April 30, 2008

Two new reasons for the Barack

If you're a McCain-ite, then this isn't meant to persuade you. If you're a Clintonian, perhaps it's too late for switching allegiances... but if you're undecided? How can't you be all over the O Man.

1. The man who advised him, married him and baptized his kids goes mentally AWOL. After trying to maintain relations, Barack painstakingly breaks all ties with this man. He was his spiritual council, not his political advisor; after learning how disparate their politics are, he has broken - and alienated - the man he once looked to for spiritual guidance. Granted, he had to do it to stay viable, but it can't be understated how big a step this was.

2. The gas tax gimmick -- if what Hillary & McCain threw out there doesn't just reek of a D.C. make me look good in the short term jury-rigging attempt, I don't know what does. I honestly don't think clinton or McCain had a second thought about what this would do, other than make them look good in front of the populace. And if what they wanted top do was look like they are being led by the common poll, rather than their heads, they won. But this gas tax freeze is a boondoggle of epic proportions because every economist worth his/her salt has come out against it!

Think of how easy it would have been for the 'inexperienced' Barack to fall in line - without having to appear he was falling in line - and support the freeze. Instead, he comes out against it. Why? Because he's a smart man who has both foresight and the quality of a candidate that is doing what is right, not what is necessarily popular on first blush.

Why is the freeze a bad thing? I'll quote the common consensus that you can find from any number of sources of economists, not 'crazy left-wingers'. From Alister Bull of Reuters:

Economists said that since refineries cannot increase their supply of gasoline in the space of a few summer months, lower prices will just boost demand and the benefits will flow to oil companies, not consumers.

"You are just going to push up the price of gas by almost the size of the tax cut," said Eric Toder, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center in Washington.

Obama criticized the plan as pure politics and said the only way to lower the price of gas is to use less oil.

"It would last for three months and it would save you on average half a tank of gas, $25 to $30. That's what Senator Clinton and Senator McCain are proposing to deal with the gas crisis," he said on Tuesday in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

"This isn't an idea designed to get you through the summer, it's an idea designed to get them through an election."


Clinton followed up by saying this shows how out of touch he is with the common person. First of all regarding elitism, those in glass houses, second of all, I'll take someone who thinks an idea through 10 times out of 10 any day.

Yeah.. I want my tax freeze going to Big Oil, because that will show how 'in touch' I am... yeesh.

No comments: