Gasoline prices recently have dropped back down into the $3.75 range from a high of over $4. This is, in the short term, a good thing, for everyone who uses gasoline on a regular basis  - which means most Americans.

Gas prices over $4 were causing a significant amount of pain to many Americans.  They were also beginning to induce us to modify behaviors that if peak oil (and later peak coal) and global climate change are occurring (and they are) need to be modified sooner rather than later.  These behavior modifications include driving less and buying smaller, more fuel efficent cars.

We have an unpalatable choice to make as a society.

All over the United States, transit ridership is up for the first time since the seventies.  The long, slow decline in public transit ridership parallels the long, slow decline of the great American cities.  The recent rise in gas prices (oh, you hadn't heard?) has led people to search for other transportation options, only to find that they don't exist.

Long ignored transit systems are scrambling to add capacity to accomodate the new ridership, while sprawl apologists continue to tell us we can't afford it, that the people choose cars, that the gas tax is a highway user fee that shouldn't be used to fund public transportation.

Would you be willing to pay taxes that would drive gas to $7-8/gallon to fund public transportation?

In the wake of Sen Hillary Clinton's failed bid to win the Democratic presidential nomination, the big question is, how and why did this happen? How did a person who had a huge lead in money, name recognition, and support from the Democratic Party establishment lose to a young, relatively unknown, African American novice?

If you do a Google search on the subject, you'll find pages and pages of sources, more than you could read in a day, or maybe a week.  Most agree on a few things:
• the Clinton campaign showed poor judgment in ignoring small states and caucus states.
• the Clinton campaign was not able to match the Obama campaign's Internet-based, small donor fund-raising machine.
• Clinton's vote for the Iraq War hurt her standing among progressives and the anti-war elements of the Democratic Party.
• Barack Obama turned out to be a unique, charismatic competitor.

All of that is probably true. But I think a lot of people are missing an element that was key, although not necessarily decisive: in the end, the superdelegates got tired of being pushed around by the Clintons. And without the support of the superdelagates, the Clintons were doomed.

With the primary season finally winding down, it’s about time for the campaign to begin (oy!). When I excitedly told my father that Barack Obama was running for president last February, he distinctly asked, "Obama Bama?" But fifteen months is a long time, and Barack Obama is now a household name in this country. The question is: do average Americans know anything about him? Like what he stands for and junk?

Why is it that Obama’s numbers climb in a given state when he spends more time there? Well duh, he spends millions of dollars on commercials. But when Hillary told him "Enough with the speeches and the big rallies," she didn’t say anything about commercials. Don’t get me wrong, some of his ads have been pretty stellar, but political commercials are political commercials for the most part (with one notable exception... more on that later).

Obama’s accomplished something extraordinary in this campaign; he’s won the nomination over one of the most recognizable people in the last 50 years in American politics. I don’t believe you pull something like that with ads. So there’s something about those "big rallies," something that Obama does better than anyone I’ve ever seen.

Hi...Yeah...Can I speak to Hillary please?  It's Rob...Sure, I'll hold.

Music on hold is "I am Women"...Jeez I hope that doesn't turn into an earworm. I really hate that son...

For the holiday weekend, I grappled with the decision of whether to go to Grand Junction, CO, known as the 'heart of Colorado wine country,' or to let the gloom and doom of the rising gas prices win, which would mean staying home and watching TV. Since wine tasting is, fortunately, a free activity, I decided to let the opportunity to get my drink on for free justify spending the ninety bucks to fill up my tank both ways to get there.

Truckers have been some of the hardest hit by the rising price of gas, which has doubled in the last 12 months.  I suggest Obama start thinking hard about a plan to give relief to small business truck drivers.  Why?  It's Obama's road to the heart of Appalachia.  

I'm a New Yorker who is unfortunate enough to live in the district of our State Senate Majority Leader, Senator Joseph Bruno (R). Today I received a mailer, paid for with tax dollars (Yay for franking privileges, not!), from him promising an "up to 65 cents per gallon" reduction in Gasoline Taxes from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Never mind that the State portion of our gas tax is 32 cents. This is just shameful pandering at it's worst -- from a guy in a totally safe seat.

A recent diary by Karmic Spirit talks about Clinton's newest ad about suspending the gas taxes.  I've looked through all the comments but I haven't found any references to what else is hidden in the video, something far more telling...

There's more to this video than the photoshopped article, and it seems to be showing a full-fledged rebellion from her ad staff.

Go past the fold...

Warren Buffet and Bill Gates were on FOX Business network this weekend.
Their Political leanings and the gas tax came up.

Transcript and link below.

Either I'm confused or the entire national discussion of the gasoline tax holiday is off base.  Someone feel free to set me straight.  I'll try to make my argument via a comparison of the excise tax to a sales tax.

A History of the Federal Excise Tax

The day before the primary  I asked

The only remaining question is whether the understanding that voters are being pandered to hurts or helps the politician doing the pandering.

It seems that now, the day after the primary, we have our answer: pandering hurt Clinton. Is this old style political tactic over? Before winning the nomination (let alone the Presidency) has Obama already brought change to our politics (like he already has to our foreign policy)?

There's so much discussion about the economy and what can be done or proposed to enhance it that I felt that a diary dedicated to the economy might be something that others (besides me) were interested in!).

I'm currently a single woman age 50 and live alone.  I've been through the raising of children and having to provide for them as a single parent.  Between the 'gas tax holiday' and the 'tax incentive checks' and some of the recent media attention on our economy there are some basic, overlooked facts.

Now we all know and anticipate that prices are going to go up, it's just the way it is - I'm grounded in reality whether I want to be or not.  As a grandmother I wonder how my children manage today - especially when compared to when I was bringing them up!

 
If the folks in Indiana are impressed by the Hillary Gas Tax so-called Holiday, it's because the Hoosiers there are already dumb enough to PRIVATIZE their roads!  If Clinton backers can witness the total privatization of Iraq and not recognize the signs of being privatized here in the so-called "homeland", then we're going to have to get used to Bushistas calling us "have nots"!

Look, if the Hillary/McCain gas tax repeal gets to Congress it WILL go through because it goes along perfectly with the Republican/Neocon Bush New World Order total fascist interface.  And what is lost in state pork barrel roadworks projects will be gained in direct corporate donations and thank-you-boardroom-jobs, etc. -- and we citizens will pay for it all by giving away our transportation infrastructure.  

This is not just a gimmick Hillary and McCain have come up with; it is a Privatization sure thing, and Bush will NOT veto it.  Bush won't be able to sign it fast enough!  

After they repeal the gas tax and there'e no gas tax funding for road repair, the states and municipalities will panic as infrastructure decays rapidly and road/infrastructure workers go unemployed.

Joining Mark Udall in speaking up forcefully, some 28 members of the House of Representatives responded to Hillary Clinton's challenge on a gas tax holiday ... and rejected her Energy Dumb concept for a gas tax holiday.

While it is important that these 28 have spoken up, some of their words and the implications of their statement are concerning.

Barack Obama has dismissed the Clinton/McCain proposal for a temporary repeal of the federal gas tax as a "classic Washington gimmick" that will not address the long term problems leading to high gas prices.

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, has keeps pushing the line that contrary to "elite opinion," repealing the tax will help the average American struggling to make ends meet.

So is Clinton's plan political pandering or a real solution to working-class woes? Well, let's see what one of the great panderers of our generation, George W. Bush, said about this same issue way back in 2001...

after the jump

So you want to suspend the Federal gas tax. It won't save me or many other folks much money, but ok. You say it works because you will then add a windfall profits tax on to gas companies and make it illegal for them to pass the tax on to consumers. Cool.

So, how'se about you do that thing first. You know, tax the gas companies. Get that through, and then, you know, suspend the federal gas tax. You do it that way, and you might have my interest. Otherwise, I am not sure you will actually tax the gas companies, and it would turn into just a big old  pandermonium. 'Nuff said.

Oh, and why not adopt the middle class tax cut as well, and end the tax breaks on the top 1% to pay for it. That sounds even better to me. I know Obama is on that already, but lift a page from his book for once, rather than McCain's. It'd help the middle class out a lot more, and not add more to the debt.

...The rest of us soon drifted into matters near and dear to the hearts of our sort -- business and wages, of course. At a first glance, things appeared to be exceeding prosperous in this little tributary kingdom - whose lord was King MacCain - as compared with the state of things in my own region. They had the "holiday" system in full force here, whereas we were working along down toward green energy, by stages, and were now about half way. Before long, Dowley and I were doing all the talking, the others hungrily listening. Dowley warmed to his work, snuffed an advantage in the air, and began to put questions which he considered pretty awkward ones for me, and they did have something of that look: