About That Gas Tax Holiday, John McCain:

Following a decrease in gas tax revenue due to reduced gasoline purchases in the U.S., the Federal Highway Trust Fund, which pays for road repairs, bridge maintenance, and other essential transportation infrastructure projects, faces a budget shortfall in the billions next year. Congress is considering emergency funding.

Several times during his presidential campaign, John McCain has proposed a gas tax holiday to relieve financial pressure on working families struggling with higher gas prices. Barack Obama has consistently opposed such a plan, noting that it would not actually save consumers a significant amount of cash at the pump, and warning that it would lead to problems maintaining our nation's transportation infrastructure. 

Comments

[cynematic]

Bad joke alert:

What's John McCain's favorite restaurant?

The Pander Express.

[cynematic]

PS When Obama talks infrastructure investment and spending, my heart sings. Who knew I'd be such a civil engineering/roads/bridges geek?

I hear him solving 3 problems in one: 1) it's unacceptable to have levees or bridges in Minnesota or anywhere collapsing suddenly and killing/displacing people, 2) we desperately need good-paying jobs that stay on American soil and put people here to work, and 3) we can upgrade and improve upon the connectivity/transportation hubs of our cities and towns, because with greater connectivity comes the closer proximity of businesses and their employees, and also sustainable ways of moving ourselves around to fuel that economy.

[Nicole]

Ha. Ironic, isn't it? Almost a damned if you do and damned if you don't scenario.

Our transit authority recently released its 30-year strategic plan. Their major source of revenue (or is that funding?) is a tax on gas that we pay (somewhere around 10 cents/litre). With the high gas prices, people are buying less gas, and using public transit more, thus dealing a double blow to their revenues.

This is what happens when you build entire societies on the basis of one single (low-priced) commodity.

[cynematic]

Nicole, you're so right--we need to expand our tax base. We have to wean ourselves off all the ways we rely on it.

How about a "negative tax"?

Why don't they charge every person a flat pre-paid fee based on average useage per person/mile/year, say $600 ($50 unrestricted pass/month*12 months), and then for every mile ridden on mass transit, you get credited back X cents/mile. The more you ride, the more miles*cents you accrue and you can wipe out the flat fee you were charged.

If you don't ride at all, then you forfeit your flat pre-paid fee.

If you ride a lot, you can accrue enough miles*cents so the mass transit authority pays you (or you can carry the credit over to the next year).

Okay, flawed in a billion ways, but at least there's an attempt to give carrots to those who use mass transit a lot, and a stick for those who are out the flat fee through lack of use.

And at least it's not based on taxing gas useage.

[cynematic]

"...all the ways we rely on it."

Um, that should read, "all the ways we rely on GAS."

[concerned]

this story comes from Anasuya Dubey, a clinical psychologist in California. If you don't believe me, google her. We'll be hearing more about this in the days and weeks to come. Just shows how un-presidential John McCain is. I warn you, when you read this, you will not believe it. You'll think it's a smear campaign, made up. It's just too rotten to be true. But don't dismiss this out of hand. This was written by a real person, you see her name there, who is putting her reputation on the line by coming forward with this. She is very brave to do this, but she has given permission for us to hear her story.

My Holiday with McCain

It was just before John McCain’s last run at the presidential nomination in 2000 that my husband and I vacationed in Turtle Island in Fiji with John McCain, Cindy, and their children, including Bridget (their adopted Bangladeshi child).

It was not our intention, but it was our misfortune to be in close quarters with John McCain for almost a week since Turtle Island has a small number of bungalows and their focus on communal meals force all vacationers who are there at the same time to get to know each other intimately.

He arrived at our first group meal and started reading quotes from a pile of William Faulkner books with a forest of Post-Its sticking out of them. As an English Literature major myself, my first thought was “if he likes this so much, why hasn’t he memorized any of this yet?” I soon realized that McCain actually thought we had come on vacation to be a volunteer audience for his “readings” which then became a regular part of each meal. Out of politeness, none of the vacationers initially protested at this intrusion into their blissful holiday, but people’s buttons definitely got pushed as the readings continued day after day.

Unfortunately this was not his only contribution to our mealtime entertainment. He waxed on during one meal about how Indo-Chine women had the best figures and that our American corn-fed women just couldn’t meet up to this standard. He also made it a point that all of us should stop Cindy from having dessert as her weight was too high and made a few comments to Amy, the 25 year old wife of the honeymooning couple from Nebraska that she should eat less as she needed to lose weight.

McCain’s appreciation of the beauty of Asian women was so great that David the American economist had to move his Thai wife to the other side of the table from McCain as McCain kept aggressively flirting with and touching her.

Needless to say I was irritated at his large ego, and his rude behavior towards his wife and other women, but decided he must have some redeeming qualities as he had adopted a handicapped child from Bangladesh. I asked him about this one day and his response was shocking –“Oh, that was Cindy’s idea – I didn’t have anything to do with it. She just went and adopted this thing without even asking me. You can’t imagine how people stare when I wheel this ugly, black thing around in a shopping cart in Arizona. No, it wasn’t my idea at all.”

I actively avoided McCain after that, but unfortunately one day he engaged me in a political discussion which soon got us on the topic of the active US bombing of Iraq at that time. I was shocked when he said “if I was in charge, I would nuke Iraq to teach them a lesson”. Given McCain’s personal experience with the horrors of war I had expected a more balanced point of view. I commented on the tragic consequences of the nuclear attacks on Japan during WWII – but no, he was not to be dissuaded. He went on to say that if it was up to him he would have dropped many more nuclear bombs on Japan. I rapidly extricated myself from this conversation as I could tell that his experience being tortured as a POW didn’t seem to have mellowed out his perspective but rather had made him more aggressive, and vengeful towards the world.

My final encounter with McCain was on the morning that he was leaving Turtle Island. Amy and I were happily eating pancakes when McCain arrived and told Amy that she shouldn’t be having pancakes because she needed to lose weight. Amy burst into tears at this abusive comment. I felt fiercely protective of Amy and immediately turned to McCain and told him to leave her alone. He became very angry and abusive towards me, and said “don’t you know who I am” and I looked him in the face and said “yes, you are the biggest asshole I have ever met” and headed back to my cabin. I am happy to say that later that day when I arrived at lunch I was given a standing ovation by all the guests for having stood up to McCain’s bullying.

Although I have shared my McCain story informally with friends, this is the first time I am making this public. I almost did so in 2000, when McCain first announced his bid for the Republican nomination but it soon became apparent that George Bush was the shoo-in candidate and so I did not act then. However, now that there is a very real possibility that McCain could be elected as our next president, I feel it is my duty as an American citizen to share this story. I can’t imagine a more scary outcome for America than that this abusive, aggressive man should lead our nation. I have observed him in intimate surroundings as he really is, not how the media portrays him to be. If his attitudes toward women, and his treatment of his own family are even a small indicator of his real personality, then I shudder to think what will happen to America were he to be elected as our President.