon as another party takes political power.
This writer is worried about "predictability" when the country is going into the severest recession since 1932. There is no more vicious tax on the American economy than the gasoline tax which rips through the economy raising costs everywhere, costing jobs everywhere, prolonging the recession and even extending it into a deep recession or even a depression.
To the contrary, we should be drilling every place there is a prospect of finding something oily. The price of gasoline should be driven down as low through domestic production as possible thus bankrupting our enemies and funding our own economy by building jobs at home and keeping those petrodollars at home. Raising the tax will not bankrupt our enemies -because there is an absolute floor below which we cannot function as a civilization without gasoline- but it will bankrupt our economy.
The transfer from gasoline to non-carbon-based energy will come quite naturally when the technology makes it cheaper. We do not have the economic muscle to waste subsidizing that which is uneconomic.
It will only help defeat them if the Stupid Party (a) doesn't sign on to the tax increases in the first place, and (b) hammers the RATS unmercifully when they are put in place. I can just see, though, another bailout-type group photo with Republicans standing respectfully behind their RAT masters when they announce the increased taxes.
Yesterday in DUmmie land they were all entertaining the idea of raising gas taxes.
Sure our economy would tank and Americans would suffer, but its for the “Greater good of the World!”
Pound Sand AH.....
I am puking, what a bunch of crooks..
This is no joke in Massachusetts. Our wonderful Dem Governor and State House are voting on an $0.11/gal tax hike to pay for the ^&%^$#!! Big Dig.
The nice thing about a gas tax increase is that it is a tax on the poor. There is nothing like a nice regressive tax to make a Rat happy.
One of the smartest guys on this board weighs in, correctly. Especially now, in the midst of a recession when capital for these kinds of pipe dreams is especially scarce.
On another note, I'd like to recommend to you a book I just read called "The Guns of the South" a marvelous historical / (science) fiction book in which your name sake plays a key role. It's an interesting alternative history of the Civil War in which, aided by time travelers from 2014 who arm the Confederates with AK-47's, the South wins the Civil War. The plot sounds strange, but it's a great read. Check it out. I believe you'd enjoy it.
LLS
I would very much like to see Obama go ahead with his gas tax proposal. He didn’t seem too upset when the price went to four bucks a gallon. I know some idiots at work who firmly believed Bush called the oil companies to set the price. How will they react when their hero (they’re all big Obama worshippers) raises the price artificially? Will The Anointed One’s halo be tarnished?
LOL!!!!!!!!
The big dig HAH!
I could just imagine if that could be blamed on a republican. It would be all over the news constantly.
It’s just like the government created housing mess. If that could be blamed on a republican that person would’ve already been destroyed three times over.
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