Democrats

Posted on Democrats, Liberals, Republicans

democrats attempt to punish big oil

They might want to remember what happened last time we imposed a windfall profits tax.

Interesting findings from a 2006 Congressional Research Service Report (quoted here). Full PDF here.

This is the most interesting part:

Reinstating the windfall profit tax would reduce recent oil industry windfalls due to high crude and petroleum prices but could have several adverse economic effects. If imposed as an excise tax, the WPT would increase marginal production costs and be expected to reduce domestic oil production and increase the level of oil imports, which today is at nearly 60% of demand. Crude prices would not tend to increase. Some have proposed an excise tax on both domestically produced and imported oil as a way of mitigating the negative effects on petroleum import dependence. Such a broad-based WPT would tend to reduce import dependence, but it would lead to higher crude oil prices and likely to oil industry profits, potentially undermining its original goals.

Because the pure corporate profits tax is relatively neutral in the short run — few, if any, price and output effects occur because marginal production costs are unchanged in the short run — a possible option would be a corporate income surtax on the upstream operations of crude oil producers. Such a tax that would recoup any recent windfalls with less adverse economic effects; imports would not increase because domestic production would remain unchanged. In the long run, such a tax is a tax on capital; it reduces the rate of return, thus reducing the supply of capital to the oil industry.

So US oil companies would have reduced profits if a windfall profits tax was ever enacted, but according to this study, production costs would go up and the level of imports would also increase.  In other words, it would cost more to produce domestic oil, and we would end up importing even more oil than we do now.  Great solution.

If we tax both our own oil production as well as the imports, it might level the playing field (and by that, I mean punishing everyone equally).  It also could lead to higher crude oil prices and keep those oil company profits high.  These aren’t the best solutions to high gas prices.  Congress needs to figure out that high taxes discourage production, and if they really want to increase domestic oil production,  they should allow domestic drilling and let the oil companies build more refineries.

The Democrats are just saying what they think people want to hear.  That’s common enough for politicians.  What annoys me more than anything is that I don’t see much fight in Republicans to challenge the Democrats on any of their stupid proposals.

1 Comment Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals, Republicans

cheap shot artists

Thanks for reminding John McCain who his opposition really is, Democrats. In case he wasn’t sure that the Democrats would say anything mean about him before the election, now he knows differently. Step right up and take those cheap shots. I’m talking to you, Ed Schultz, Howard Dean, and John F. Kerry. For those who have never heard of Ed Schultz, he is a liberal talk radio guy who occasionally appears on cable news shows and represents the Airhead America point of view. He called John McCain a warmonger. That doesn’t sound all that inflammatory in print, but it suggests that McCain is someone who is looking to pick fights that have nothing to do with our national security interests. I don’t see McCain this way, and in spite of his bad joke about bombing Iran, I don’t think he would be as willing to do it as the Democrats suggest that he is. I also think he’s more open to the kind of diplomacy Hillary and Obama keep talking about than he can admit as the Republican nominee.

DNC chairman Howard Dean is the gift that keeps on giving for Republicans. He always gives us such great material for our campaign ads. Think you might see this quote again?

He says:

John McCain can try to reintroduce himself to the country, but he can’t change the fact that he cast aside his principles to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with President Bush for the last seven years.

While we honor McCain’s military service, the fact is Americans want a real leader who offers real solutions, not a blatant opportunist who doesn’t understand the economy and is promising to keep our troops in Iraq for 100 years.

That’s right. Howard Dean calls John McCain a blatant opportunist. I suppose that this could be interpreted any number of ways, but to suggest, as Media Matters does, that Dean wasn’t accusing McCain of playing politics with his military service — that claim is laughable. Besides, under the Democrat rules of engagement, only those who have served in the military are qualified to support or criticize wars. I’m pretty sure that doesn’t include Howard Dean. Also, Dean is being disingenuous with his claim that McCain is promising to keep our troops in Iraq for 100 years. McCain did no such thing.

McCain has every right to include his military service in his re-introduction to the American people, because that’s a big part of who the man is. If his intention was to exploit that military service for maximum advantage, he would probably mention it every three seconds like John F. Kerry did in 2004. He also wouldn’t keep the fact that his son James is serving our country in Iraq a secret (more on that later).

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3 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, George W. Bush, Liberals

are they serious?

Non-“right wing crazies” also question the Democrats’ (and specifically Obama’s) patriotism.

Like Joe Klein, for example.

This is a chronic disease among Democrats, who tend to talk more about what’s wrong with America than what’s right. When Ronald Reagan touted “Morning in America” in the 1980s, Dick Gephardt famously countered that it was near midnight “and getting darker all the time.” This is ironic and weirdly self-defeating, since the liberal message of national improvement is profoundly more optimistic, and patriotic, than the innate conservative pessimism about the perfectibility of human nature. Obama’s hopemongering is about as American as a message can get — although, in the end, it is mostly about our ability to transcend our imperfections rather than the effortless brilliance of our diversity, informality and freedom-propelled creativity.

That’s what the right is questioning about the Democrats and about Obama. It’s not that he doesn’t wear a flag pin. I could care less whether Democrats or Republicans wear flag pins. The attitude and mindset of a potential President is what’s important here. I want someone who, while admitting the challenges and struggles we face as a country, will also acknowledge the possibility that we can overcome those challenges. I’ve said on several occasions that it’s customary to have the party out of power tell the voters how terrible everything is to win elections, and that both sides do this. However, the Democrats seem to have perfected this particular argument, and it’s often hard for them to admit that the country isn’t doomed, because this ruins all of their stump speeches.

It also damages their push for national health care, pulling out of Iraq — forget for a minute that both Hillary and Obama have flip-flopped on their commitment to immediate withdrawal from Iraq — and all of their other grand social experiments and new government spending. This aversion to Bush has really tied the Dems in knots to the point where they can never give him credit for anything, even when it’s obvious they agree with what he does. According to the Democrats, Bush has ruined this great country, and all the bad things happening to you in your life are indirectly caused by your President. This period of misery will continue under President McCain, because “he’s just like Bush”. McCain will also ruin your life, so the only choice you have is to vote Democratic. That’s their whole argument. McCain = Bush.

At some point, the Democrats will have to make the case for their nominee, and it has to be more than “We’re not like Bush!”. President Bush isn’t running again, and running against him won’t work this time.

5 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals

it’s not going to happen

The longer the Democratic primary battle continues, the more difficult it seems to be to keep the Democrats from doing something stupid.  Exhibit A: the possibility that they would end up picking someone no Democrat voted for in 2008.  I’m talking about America’s most revered loser Al Gore.   There is actually a discussion among some “senior” Democrats about tossing out the preferences of Democrat voters and nominating Al Gore as the Democrat who will lose to John McCain in November.  That’s a fabulous idea.  If you want all out civil war in the Democratic party, just try to pull this stunt.  Even if you think that Al Gore actually won in 2000, there’s nothing new or original about him other than his obsession with saving the planet.  He’s Washington establishment through and through and he’s one of those boring white male types we keep electing as President.

It’s over for Al Gore.  He would be better off staying where he is and making outrageous sums of money lying to the public about global warming.  I know the media is easily distracted by shiny objects and candidates not actually in the race, but there’s nothing to see here. I never overestimate the Democrats’ ability to screw up a sure thing, but I can’t believe they would seriously consider nominating Gore over Obama or Hillary.   It takes away the novelty and the advantage either Dem would have in November.  It’s not going to happen.  Al Gore will not be the Dem nominee in 2008.  Get over 2000 and the Clinton years and get on with your lives.  Nominate Obama.  Or you Dems could just struggle and struggle until August or September.   Either way works for me.

31 Comments Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals, Random Musings

questionable alliances

First it’s former NY Gov Eliot Spitzer and his high-priced call girl. He had to resign and he did.  It’s hard to feel any sympathy for a guy who wasn’t smart enough to recognize that he’s not the only government official capable of busting up prostitution rings.  It’s always annoying when politicians condemn activity they themselves engage in, so Spitzer isn’t getting a free pass by the public and the media.  That said, I’m not sure how strong the legal case is against him going forward.  If all he loses is his political career, that would still be a significant loss, so I’m not sure whether they should go ahead and prosecute him. Now, that’s not to say that cheating on his wife is acceptable behavior, or that politicians shouldn’t be treated the same as everyone else when they break laws. But in this case, I’m not sure there is much benefit to putting the guy in jail.

Side note to my friends on the other side of the aisle:  Democratic hypocrisy is not justified or excused by Republican hypocrisy.

Then the MSM finally gets around to questioning Barack Obama’s relationship with his controversial pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. This is different than people like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell endorsing Republican presidential candidates with which they only have a passing acquaintance.  As we now know, Obama and Rev. Wright have a closer relationship than that, and it is troubling that Obama doesn’t see the problem with having a friend like this.  Obama says that he doesn’t see his church as controversial.  I think he should get a second opinion on that.  Whether or not Obama shares some or all of Rev. Wright’s views — and for the record I don’t believe that he does — he must distance himself far from this guy, or this friendship will end up hurting him in the general election.

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Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals

mr. irrelevant makes a threat.

Joe Biden threatens to call for impeachment for President Bush and Vice President Cheney if they bomb Iran without Congressional approval. Surely this will be the strategy that gets his poll numbers all the way up to 5%. Brilliant. He has to know the President would never do this, and that he will never have to follow through with this threat. I guess I was wrong in assuming he was above pandering to the lefty netroots. If you want to be different from the rest of the Democratic field, why follow their playbook? Nothing will make any difference for Biden right now, but I’m disappointed that he has to resort to playing the scary Bush card. He has more to offer as a candidate than a promise of change from Dubya’s policies.

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Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Republicans

low expectations

The best argument for Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani is that Hillary (or Rudy) would be the candidate most likely to beat the other in a general election matchup…at least you would think so from the press coverage they get. Republicans are told that Giuliani is the only Republican candidate who might possibly be able to beat HER.  Because of this “fact”, we shouldn’t care about his lack of social conservative credentials or his messy personal life, or that being mayor of NYC doesn’t automatically qualify him to be president of the United States.  We might be giving up a whole bunch of red states to (maybe) gain a few blue ones if Giuliani is our candidate.  That’s ok with us, as long as we have a chance to beat Hillary, right?

There is no great love for Hillary out there as the Democrats’ preferred candidate. The netroots gravitate toward Edwards, or one of the other “no chance” candidates.  Those disenchanted with the status quo or Washington insiders have their guy in Obama.  But until that debate where we saw Hillary stumble just a little bit, many of us bought into Hillary’s inevitability as the Dem nominee. It’s still difficult to see how Obama can gain enough ground to knock her off, but several wins in early primary states, such as Iowa, can throw a monkey wrench into Hillary’s coronation plans. 

Obama does have the opportunity to pull this off as Democrats start to doubt that Hillary is their strongest possible nominee. That’s the whole point of all these increasingly sharp attacks on Hillary’s experience (or lack thereof) — to make them doubt her viability.  Maybe it will work.  Maybe not.  Hillary has experience where it counts with Democrats — successfully fending off Republican attacks.  This should be enough to get her to the Democratic nomination.

Is this the kind of contest we want?  Would we be satisfied with a contest between two candidates each party nominates by default?  Wouldn’t we rather nominate candidates with the best vision for the country, and the two people who we feel have the best ideas to solve the country’s problems?  Hillary and Rudy may be those two candidates.  But we don’t seem to care much about vision and ideas, just as long as our candidate is the most electable. It’s the most practical way to look at the election, but there’s no joy in the choice.

Jason Zengerle explores the electability argument further in New York Magazine.

Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals

unarmed combat

If you read most of the press on last night’s Democratic presidential debate, you will learn that Hillary managed to rebound from her uneven performance in the previous debate (and the paralyzed reaction to the question about illegal alien driver’s licenses). If you actually watched the debate, you might have a different reaction to what you saw Thursday night. Obama and Edwards were right to call her out on her sketchy answer to the illegal immigration question. The problem is that Wolf Blitzer and Barack Obama allowed her to recover from that by allowing her to change her mind yet again with a one-word answer. (Her current view is that no, they shouldn’t get driver’s licenses. I doubt this position will change.) Obama seems to be intent on shooting himself in the foot. When criticizing an opponent for not giving straight answers, it’s important to give them yourself, especially on a question guaranteed to be asked in this debate. Obama didn’t do this. It took him forever to finally say that yes, he’s for illegals getting driver’s licenses (but only for public safety purposes). This blows my mind. Richardson gave a better defense than Obama did, and he has no shot of winning the nomination. Maybe that’s the reason he was willing to defend his “yes” answer.

Will Hillary get a better fight from the Republican nominee than she’s getting from Obama, Edwards, and all the rest??? I sure hope so. At least Wolf pretended to ask hard questions.

I continue to like some of the things I’m hearing from Biden and Dodd. They make more sense on foreign policy than any of the rest except Hillary. I also give Dodd credit for trying to explain to the other candidates why giving driver’s licenses to people who are here illegally is a bad idea. Domestic policy is another story. I don’t trust any Democrat on that topic.

Kucinich will always be Kucinich, God bless him. He’s still not convincing anybody that he’s presidential material.

As it turns out, CNN is not above screening questions for this debate, and telling questioners which one to ask. The crowd was unquestionably pro-Hillary. It was a very hostile environment for Obama and Edwards, and we shouldn’t have expected anything less this late in the race. I’m not going to blame CNN for the crowd. Who knows how the Hillary campaign might have stacked the deck in her favor by bringing in all those favorable audience members? But I don’t think Wolf Blitzer treated Obama and Edwards the same way he treated Hillary. Whether the bias was conscious or unconscious,  the sentiments of the crowd and of the moderators were obvious. I’m not surprised by it. That’s the way CNN is. They are just as biased for Dems as Fox News is for Republicans.

If you want to read the transcript, go here.

Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals

get over it

If you want to read about how all those mean ol’ men beat up on poor defenseless Hillary,  feel free to read what Margaret Carlson and the NYT’s Gail Collins had to say about that last debate. If you want to hear whining about how unfair they are being when Russert dares to ask her tough questions and when Edwards, Obama, and Dodd call her on her inability to give a straight answer to those questions  — it won’t be difficult for you to find articles about that either. This strategy may have worked with Rick Lazio.  It’s not going to work this time.  If Hillary can’t answer tough questions, if she can’t make tough decisions without waffling a few times, and if she can’t take a principled stand on any important issue facing our country today, maybe she would be better off staying in the kitchen and baking cookies (or doing whatever feminists do when they are not running for office).  Her problem is not that she is female.  It’s certainly not that she can’t handle whatever abuse she gets, whether it’s because she’s a woman, or because she is the frontrunner in the Democratic presidential race.   She can handle it because she has the Clinton machine behind her spinning valid criticisms into personal attacks.

Hillary chose this battle.  Maybe she expected it to be an easier ride than it has been for her so far, but surely she had to know that the harder questions were coming at some point. She knew the risks involved, and she decided to take that chance anyway.  Politics is an ugly business.  She should know this better than just about anyone.  If she can’t stand up to your Democratic opponents (who weren’t all that close to mortally wounding her) and Tim Russert, that raises some serious questions in my mind.  She survived the debate without much damage inflicted from Obama and Edwards, but her uneven performance in the latter half is more her fault than theirs.  She does herself no good by blaming others for her own mistakes.  Unfortunately, this will not stop her from getting the nomination, but she can be stopped.   We have a good chance to take advantage of her mistakes in the general election.  We just need someone who knows how to do it.

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Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals

not invincible

hillary.jpgHillary showed signs of weakness in Tuesday’s Democratic debate, but even though Edwards and Obama landed a few soft punches, they didn’t do any lasting damage. This could change if they keep up the pressure, because Hillary showed that she does have a breaking point, and that it was possible to throw her off of her game.

Dan Balz in the Washington Post blog:

Clinton was on the defensive from beginning to end on Tuesday, both from the moderators — Brian Williams, the NBC anchor, and Tim Russert, host of NBC’s “Meet The Press” — and from her rivals. John Edwards was the most aggressive challenger to Clinton on Tuesday, but Barack Obama and Chris Dodd made telling points against her as well.

The storyline they sought to write was of an evasive front-runner who, for reasons of political calculation, caution or lack of candor, was unwilling to say what she really believes about everything from Social Security to the release of documents from her husband’s administration to whether illegal immigrants should be eligible for drivers licenses.

At times she was typically strong in defending her positions, even if they run counter to the views of many Democratic voters. That was the case on Iran, where she explained her vote for a measure that her rivals said provided President Bush with a legislative rationale to go to war with the Iranians. At other times, however, she was defensive, evasive or both.

If Hillary wants to take credit for the accomplishments of her husband’s administration, it would be wise for her to have some evidence of what exactly her role was as First Lady. What part did she play? What policies does she deserve credit (or blame) for? These are things that we could find out if she asks Bill to unseal those Presidential records. After all, that’s part of the resume she’s pushing as her qualifications for being President. She hasn’t really distinguished herself as a Senator, and has no signature legislation to show for her time there. It is about time for her opponents to call attention to this, and I’m glad that Russert asked the question to give them the opportunity to comment on the subject.

Edwards did what he had to do, except that attacking Hillary is what he has done from the very beginning of his campaign. He is much more comfortable doing that than Barack Obama is, and it showed. That trial lawyer experience served him well here. Obama was given an opening on the very first question to criticize Clinton and to make distinctions between himself and Hillary and he passed on it. I don’t think he is all that comfortable with political combat. Unfortunately, staying above the fray may not work this year. I know Obama is trying to be a different kind of candidate, and provide a contrast to the combative Edwards, and to Hillary, but his heart doesn’t seem to be totally in this campaign.

As far as Balz’s comment on Chris Dodd is concerned, at this point he should be more worried about his own electability than about Hillary’s. He did seem to be engaged in this debate much more than in the previous one, but not enough to change his status in the race. Same goes for Kucinich, who never fails to entertain — in case you missed it, he saw a UFO, just like Shirley McLaine claimed he did. Why are we asking questions about UFOs and Halloween costumes in a Presidential debate??? Are Tim Russert and Brian Williams getting bored? Did they leave the piece of paper with their last question back in the control room? You expect this junk from Chris Matthews, not from these two. They asked enough hard questions, I guess, so I will give them both a pass on this.

This waffling on driver’s licenses for illegals will hurt Hillary, because New Yorkers do not support Governor Spitzer’s proposal. Even a large percentage of Democrats oppose it. Maybe Obama and Edwards won’t be able to take advantage of this, but the Republicans certainly will make it an issue in the general election.

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