The Tale of Two Countries

Thomas Friedman has been spot on lately. I suggest reading his op-eds contrasting Denmark and the United States on energy policy as well as his call-out of John McCain’s hypocrisy on energy policy.

Pandering and campaigning. No one does it nearly as impressively as the United States. Campaigning is the art of using a lot of words to say absolutely nothing of substance. I read the draft of the Democratic Party Platform, entitled Renewing America’s Promise. There is a lot of rhetoric that it is easy to get behind. But, as always, it is the standard “America is great”, “teachers are great”, “protect the environment”, “health insurance for all” document that promises a whole lot of values but doesn’t put any meat on the bones. It is a steady diet of ribs that have already been stripped clean. It is clear that McCain is far more apt to blither, but Obama panders as well. The difference is that McCain and his Party disdain government and wants to choke it to death. Obama wants to continue the work the Al Gore undertook while he was Vice President to make government efficient and accountable. I recommend listening to the Fresh Air interview with Thomas Franks from August 4^th. Franks, a Wall Street Journal columnist, has written a book called The Wrecking Crew, which demonstrates the pattern of Republican Presidents putting incompetent people in government positions because they want to create a legacy of public sector ineptitude.

In addition, Franks seeks to illustrate a systematic suppression of public sector salaries in an effort to ensure that government cannot recruit “the best and brightest”. It has, by and large, failed because the GOP have never understood that to some people public service is more important than wealth. But I digress…

The problem with this pandering is: it is our own damn fault. We have been brainwashed into believing what oil companies, health insurers, pharmaceutical companies and large financial institutions say, as if they have no stake in the outcome. Namely that alternative energy is not price competitive, socialized medicine will result in waiting lists and ultimately worse health outcomes, competition in the drug market will suppress research and development, regulation will cost the American people huge sums of money. What we are slow in learning is, this is all BS. Ultimately, no one in this country is interested in making the commitment necessary to change. We are afraid of the unknown.

We are told that reforms (reforms that would bring us toward the mainstream of developed nations) run contrary to our libertarian spirit. Americans aren’t libertarian, we have been fed a steady diet of misinformation which make us afraid of perceived outcomes from proposed progressive reforms.

The failure of the Democratic Party is the common thread with my peeps. They are a bunch of pansies and are afraid of being called out. They try to play the game by the rules laid out by conservatives. I am here to tell you that it is a recipe for disaster. We may win elections, but we will never win our progressive policy revolution because our victories will be built on a foundation of misinformation, half truths and all out lies. Like the Siberian apartment building, built without a foundation on the permafrost, as the Earth warms, it will all come crashing down.

If we are interested in real change, and not just winning elections, we need to challenge the conventional "wisdom". We need to set the record straight on policy. We may well lose the election, but we can’t lose the larger struggle.

Not everything has a public solution. Government should not be involved in all aspects of our society. I do not believe in pure nationalization. Likewise, I oppose pure privatization. The invisible hand of the market functions best when regulated to remove the possibility of abuse by people who are solely concerned with financial outcomes regardless of the impact on society.

I believe that we should respect the American people. We need to present them with the truth. The situation is dire. The challenges we face are immense, but all is not lost. This is no time to panic. Sticking our head in the ground like an ostrich is a form of panic. Some become indiscriminately hysterical when faced with dire challenges and some avoid the situation. Neither does anything but delay the inevitable. We will have to address energy challenges. Delay only makes it more difficult.

Just to make it more clear for the knuckleheads!

Here is a table from The Tax Policy that makes it all a bit more clear. (Click to view full size) Here is how your tax bill will change based on income brackets. Just for the record: only 2% of American households earn over $250,000, so any claim of a huge tax increase on all Americans by the McCain train wreck (it isn’t really a campaign anymore, is it?)

A side by side comparison! (From the Tax Policy Center)

Candidate	Barack Obama	John McCain
New Tax Cuts	Refundable Making Work Pay tax credit of 6.2 percent of earnings up to a maximum of $8,100 Refundable Universal Mortgage Credit of 10 percent of mortgage interest for nonitemizers, capped at $800 ($8,000 of interest) Eliminate income tax for senior making less than $50,000 per year First-time buyers tax credit for new farmers Small Business and Microenterprise Initiative tax credit of 20 percent on up to $50,000 of investment in small owner-operated businesses	Allow first-year deduction of 3 and 5-year equipment, deny interest deduction (expires) Reduce maximum corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent Increase the dependent exemption by 70 percent (phased in) Suspension of the federal gas tax (18.4 cents per gallon) from this Memorial day until Labor Day
Adjustments to Existing Credits	Make R&D and renewable energy production tax credit (wind, solar) permanent Extend childless EITC phase-in range and increase phaseout threshold, double the phase-in and phase-out rates for childless individuals paying child support, increase EITC phase-in rate to 45 percent for families with three or more children; increase add-on to EITC phase-out threshold for married filers to $5,000 Make CDCTC refundable and allow low-income families to receive up to a 50 percent credit for child care expenses Make saver's credit refundable and change to a 50 percent match of the first $1,000 of savings, phases out beginning before $75,000 Increase Hope credit 100% match rate to $4,000 for college education and make refundable, rename American Opportunity Tax Credit Mandate automatic 401(k)s and automatic IRAs	Convert R&D credit to 10 percent of wages incurred for R&D, make permanent
Capital Gains	Increase maximum capital gains rate to 25 percent Require information reporting of basis for gains Eliminate capital gains taxation of start-up businesses and provide capital gains tax break for landowners selling to beginning family farmers	Keep the current rates on dividends and capital gains
Bush Tax Cuts	Permanently extend marriage penalty relief, adoption credit expansions, 10,15,25, and 28% rates, EITC simplification Restore 36 and 39.6% statutory income tax rates, Restore PEP and Pease phaseouts for households making more than $250,000, increase in PEP and Pease threshold	Make permanent all provisions other than the estate tax repeal
Alternative Minimum Tax	Extend and index 2007 AMT patch	Extend and index 2007 AMT patch, further increase exemption by 5 percent in excess of inflation after 2013 (temporarily)
Estate Tax	Make permanent estate tax with $3.5 million exemption and 45 percent rate	Make permanent estate tax with $5 million exemption and 15 percent rate
Simplification	Give taxpayers the option of pre -filled tax forms to verify, sign, return to IRS	Give taxpayers the option of an alternative tax system with two rates and larger standard deduction and personal exemption
Revenue Raisers and Tax Havens	Eliminate oil and gas loopholes Close loopholes in the corporate tax deductibility of CEO pay Tax carried interest as ordinary, Increase the highest bracket for capital gains and dividends Reallocate multinational tax deductions Codify economic substance doctrine Create international tax haven watch list Other unspecified revenue raising provisions	Eliminate oil and gas loopholes Unspecified corporate base broadeners Eliminate earmarked projects from the budget, freeze nonmilitary discretionary spending for one year, eliminate programs.
Health	Income-related federal tax subsidies for health insurance	Replace exclusion from income for employer sponsored health insurance with refundable credit of $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families
Other	Social Security/payroll taxes: increase the maximum amount of earnings covered by Social Security	Require a 3/5 majority vote in Congress to raise taxes Ban internet and cell phone taxes Higher premiums for Medicare prescription drug coverage for single people earning more than $82,000 and couples earning more than $164,000

Shocking, a McCain agenda item is full of it...

From Slate's TrailHead

The $2.8 Trillion Deficit Gap: Holtz-Eakin Responds

John McCain’s tax policy has come under fire in the past, particularly for its dependence on huge revenue windfalls to balance the budget. But now a new study from the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center (a joint venture between Brookings and the Urban Institute) suggests there’s another flaw: a rhetoric gap.

According to the study, the tax plan McCain’s campaign laid out privately is different from the one he’s selling on the stump. If you include the policies he has advocated publicly—such as repealing the Alternative Minimum Tax, increasing the dependent exemption to $7,000 right away, and reducing the corporate tax rate to 25 percent immediately—then the deficit after 10 years would actually be $2.8 trillion greater than if you go by his private plan. There’s also a rhetorical gap for Obama, but in his case the public version generates more revenue than the private one, thanks to a suggested hike in payroll taxes for people who make $250,000 or more. (Read the full study here [PDF].)

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain’s chief economic adviser, says the numbers he provided to the TPC aren’t secret—they’re the same ones he provides to anyone who asks. He also disputes the way the study takes suggestions McCain has made on the stump out of context. “This is parsing words out of campaign appearances to an unreasonable degree,” Holtz-Eakin said. “He has certainly I’m sure said things in town halls” that don’t jibe perfectly with his written plan. But that doesn’t mean it’s official. For example, the study compares McCain’s promises on the stump to reduce the corporate tax rate immediately to his plan’s more gradual reduction. Holtz-Eakin objects: “You don’t say, I’d like to reduce it to 28 percent, then 26 percent, then 25 percent, then—no one talks like that on the stump. [You say,] I’d like to get it down to 25 percent.”

In other cases, Holtz-Eakin says, the TPC filled in gaps where the McCain campaign didn’t provide specifics. For example, McCain’s proposed Alternative Simplified Tax, a plan that would let taxpayers opt out of the current system in favor of a simpler two-rate system: “We were honest about the fact that we don’t have a specific proposal,” he said. “They didn’t have one, so they made one up.”

The Tax Policy Center sent the campaign a copy of the study a day before they released it. “Had I read more carefully, I probably would have raised [objections],” Holtz-Eakin said. “But I didn’t.”

This just in...

A statement from the McCain campaign:

"While Barack Obama took a premature victory lap today in the heart of Berlin, proclaiming himself a 'citizen of the world,' John McCain continued to make his case to the American citizens who will decide this election. Barack Obama offered eloquent praise for this country, but the contrast is clear. John McCain has dedicated his life to serving, improving and protecting America. Barack Obama spent an afternoon talking about it."

Hmmm... a statement that is just as bitter as the Sauerkraut that McCain had for lunch at Schmidt's Sausage Haus in Columbus, Ohio. Who thought that up? The guy who designed the green back drop?

Nothing quite like the symbolism of one energetic, eloquent and engaging man speaking before 200,000 people in the capital of Germany and one tired old crank in front of a schnitzel and wurst house in the Heartland. Oh yeah, that screams bold and dynamic American President. Are you trying to lose, John?

Following in big footsteps...

Barack - signed, sealed, delivered: I'm voting for you!

All the "News" That's Fit to Print (Underline News)

A apologize dear readers for having been away from the dance for a while. I must admit that the long primary season wore me out and I honestly don’t think anything of lasting substance is happening right now. I will say that Senator Obama’s world tour on the good ship lollipop must scare the wits out of the GOP. Nothing better than a youthful and energetic Obama traveling around the world, being welcomed like Patton in Italy. All hail the conquering hero!

A mini-flap arose yesterday when the Drudge Report announced that Senator McCain’s Iraq Op-Ed reply was rejected by the New York Times. This has given the vast right-wing idiocracy an opportunity to thump their chests like the modern day cavemen that they are and scream liberal bias. Liberal bias, liberal bias; the New York Times rejected the Op-Ed because they want Obama to win (like they don’t sell a whole slew of newspapers printing Maureen Dowd’s rants against Republican hypocrisy).

Could there be any other reason? The Op-Ed editor of the New York Times, David Shipley, stated that he would like to publish a piece from McCain but the draft submitted simply did not warrant publishing. He said that he would welcome another draft in the same format as Obama’s (i.e. outlining a plan going forward and defining what victory would look like). The McCain campaign took this as a rejection not of the writing and editing of the piece, but of the Senator’s position. I decided to do a little background research. I read the two pieces so I could judge for myself if one was worthy of publishing and the other not.

It will come as no shock to anyone that Shipley is right. Obama’s piece was newsworthy. He published ahead of a major speech on Iraq policy and a week before a major trip to the region. He spent the days before the trip outlining his thinking and wanted to communicate that with the voters of New York City (and educated people everywhere).

Senator McCain’s read more like a review of all the things he was right about (the surge) and all the things Obama was wrong about (everything, after reading the pieces I think Obama might have been responsible for the Lindbergh baby abduction).

Here are the problems with the McCain response:

• It is a response, not a outlining of new policy
• It is loaded with political antagonism.
• It is really badly written (couldn’t find a writer that is smarter than a fifth grader, John?

The New York Times doesn’t exist to provide Presidential candidates with a tit-for-tat forum. They are in the business of printing All the News That’s Fit to Print. The McCain Op-Ed couldn’t reach the bar for that. Pretty sad considering the fact that Britney Spears smoking in front of her children qualifies in this day and age. They must have tripped over the bar. John McCain expected the newspaper of record to publish a piece which is not at all forward looking and simply attempts to trumpet the genius of John McCain. That isn’t even worthy of the Arizona Daily Star, get a blog for that bro!

I won’t pull a FoxNews and draw conclusions for you without providing substance to back it up. Here are the two pieces so you can do your own careful analysis.

Barack Obama’s Op-Ed on Iraq that appeared in the New York Times on July 14, 2008:

My Plan for Iraq

CHICAGO — The call by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki for a timetable for the removal of American troops from Iraq presents an enormous opportunity. We should seize this moment to begin the phased redeployment of combat troops that I have long advocated, and that is needed for long-term success in Iraq and the security interests of the United States.

The differences on Iraq in this campaign are deep. Unlike Senator John McCain, I opposed the war in Iraq before it began, and would end it as president. I believed it was a grave mistake to allow ourselves to be distracted from the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban by invading a country that posed no imminent threat and had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. Since then, more than 4,000 Americans have died and we have spent nearly $1 trillion. Our military is overstretched. Nearly every threat we face — from Afghanistan to Al Qaeda to Iran — has grown.

In the 18 months since President Bush announced the surge, our troops have performed heroically in bringing down the level of violence. New tactics have protected the Iraqi population, and the Sunni tribes have rejected Al Qaeda — greatly weakening its effectiveness.

But the same factors that led me to oppose the surge still hold true. The strain on our military has grown, the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated and we’ve spent nearly $200 billion more in Iraq than we had budgeted. Iraq’s leaders have failed to invest tens of billions of dollars in oil revenues in rebuilding their own country, and they have not reached the political accommodation that was the stated purpose of the surge.

The good news is that Iraq’s leaders want to take responsibility for their country by negotiating a timetable for the removal of American troops. Meanwhile, Lt. Gen. James Dubik, the American officer in charge of training Iraq’s security forces, estimates that the Iraqi Army and police will be ready to assume responsibility for security in 2009.

Only by redeploying our troops can we press the Iraqis to reach comprehensive political accommodation and achieve a successful transition to Iraqis’ taking responsibility for the security and stability of their country. Instead of seizing the moment and encouraging Iraqis to step up, the Bush administration and Senator McCain are refusing to embrace this transition — despite their previous commitments to respect the will of Iraq’s sovereign government. They call any timetable for the removal of American troops “surrender,” even though we would be turning Iraq over to a sovereign Iraqi government.

But this is not a strategy for success — it is a strategy for staying that runs contrary to the will of the Iraqi people, the American people and the security interests of the United States. That is why, on my first day in office, I would give the military a new mission: ending this war.

As I’ve said many times, we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 — two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began. After this redeployment, a residual force in Iraq would perform limited missions: going after any remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces. That would not be a precipitous withdrawal.

In carrying out this strategy, we would inevitably need to make tactical adjustments. As I have often said, I would consult with commanders on the ground and the Iraqi government to ensure that our troops were redeployed safely, and our interests protected. We would move them from secure areas first and volatile areas later. We would pursue a diplomatic offensive with every nation in the region on behalf of Iraq’s stability, and commit $2 billion to a new international effort to support Iraq’s refugees.

Ending the war is essential to meeting our broader strategic goals, starting in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the Taliban is resurgent and Al Qaeda has a safe haven. Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been. As Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently pointed out, we won’t have sufficient resources to finish the job in Afghanistan until we reduce our commitment to Iraq.

As president, I would pursue a new strategy, and begin by providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan. We need more troops, more helicopters, better intelligence-gathering and more nonmilitary assistance to accomplish the mission there. I would not hold our military, our resources and our foreign policy hostage to a misguided desire to maintain permanent bases in Iraq.

In this campaign, there are honest differences over Iraq, and we should discuss them with the thoroughness they deserve. Unlike Senator McCain, I would make it absolutely clear that we seek no presence in Iraq similar to our permanent bases in South Korea, and would redeploy our troops out of Iraq and focus on the broader security challenges that we face. But for far too long, those responsible for the greatest strategic blunder in the recent history of American foreign policy have ignored useful debate in favor of making false charges about flip-flops and surrender.

It’s not going to work this time. It’s time to end this war.

John McCain’s rejected Op-Ed to the New York Times (as reported in the Drudge Report)

In January 2007, when General David Petraeus took command in Iraq, he called the situation “hard” but not “hopeless.” Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to 80% to the lowest levels in four years, and Sunni and Shiite terrorists are reeling from a string of defeats. The situation now is full of hope, but considerable hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains.

Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,” he said on January 10, 2007. “In fact, I think it will do the reverse."

Now Senator Obama has been forced to acknowledge that “our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence.” But he still denies that any political progress has resulted.

Perhaps he is unaware that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, “Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress.” Even more heartening has been progress that’s not measured by the benchmarks. More than 90,000 Iraqis, many of them Sunnis who once fought against the government, have signed up as Sons of Iraq to fight against the terrorists. Nor do they measure Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s new-found willingness to crack down on Shiite extremists in Basra and Sadr City—actions that have done much to dispel suspicions of sectarianism.

The success of the surge has not changed Senator Obama’s determination to pull out all of our combat troops. All that has changed is his rationale. In a New York Times op-ed and a speech this week, he offered his “plan for Iraq” in advance of his first “fact finding” trip to that country in more than three years. It consisted of the same old proposal to pull all of our troops out within 16 months. In 2007 he wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost. If we had taken his advice, it would have been. Now he wants to withdraw because he thinks Iraqis no longer need our assistance.

To make this point, he mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future.

Senator Obama is also misleading on the Iraqi military's readiness. The Iraqi Army will be equipped and trained by the middle of next year, but this does not, as Senator Obama suggests, mean that they will then be ready to secure their country without a good deal of help. The Iraqi Air Force, for one, still lags behind, and no modern army can operate without air cover. The Iraqis are also still learning how to conduct planning, logistics, command and control, communications, and other complicated functions needed to support frontline troops.

No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Senator Obama charges. A partial withdrawal has already occurred with the departure of five “surge” brigades, and more withdrawals can take place as the security situation improves. As we draw down in Iraq, we can beef up our presence on other battlefields, such as Afghanistan, without fear of leaving a failed state behind. I have said that I expect to welcome home most of our troops from Iraq by the end of my first term in office, in 2013.

But I have also said that any draw-downs must be based on a realistic assessment of conditions on the ground, not on an artificial timetable crafted for domestic political reasons. This is the crux of my disagreement with Senator Obama.

Senator Obama has said that he would consult our commanders on the ground and Iraqi leaders, but he did no such thing before releasing his “plan for Iraq.” Perhaps that’s because he doesn’t want to hear what they have to say. During the course of eight visits to Iraq, I have heard many times from our troops what Major General Jeffrey Hammond, commander of coalition forces in Baghdad, recently said: that leaving based on a timetable would be “very dangerous.”

The danger is that extremists supported by Al Qaeda and Iran could stage a comeback, as they have in the past when we’ve had too few troops in Iraq. Senator Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history. I find it ironic that he is emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the “Mission Accomplished” banner prematurely.

I am also dismayed that he never talks about winning the war—only of ending it. But if we don’t win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president. Instead I will continue implementing a proven counterinsurgency strategy not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan with the goal of creating stable, secure, self-sustaining democratic allies.

George Carlin R.I.P.

Getting it done! We did "Beat L.A."

The Larry O'Brien trophy, back home where it belongs...



KG paying homage to Lucky!



Paul and Doc stuck together and got it done



...and Doc got a gatorade shower for his efforts!



Ray Ray was just about co-MVP!

Paul Pierce IS the Truth!!!

This is his team!

A heroes effort throughout the game!



The injury that caused Celtic fans' hearts to seize:



The warrior returns...



...and plays MVP caliber basketball!

What a cute future first couple!

How do you celebrate being the nominee of your Party? Bump bump the fists!



And the slow motion instant reply, reverse angle!



I am a happy Democrat today! Proud of my Party, proud of my country!

Wow, sometimes the press pays attention...

It seems to me that this guy (President Bush) will literally say anything to cover his ass. I am glad that there are people like Keith Olbermann that don't let him get away with it.

I watched this interview yesterday and I have to say that the thing that struck me most about it was exactly how inarticulate the President is. He really struggles to communicate what he is thinking. His relationship with words is almost as staggering as his relationship with the truth. This is what you get, people, when you want a President of average intelligence.

Duck, it's a kitchen sink!!!

I've been sitting on this post for a while!!!

Barack Obama did me proud tonight!!!

How can you not like these people?

"Ain't nothin' gonna break-a my stride, ain't nothin' gonna slow me down! Oh no, I got to keep on moving."

Does this still qualify as "news"?

Here is the scoreboard for the nomination contest:

Delegate Count:

Barack Obama

Total Delegates: 1732

Pledged Delegates: 1489

Super Delegates: 243

Hillary Clinton

Total Delegates: 1595

Pledged Delegates: 1333

Super Delegates: 262

This includes the Pennsylvania results which awarded 83 delegates to Senator Clinton and 73 delegates to Senator Obama.

But let’s put this aside because the Clinton campaign has changed its tune (again) and decided that it is popular vote that matters. This ignores the fact that nominees for President are not selected based on votes, but rather by delegates.

Popular Vote Total:

Obama: 14,418,784

Clinton: 13,917,318

Margin: Obama +501,466

So, how does Hillary Clinton come to the conclusion that she is leading in the popular vote. Perhaps we should look at the primary states that were stripped of their Delegates by the DNC:

Florida Vote Count:

Obama: 576,214

Clinton: 870,986

So, how does that impact the popular vote totals?

Obama: 14,994,998

Clinton: 14,788,304

Margin: Obama +206,694

That does not get her into the lead. What if we add the Michigan Vote Count:

Clinton: 328,309

Uncommitted: 238,168

This makes things complicated since there was an agreement among the candidates to not campaign in Michigan and most of the candidates removed their names from the ballot. Do we assume that only Clinton should get votes from Michigan? Well she does because it is only by giving Senator Clinton the 328,309 votes and Senator Obama none that she is able to push her into the lead. But of course it will require a compromise between the two candidates to seat the contested state delegations at the National Convention. I can’t imagine that this compromise would stand a chance unless there was an agreement to award the uncommitted votes to Senator Obama. Using that standard, if you add the Michigan totals are:

Obama: 15,233,166

Clinton: 15,116,613

Margin: Obama +16,553

Florida has a halfway decent argument that their delegates should be seating at the Convention in August. A Republican Governor and a Republican Legislature forced the date change on the state Party.

Michigan’s argument is ridiculous. It doesn’t warrant further discussion.

Of course the problem with these numbers is they don’t count states that hold Caucuses instead of Primaries. Real Clear Politics estimates for what the vote count would be if we included caucus states:

Obama: 4,752,868

Clinton: 4,141,180

Margin: Obama +611,688

Chuck Todd from MSNBC, on Countdown with Keith Olbermann on Wednesday, April 23rd said: “if we treated this the way we would call an election in a state, you know, the way our numbers gurus are looking at this stuff, we would call it. It‘s over. The pledged delegate count is going to be Obama‘s, it just is - because of proportionality, it is mathematically impossible for her to take the lead.”

I try not to argue with Chuck Todd more then absolutely necessary.

Microeconomics 101 for weenie Senators!!!

"Half a tank of gas, that’s his big solution."

- Senator Obama in response to the McCain/Clinton gas tax holiday scheme which analysts say will save the average consumer $30.

I am a bit disappointed to hear Senator Clinton repeatedly pandering to lower income Americans by calling for a suspension of the federal gas tax (a holiday, will there be balloons?) between Memorial Day and Labor Day. I expect that kind of mindless pandering from Senator McCain since it is abundantly obvious that the fundamentals of Microeconomics are so far over his head. But I expected better from the self-anointed master of the issues. Senator Clinton’s entire rationale for running is that she has a better command of the fundamentals of sound public policy than either Senator Obama or Senator McCain, but she is looking pretty average right now.

The best way to explain the impact of a gas tax holiday in Microeconomic terms is: in a market where there is a fixed supply of oil with which to refine petroleum (gas) and a fixed capacity to refine oil (regardless of what lame duck says), the price that consumers pay at the pump will adjust until the demand at that price matches that fixed supply. That is what is referred to as Equilibrium. I filled up my car two days ago and the price was $3.77 per gallon of high grade gasoline.

P = Price, Q = Quantity, S = Supply, D = Demand, P0 = Equilibrium Price, Q0 = Equilibrium Quantity

Many economists are predicting gas prices in the range of $4.00 per gallon by the summer of 2008. That price could (and probably will) include the 18.4¢ per gallon federal gas tax. Whether Congress votes for the gas tax holiday or not is of no significance. Either way, the price will not change. Oh, the price of gasoline will go down by 18.4¢ per gallon but that price will correspond with an increase in demand to bring the market back into Equilibrium. In essence, what Senator McCain and Senator Clinton are pushing for is a shift of that 18.4¢ per gallon from the federal coffers directly into the oil companies' profit statements. Make not mistake, McCain and Clinton are supporting reducing the federal budget and the governments ability to pay for the maintenance of our transportation infrastructure.

This predictable Demand shift can only be prevented by a corresponding increase in short-term Supply. I say short-term supply because oil is a natural resource with a fixed supply. Suppliers and producers can increase output, but only in the short-term. When it's gone, folks, it's gone. It just so happens that the world petroleum market is an oligopoly, that is to say, a market that is served by a finite number of suppliers. They have formed a cartel called the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). OPEC has thus far been unwilling to adjust their output levels at the whim of American politicians. Their interest is in maintaining supply levels at their current level because there is no interest to them to do otherwise. There are other market forces and uncertainties that are driving the price of gasoline up. Why would they increase supply and reduce the price of oil? That ain’t capitalist folks, and our entire foreign policy has been predicated on the goal of convincing the world of the genius of the American system, which is at its heart a “free market” system.

The only way to control gas prices and ensure lower prices is to cap the wholesale price of gasoline. I’ll bet a month’s salary that neither McCain nor Clinton have the stomach for that.

If we reduce the taxation level of gasoline the price will drop temporarily (very temporarily) until demand increases to bring the price back to the equilibrium level. Barring a drastic change in the market trends the price of gas (even with a tax holiday) will be higher at Labor Day than it is at Memorial Day. Congress has the power to suspend the gas tax, but not suspend the laws of supply and demand.

It turns out that the candidate with the best grip on reality in this case is Senator Barack Obama. Who woulda thunk it?

Let’s not forget that environmental advocates see a reduction in the gas tax as totally inconsistent with either Senator McCain or Senator Clinton's campaign rhetoric about reducing carbon emissions. The increase in demand that results from the gas tax holiday will increase carbon tailpipe emissions. No way to sugar coat that fact.

Let us also not forget that the federal gas tax is not indexed to the Consumer Price Index and has not been increased since 1995. I will let the following graph depicting the purchasing power of the federal gas tax.

Pretty weak stand Mrs. Clinton. I would have expected better from you than just naked pandering. Do you really think the American people are that dumb? Doesn’t that make you an elitest?

Wow

Pennsylvanians are a bunch of stupid hicks after all!

The Boss... what a commie!

Dubya unplugged!

Bitter people!

By now the quote is famous. You’ve heard it, Barack Obama at a fundraiser in San Francisco saying:

“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years, and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate, and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Was it a polite thing to say? No, probably not. Was it politically astute? Nope, surely not. It is usually inappropriate to use broad generalizations when describing group of people or regions of the country. I live in Austin, Texas and please don’t paint me with the same brush as all my neighbors. They are good people but we are pretty diverse.

Here is a hard truth. People who have lost as much as some people in these rural communities have tend to become more traditional. In most cases this probably isn’t a conscious decision (i.e. they don’t know why they are sticking to traditional culture and values). It is called being reactionary. It is neither surprising nor an unreasonable response. Wouldn’t you get “bitter” and xenophobic if a bunch of politicians told you that Mexicans were to blame for all your troubles instead of the politicians that created tax loop-holes for outsourcing manufacturing jobs? I am a realist. Those jobs are leaving anyways. There is nothing to be done about that. But do we need to reward the companies for doing it?

Here is another hard truth: just like the working class people in Pennsylvania see San Franciscans as a total foreign enigma, the opposite is true as well. These are two different worlds and neither of them are one dimensional. But just like Pennsylvanians don’t like to be called gun toting, religious, xenophobic yokels, people in San Francisco are not all rich, liberal, intellectuals who shop at boutique super markets (though the ones I know are). There are Harvard alumni in the steel towns and there are uneducated folks in the Bay Area.

But let’s say, hypothetically, that all San Franciscans are rich, liberal intellectuals. What is wrong with that? I thought that the premise of this country that Republicans liked best was the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (which they always substitute with pursuit of wealth even though the Founders purposefully chose not to use the phrase ‘and property’, they must have done that for a reason). Is it not the goal of this country to provide opportunity for upward mobility? It isn’t San Francisco’s fault that there is a correlation between educational attainment, wealth and liberal political attitudes. It is called being panoptic versus myopic.

But I digress. In a media world where brevity is rewarded is it any surprise that people have trouble communicating broad issues in a format that sound bytes? It is no shock that there will be instances of misunderstanding. It is easier when you speak in platitudes and emotionalisms like Republicans (e.g. tax cuts good, criminals bad!).

All that aside, I am voting for Barack Obama, because I too like arugula and other organic veggies from Whole Foods! If that offends people in the Heartland – go shoot at some beer cans!

Baracky

Easy does it Honky Cat!

"'I've always been a Hillary supporter,' [Elton] John, 61, said before launching into his 1970 breakthrough hits, 'Your Song' and 'Border Song.' "There is no one more qualified to lead America.

"'The English singer, composer and pianist added: 'I'm amazed by the misogynistic attitudes of some of the people in this country. And I say to hell with them .... I love you Hillary, I'll be there for you.'"

Let me tell you, nothing that heartland voters love more than being lectured by foreigners about our shortcomings! That is definitely going to turn us around!

The Walken Family reunion!