Clinton Seeks Vote on Gas Tax Holiday

The lack of supply is not the government's fault. That's grasping. One, US oil companies shut down wells when they're only 2/3s used because it costs more to process the last third. Just more bullshit based on greed.

The lack of supply is largely due to china, which isn't really due to either big bad oil or big bad government. It's simply there, and the world has to deal with it. *Some* of it is due to our government, though. Mainly the war, which has disrupted supplies from Iraq and debased the US dollar. A patchwork of dozens of different required gasoline formulations for different regions doesn't help, either.

Oil companies do shut down wells that aren't producing much, when the price of gas is too low. Then when it goes up, they become profitable again and are started up again. This is a good thing. This is capitalism in action. If they kept cranking, there would be some hidden cost to that somewhere.

Two, when the EPA guidelines were stiffened in the late 70s, the oil companies quit building new refineries. It's refined oil products we're short on. The existing ones are grandfathered but the oil companies said FU and refused to build anymore. MORE greed.

You can't really blame them for that though. If they go through the tangled web of EPA regulations, they will produce a product that costs more than their competitors. Then the company will go bankrupt, and all the pensioners who were relying on that stock for income are going to be poorer.

And anyways, the main reason they didn't build new refineries after the 70's is because gasoline was dirt cheap. There was no reason to build them. It would have been a waste of steel and manpower.
 
Well yeah, I cn't imagine how a break at the pump coul possibly help consumers. :cuckoo:

For once I have to agree with Obama. Either the station owners or the refiners will eat most of the difference and consumers will see little. Highways are maintained out of a completely separate fund, so yes, the shortfall will at least mean a major delay in road construction and repair, costing at least some federal highway jobs. And then the holiday is over and Americans are hit with an overnight whoolop of 18+c a gal....
 
Do you know what you're talking about at all? Seriously.

1. More Iraq... more expenditures.
2. More stupid economic policy.
3, More of the religious right's agenda.

As for Fed spending... you can thank YOUR repub pres and congress for our deficit. The dems haven't had the ability to control spending bills for 7 1/2 years.

So other than your repetition of the repub playbook... do you have a point?

Hmm...it seems to me, you don't know your arse from a hole in the ground. The democrats now control the senate, which in fact, controls federal spending bills. Secondly, social spending dwarfs defense spending by a wide margin. Consider this....


Clinton has proposed new spending in excess of $200 billion, much of it annual. Obama has surpassed her, promising annual spending of at least $210 billion.

Both have offered expensive plans to get to universal health-care coverage, either through incentives or by government mandate. They've proposed spending big money to help avert housing foreclosures nationwide and to help refinance mortgages for borrowers in trouble.

Both are counting on savings from reducing the U.S. presence in Iraq and rolling back some of President Bush's tax cuts, which are scheduled to expire after 2010, to pay for their new programs. Both expect that expanded use of electronic health records and other advances in medical information technology will defray some of the cost of moving to a universal health-care system.

Neither, however, has proposed a fix for the biggest near-term strain on the federal budget, the alternative minimum tax, or explained how they propose to balance the cost of their campaign promises with the looming expense of the aging baby boomers.

During a speech Tuesday night in Houston, Obama rattled off a list of promises: lower insurance premiums for all families, subsidized premiums for those who can't afford them, tax cuts for Americans who earn less than $75,000, no income tax for retirees who earn less than $50,000, inflation-linked increases in the minimum wage, a $4,000 tuition credit for every college student and unspecified investment in early-childhood education, roads, buildings and hospitals.

To pay for it, he cited without specifics higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations, billions of dollars from "polluters" to pay for alternative energy and ending the Iraq war, which is costing an estimated $9 billion a month.

"We can invest that money in rebuilding roads and bridges and hospitals right here in Houston — building schools, laying broadband lines, putting people back to work, employing young men and women in our inner cities, in our rural communities," he said to cheers.

That $9 billion in war spending, however, is largely borrowed money, much of it from China and Japan. If Obama intends to redirect war spending to domestic needs, it still would be deficit spending.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2004197968_spend24.html


That pretty much explains it, I think.
 
Do you know what you're talking about at all? Seriously.

1. More Iraq... more expenditures.
2. More stupid economic policy.
3, More of the religious right's agenda.

As for Fed spending... you can thank YOUR repub pres and congress for our deficit. The dems haven't had the ability to control spending bills for 7 1/2 years.

So other than your repetition of the repub playbook... do you have a point?

Well according to Obama's interview with Russert and Hillary with O'Rielly both are simply going to SHIFT most of the warfighting to Afghanistan, not bring it home....

And the current slowdown due to the credit crunch inside financial markets has nothing to do with Bush or Congressional fiscal policy and everything to do with investment banking excesses coming home to roost.....someone on Wall St forgot that risk actually needed MANAGEMENT.
 
Highway funds are already drying up in anticipation of just this various sort of nonsense. As I've said before and will always say it ... government has no business running our infrastructure. If people paid what it really takes to build and maintain our roads we would have had more trains and mass transit ages ago.

This. This is the correct answer. Fully privatized (not outsourced) roads would be the greenies' best friend, but unfortunately they don't see it as the massive corporate sprawl subsidy it is. Gasoline should be an optional luxury for city dwellers, not a necessity. Tax it at the normal sales tax rate, and let road owners charge what the market can bear for roads.

Also it would be cool to have roads that are free of traffic jams during rush hour.
 
Hmm...it seems to me, you don't know your arse from a hole in the ground. The democrats now control the senate, which in fact, controls federal spending bills. Secondly, social spending dwarfs defense spending by a wide margin. Consider this....


Clinton has proposed new spending in excess of $200 billion, much of it annual. Obama has surpassed her, promising annual spending of at least $210 billion.

Both have offered expensive plans to get to universal health-care coverage, either through incentives or by government mandate. They've proposed spending big money to help avert housing foreclosures nationwide and to help refinance mortgages for borrowers in trouble.

Both are counting on savings from reducing the U.S. presence in Iraq and rolling back some of President Bush's tax cuts, which are scheduled to expire after 2010, to pay for their new programs. Both expect that expanded use of electronic health records and other advances in medical information technology will defray some of the cost of moving to a universal health-care system.

Neither, however, has proposed a fix for the biggest near-term strain on the federal budget, the alternative minimum tax, or explained how they propose to balance the cost of their campaign promises with the looming expense of the aging baby boomers.

During a speech Tuesday night in Houston, Obama rattled off a list of promises: lower insurance premiums for all families, subsidized premiums for those who can't afford them, tax cuts for Americans who earn less than $75,000, no income tax for retirees who earn less than $50,000, inflation-linked increases in the minimum wage, a $4,000 tuition credit for every college student and unspecified investment in early-childhood education, roads, buildings and hospitals.

To pay for it, he cited without specifics higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations, billions of dollars from "polluters" to pay for alternative energy and ending the Iraq war, which is costing an estimated $9 billion a month.

"We can invest that money in rebuilding roads and bridges and hospitals right here in Houston — building schools, laying broadband lines, putting people back to work, employing young men and women in our inner cities, in our rural communities," he said to cheers.

That $9 billion in war spending, however, is largely borrowed money, much of it from China and Japan. If Obama intends to redirect war spending to domestic needs, it still would be deficit spending.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2004197968_spend24.html


That pretty much explains it, I think.

Tax cuts for families earning less the $75,000.....well how do you cut something that's barely there anyway. That group only pays about 20% of all the taxes anyway. Not much to cut there.....at least it won't cost much because the gov't doesn't get much from that group....
 
What alternative? The "result" regardless WHO from what party is going ot be an explosion of Federal spending and higher taxes.

Your right to some degree, although, I guess the question is who will spend the most tax money and who will jack taxes up the most??
 
Your right to some degree, although, I guess the question is who will spend the most tax money and who will jack taxes up the most??

Won't matter b/c you're not top 1% in earnings. Whatever taxes are restored won't effect you.

And just to remind you, the only leader in history to cut taxes during wartime is baby bush....
 
Won't matter b/c you're not top 1% in earnings. Whatever taxes are restored won't effect you.

And just to remind you, the only leader in history to cut taxes during wartime is baby bush....

How do you in fact know that, democrats won't raise taxes on people outside of the top 1% wage earners because they said so?:eusa_liar:

Actually the tax cut you are referring to, helped bring us out of the 2001-2002 recession.
 
Once again, bleeding the middle class to balance the books hurts people here and now ...
We are making differing value judgments on whether we should carry our own weight or dump the load on the next generation. I don't want to be part of the first generation in America that leaves our kids less than our parents left us.

Also, deficit spending lessens the pressure for financial responsibility, because it creates the illusion that government is cheaper than it really is. Studies show that people spend more using credit than they do paying cash or by check. You just don't feel the same bite when payment is deferred, at least until the bill comes due.

And I don't want to bleed the middle class. It's better to roll back part of the cuts in the upper quintile, but working class Republicans cut their own throats by killing any pressure for that type of reform.
 
The lack of supply is largely due to china, which isn't really due to either big bad oil or big bad government. It's simply there, and the world has to deal with it. *Some* of it is due to our government, though. Mainly the war, which has disrupted supplies from Iraq and debased the US dollar. A patchwork of dozens of different required gasoline formulations for different regions doesn't help, either.

Oil companies do shut down wells that aren't producing much, when the price of gas is too low. Then when it goes up, they become profitable again and are started up again. This is a good thing. This is capitalism in action. If they kept cranking, there would be some hidden cost to that somewhere.



You can't really blame them for that though. If they go through the tangled web of EPA regulations, they will produce a product that costs more than their competitors. Then the company will go bankrupt, and all the pensioners who were relying on that stock for income are going to be poorer.

And anyways, the main reason they didn't build new refineries after the 70's is because gasoline was dirt cheap. There was no reason to build them. It would have been a waste of steel and manpower.

I disagree, and I disagree.

I do agree the increasing demand from developing nations (China) is part of the problem. But that is an increasing demand on foreign oil.

The oil wells I refer to are not closed and reopened based on how much money the corportions can get. They are capped, with at least a third of the raw oil still in them. Oil is lower grade the deeper into the well they go, and more costly to pump and refine.

No new refineries were the oil company telling the EPA/govt to shove it. Gasoline was not dirt cheap anywhere I remember. The Fed implemented 55 mph speed limit to conserve gas, and we sat in line every other day for up to an hour to purchase a max $5. It cost less by today's comparison, but not relative to what we made back then.

Much of the shortage was due not to a lack of oil, but a lack of refineries.

In both cases, corporate greed drives the train. As previously stated, I have no problem with capitalism ... within reason.

Look at it now. We're catching up to the rest of the world in paying for gas and it's killing us. Maybe not short term, but it will have the same effect on us as Clinton's tax policies did long-term.

The goverment has kept an artificial gas price for us ever since we quit being the world's #1 producer. Much of our economy is based on the price of fossil fuels. Now, all of a sudden, we've been tossed to the wolves.

Something's got to give and I can only wonder how many people struggling as it is have to be put out on the street before someone figures out it's corporate greed that needs to be the one.
 
Actually the tax cut you are referring to, helped bring us out of the 2001-2002 recession.

That is simply wrong. If that had happened, it would not have been such an anemic, jobless recovery.

Unrealistic mortgage interest rates and huge deficit spending had more to do with the recovery. But the cost of Bush's short-sighted policy was weakening the dollar, increasing our debt load, and postponing serious economic problems in a manner that will make them much worse.
 
Your right to some degree, although, I guess the question is who will spend the most tax money and who will jack taxes up the most??

There needs to be some common sense and a happy medium injected here. If those are the only two choices, "we the people" need to let out a collective "WTF?"

It's a toss-up who will spend the most anymore. At the same time, we cannot continue on with the middle class paying the steepest price while the rich get richer.

On this issue, I happen to agree with Dogger. Take away the tax shelters for the wealthy and corporations and realign THAT money toward the deficit. There are plenty of ways that money could be saved and realigned by the government without taxing the people more.

I don't know about you, but I sure as Hell didn't get any tax break from Bush's tax breaks. That being said, I prefer nothing to having my taxes raised, but the point remains, the wealthy made out the most from his breaks. Let me guess ... you got a $600. check about 6 years ago?

So, I don't see a solution being presented by either side. Not one that's going to work.
 
That is simply wrong. If that had happened, it would not have been such an anemic, jobless recovery.

Unrealistic mortgage interest rates and huge deficit spending had more to do with the recovery. But the cost of Bush's short-sighted policy was weakening the dollar, increasing our debt load, and postponing serious economic problems in a manner that will make them much worse.

Oh so you don't agree with the economic stimulus bill the democrats passed in Congress? Which is essentially the same as the "Bush tax cuts".
 
We are making differing value judgments on whether we should carry our own weight or dump the load on the next generation. I don't want to be part of the first generation in America that leaves our kids less than our parents left us.

Also, deficit spending lessens the pressure for financial responsibility, because it creates the illusion that government is cheaper than it really is. Studies show that people spend more using credit than they do paying cash or by check. You just don't feel the same bite when payment is deferred, at least until the bill comes due.

And I don't want to bleed the middle class. It's better to roll back part of the cuts in the upper quintile, but working class Republicans cut their own throats by killing any pressure for that type of reform.

You wouldn't be even close to part of the first generation to do so. They're all long dead.

I don't know that we are making different value judgements. I think we have different solutions to the same end. I don't support deficit spending. I see it as necessary at times.

And personally, I've already been through the credit screw and paid my way out from under it, so I DO understand what you are saying.
 
There needs to be some common sense and a happy medium injected here. If those are the only two choices, "we the people" need to let out a collective "WTF?"

It's a toss-up who will spend the most anymore. At the same time, we cannot continue on with the middle class paying the steepest price while the rich get richer.

On this issue, I happen to agree with Dogger. Take away the tax shelters for the wealthy and corporations and realign THAT money toward the deficit. There are plenty of ways that money could be saved and realigned by the government without taxing the people more.

I don't know about you, but I sure as Hell didn't get any tax break from Bush's tax breaks. That being said, I prefer nothing to having my taxes raised, but the point remains, the wealthy made out the most from his breaks. Let me guess ... you got a $600. check about 6 years ago?

So, I don't see a solution being presented by either side. Not one that's going to work.

"WTF"!!
 
I don't give a damn what you choose to label me. I've been called a liberal before. I get called a conservative. Fact is, I think outside the box and I think for myself. I don't have some political party's hand up my ass speaking for me.

feel free to cruise the Economy subforum, dude. You'll find quotes from corporate spokespersons that have "pure greed" written all over them.

And whose lobbyists are paying the government to not do shit? Why, golly gee ... bet it might be the ones that gain the most from a shortage of fossil fuels and prices skyrocketing as a result.

Too simple, huh?

Who the Hell are you talking to? I'd say serving 20 years in the Corps was at least my share of doing good, thanks.

And since you asked, the owner of my company provided the material and we provided the free labor, along with other trade contractor's to build a women's shelter just last month. I'd say that ALSO counts as contributing without asking for anything in return.

I can call them bad when I feel like it. When I feel like it is when they're ripping my ass off at the pump, and not even paying the same percentage taxes I am once their accountant gets done hiding all the money in corporate shelters.

I s'pose you really think I'm dumb enough to fall for the little switch here? I do blame the government for what it does. Obviously, you don't read too many of my posts.

That has nothing to do with whether or not citizens of this nation, and corporations comprised of citizens of this nation have a responsibility to this nation.

The fact is, they're loyal only to themselves and the dollar. They're global corporations and don't give a rat's ass who they fleece so long as thy're squeezing granny's last dime out of her coinpurse.

You mean the ones the government pays to NOT grow but a certain amount of corn?

It isn't about me owning my own company. It's about corporations paying their fair share of the tax burden. I shouldn't have to own a corporation to weasel out of my share of taxes to dump on some other poor schmoe. That doesn't address the problem at all. It deflects it.

The lack of supply is not the government's fault. That's grasping. One, US oil companies shut down wells when they're only 2/3s used because it costs more to process the last third. Just more bullshit based on greed.

Two, when the EPA guidelines were stiffened in the late 70s, the oil companies quit building new refineries. It's refined oil products we're short on. The existing ones are grandfathered but the oil companies said FU and refused to build anymore. MORE greed.

You don't have an argument here.

None of your replies really address the primary problem here….that liberals now think it's OK to just arbitrarily take a company's profits.

Lobbying is not against the law. I'm glad you blame the government for its part in the problem.

A corporation's primary purpose is to make money, not take care of granny. If it doesn't, it fails. Call it
"greed" if you want, but the profit motive is what drives capitalism. Sure, it's nice to have companies that "care" but unless things are spelled out in the law a company should not be held to some shifting and unknown standards. It is wrong for politicians to just take money from a company based upon some arbitrary moral judgement on what they deem to be "windfall" profits. A company should not be penalized because some think it made "too much" money.

Whether or not a corporation pays its "fair share" of the tax burden is the responsibility of the government. However, taxes should be fairly legislated in a democratic society…..not just arbitrarily levied and taken by force whenever the government feels like it.

If you don't think the high cost of oil is due to supply and demand (not to mention our devalued dollar) but rather a monopoly problem, then it should be proven in the courts. And you can't hold the oil companies liable for the lack of refineries. (the socialist greenies have done their job well)

You blame the oil companies…..I blame the undermining liberal socialists whose intent is to largely destroy capitalism and institute socialism.
 
You blame the oil companies…..I blame the undermining liberal socialists whose intent is to largely destroy capitalism and institute socialism.

Gas prices were slightly over $1.00 per gallon when Clinton left office, or $1.30 in current dollars. The chart below shows a steady price drop in current dollars from 1946 thorugh 2000, except for a spike during Ford/Carter/Reagan. If liberal socialists caused the current dramatic increase, why did the historical decline end when the GOP siezed all three branches of government in 2001?

Inflation_adjusted_gasoline_price.jpg
 
Gas prices were slightly over $1.00 per gallon when Clinton left office, or $1.30 in current dollars. The chart below shows a steady price drop in current dollars from 1946 thorugh 2000, except for a spike during Ford/Carter/Reagan. If liberal socialists caused the current dramatic increase, why did the historical decline end when the GOP siezed all three branches of government in 2001?

Inflation_adjusted_gasoline_price.jpg

Nicely done....false correlation...:clap2:
 

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