As society and in particular America begins to feel the sting of high oil prices and starts to re-think a suburbia fostering single passenger commutes in Hummer H2’s. It is now becomming financially viable to ‘go green’, or at very least greener.
With the cost of Mid-Grade gas in the area between 4.03 and 4.29 per gallon (6-11-08), it is now not only a ‘nice idea’ in the minds that considered more fuel efficient means of travel and more alternative means of travel, but a financial imperative in some instances to do so. The way I see it, I could spend money on a gym membership, drive to the gym and sink money into not only the membership itself, but the gas to get there, OR I could kill two birds with one stone, and get the exercise I need by traveling in another way aside from personal automobile transport, and save money on the gas I would spend driving my own car alone. Essentially I am getting paid to workout! (Well increasing my disposable income) I save fifty cents per day on the tolls I would pay if I were driving, and about $2-3 for every trip I bike to work instead of drive.
SEOUL, South Korea: Nearly 10,000 South Koreans staged candlelight vigils Tuesday calling for their government to scrap an agreement to resume U.S. beef imports, but a senior Seoul official rejected any such move.
“we must count the votes in Michigan and Florida” - Speech post Indiana primaries
*”count the votes, count the votes!” cry Hillary Camp lemmings without taking into account the disenfranchised Florida and Michigan voters which did not turn out due to their vote not counting or even have Barack as an option on the Michigan ballot; Not to mentioned no one was to campaign in either state*
“I don’t see any other solutions that are fair and honor the commitment that two and a half million voters made in the Democratic primaries in those two states.”
Hillary Clinton is calling for a holiday on the 18.4-cent gasoline tax, and she says she’d make up the funding from that (which funds transportation infrastructure) by taxing oil company’s “windfall” profits…
Here’s what Clinton said at her October 8, 2000 debate with Lazio: “[O]ne of my fundamental disagreements during this campaign with my opponent was when he called for the repeal of the gas tax. Now, the gas tax is one of those few taxes that New York actually gets more money from Washington than we send. And we are totally reliant on it to do things like finishing I-86 in the Southern Tier, or the fast- ferry harbor works up in Rochester, as well as the work we need to do here in the city. So you can count on me to support infrastructure.”
And here’s a June 28, 2000 Newsday clip: “Campaigning in the Hudson Valley, Lazio continued a two-day assault on Clinton’s support of maintaining the 18-cent federal gas tax and then used tough rhetoric to declare that ‘trust’ and ‘character’ were campaign issues during an evening fundraiser in Manhattan that raised more that $1 million. Clinton, meanwhile, lashed out at Lazio’s plan to repeal 4.3 cents of the gas tax, calling it ‘a bad deal for New York and a potential bonanza for the oil companies.’”
“During a visit to a shopping mall in the Buffalo suburbs, Clinton said that ‘the gas tax is one of the few exceptions where we actually get more money back than we send to Washington.’”
I came across the above article while doing some research to write a similar piece. It seems almost all points I was going to make were already included. This piece was written in 2004 and is every bit as relevant, if not more, today. Please have a look, it’s a short and informing brochure/article.
Want to save the planet, reduce greenhouse gases, ease skyrocketing food prices, reduce the drag on American health care from obesity and heart disease and some cancers, and use agricultural land more efficiently?
Lets start by reducing the average 200lbs. of meat per person consumed annually in the US.
This isn’t a crazy vegetarian’s crusade against meat eaters. Go ahead and eat meat, but do it in a responsible and sustainable manner (sustainable both to the environment and your health). Reduce consumption and help ease multiple global crises at once.
The GOP nominee-in-waiting rapped his Democratic rival for opposing his idea to suspend the tax on fuel during the summer, a proposal that McCain believes will particularly help low-income people who usually have older cars that guzzle more gas.
“I noticed again today that Sen. Obama repeated his opposition to giving low-income Americans a tax break, a little bit of relief so they can travel a little further and a little longer, and maybe have a little bit of money left over to enjoy some other things in their lives,” McCain said. “Obviously Sen. Obama does not understand that this would be a nice thing for Americans, and the special interests should not be dictating this policy.”
McCain cleverly manipulates this decision in his statement “I noticed again today that Sen. Obama repeated his opposition to giving low-income Americans a tax break”. I’m sorry, but I was unaware that the tax on fuel affects only the low-income Americans. It gives all Americans a tax break. It just so happens that it might have a greater effect (depending on their driving habits) on those with lower incomes and thus tighter budgets.
But what is more important here is McCain’s shortsightedness in an attempt to steal support from Obama’s low-income base. McCain ignores an enormous underlying problem in suspending a fuel tax, as he puts it “for low-income Americans”, and at the same time ignores environmental responsibility.
With the continuously rising gas prices and no sign of the situation changing from this upward trend, is giving relief to Americans and encouraging them to live life in the same manner they had when fuel was cheaper really the solution for helping both them and the environment? With a tax on fuel, the gas prices at the pump are artificially inflated and thus encourage and place Americans at a better position to change their habits and lifestyles to accommodate the even higher gas prices in the future, now.
While people know that their carbon footprint is increased with each mile they drive, few Americans have made an effort to cut back on driving or fuel usage on this premise alone. What has caused the [only recent] decline in the amount of SUV and large Trucks sold in the US, as well as the recent [slight] reduction in the amount of leisure miles driven per household? You’ve guessed it, skyrocketing gas prices!
Unfortunately, left alone without economic pressures on the gas and car market, it seems Americans are either too lazy, stupid, stubborn, or selfish to change their gas-guzzling ways. From single-car hour-long commutes, to driving a couple blocks to the store when one could just as easily walk, to unnecessary suburban sprawl, Americans are showing time and time again that given cheap gas, we will take all we can get and use it as inefficiently and irresponsibly as we see fit.
With that said, suspending the tax on fuel for the benefit of the low-income class will not better prepare them and the rest of America in the long run to budget for inevitably higher fuel prices. It will not do anything to facilitate the need to purchase a more efficient car (which due to this being a case of low-income, the process should be started as soon as possible so as to give an adequate amount of time to budget for such a purchase before the problem really gets out of hand). Suspending the tax will keep the low-income as complacent as possible with the current cost in fuel and encourage them (and the rest of America) to go drive wherever they want, whenever they want, and still have that “little bit of money left over to enjoy some other things in their lives” that McCain is so concerned about. Then, once they have spent that little bit of money that McCains proposed suspension saved them (Because as we’ve all learned from the recent American financial debacle, Americans are great at spending… not so good at saving), they will not only have to face the inevitable continuous rise in gas prices still, but they will have less time and money to budget accordingly and change their habits and lifestyles in a way to better suit the more efficient usage of fuel and travel. The higher the gas prices get, the harder it will be to acclimate ourselves to the prices.
So who suffers in the long run from a suspension in the gas tax then? The low-income people McCain is so concerned about, the environment, and thus the rest of America. And although there is no silver bullet to the rising gas prices and their clash with the American lifestyle, suspending the tax just suspends and compounds the problem. In concert with other programs and methods, the changeover to a less wasteful lifestyle in regards to fuel can be easier than everyone makes it out to be. Tax on fuel will help to facilitate the change needed.
The move to a more efficient and reduced carbon lifestyle is not something that needs to be put off any longer or until it is too late both environmentally and financially to do so. Help is required by the government if the American public is unwilling to act responsibly. Furthermore it is the governments responsibility to prepare it’s citizens for the future. This means higher gas prices; Facilitate change now, don’t sweep it under the rug and try to solve a long term problem with a short term solution.
Why? Because we would be able to ‘… totally obliterate them’.
I see… So she wants to bring home troops from Iraq, of course on her ‘extended’ terms. And then attack Iran if they go after Israel?! Golf War, War in Afghanistan, Iraq War, time for Iran War? Awesome! Lets just continue to tear apart and blow the region up. We could just let McCain slip into office and continue the American way of war. We don’t have to even worry about the squabbling Clinton camp and whether or not they are imploding the democratic party.
Honestly, by that time I’ll forget if we are at war with Eurasia or Eastasia.
Israel receives $3,000,000,000.00 in US foreign aid per year, topping them out as the largest recipient of US aid. Not only are we going to do nothing about this mosquito sucking money out of our country (or the idiots tossing it to them), but defend it when it is attacked?! Israels attempt at creating a Warsaw-esque ghetto out of Gaza and the rest of their dealings with Palestine needs to be a red flag that there is no ‘good guy’ in a conflict between Iran and Israel. Yet, of course, idiots in Washington will choose sides and jump in head first. Now I’m not defending Iran, I don’t particularly care too much for the country, as I’m sure it cares little for me. The US needs to stop picking sides in conflicts which are not ours, for the sake of an outcome which ‘may’ benefit us [and at the same time create generations of hate for the US from the 'losing side']. Oh yes, and god forbid we choose the wrong side to ferry onward towards victory, not only will both sides hate us then, but the international community as well. Wait, I forget, Washington doesn’t care about that.
We need to provide more reasons for Muslim nations to hate the West and the US like we need a hole in our head, or a tower to fall on it.
It is safe to say that our past of dabbling in the affairs of other nations has given the US a piss-poor track record. Yet, as always, we will learn nothing from it.
Congrats Clinton, another reason I will never vote for you.
The more extended interview here (including the quote in the title):
