From Thinkin’bout Stuff 11/22/2008

By the way, I wonder if gas prices finally hit the tipping point earlier this year.  Did they go high enough that we actually will see a long-term change in consumption habits?  If so, the oil guys shot themselves in the foot because it will take a dramatic drop in prices ($1.25/gal maybe?) to reverse that trend.  Like I said, just wondering…

From AP:

Federal Highway Administration data released Friday show the number of miles driven dropped 3.5 percent in October compared with the same month a year ago. Between November 2007, when the driving decline began, and October, Americans drove 100 billion fewer miles. That’s the largest continuous decline in driving the nation has experienced.

Gas prices averaged $3.15 a gallon in October, down from a high of $4.09 in July, according to the Energy Information Administration.

“The fact that the trend persists even as gas prices are dropping confirms that America’s travel habits are fundamentally changing,” Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said in a statement.

Prices obviously dropped even further in November, so it will be interesting to see if this trend continues.

While driving declined, subways, buses, commuter rail and light-rail systems have reported record increases in ridership.

Which appears to support my contention  in an earlier post that not all driving, or more specifically commuting, is out of necessity and we can do more to help extricate ourselves from the grip of foreign oil.

Peters expressed concern that the decline in driving is widening a gap between federal gas tax revenues and the government’s commitments to fund state and local highway repair and construction projects. Congress made an emergency infusion of $8 billion earlier this year from the general treasury to cover an expected shortfall in the fund.

“As driving decreases and vehicle fuel efficiency continues to improve, the long-term viability of the Highway Trust Fund grows weaker,” Peters said.

 Oops…  maybe we need to increase the tax, which will help fund the Highway Trust as well as energy initiatives and homeland security while ensuring the price stays at a level that keeps consumption down and discourages OPEC from raising prices…  just thinking.

I know, I know… everyone says I’m nuts and raising taxes in a downturn is a sure path to a depression.  I disagree.  If the market will support higher prices, they will go up;  better that the money stay  here (in the form of a tax to fund energy research and homeland security) and we minimize consumption until we either wake up and drill more domestically or we find an alternative.

Disagree?  Fair enough…  share your thoughts on how we can free ourselves.

With oil trading at below $50 a barrel and gasoline prices diving, now is the time to tax oil and/or gasoline.

Taxing gasoline will:

• Help keep demand low
• Provide federal tax dollars to fund energy independence initiatives
• Provide federal tax dollars to fund the war on terrorism
• Make it more difficult for OPEC and other oil producers to raise prices without impacting demand, limiting the potential for more dollars to flow out of our country

This is something I proposed in 2006 and again in 2007.  Excerpted from the 2007 article::

We need to stop talking about freeing ourselves from our addiction to oil and start to actually do something about it.

Although the price of oil has come down since this was written, the key points remain the same:

• We need to encourage research and development of alternative energy sources
• We need to encourage conservation of existing sources
• We need to do this in a way that limits the money funneled to terrorist backers like Iran
• We need to counter the money flowing out to terrorist nations with money flowing into our own government until we can break our addiction to oil

The bottom line for those not planning to read the entire article:

I propose that for the next five years, a new federal tax on gasoline (not diesel.. just gasoline) be phased in, increasing from 25 cents a gallon the first year to $1.25 in year five and continuing until the end of the war AND the identification of a viable alternative to oil for 50% – 75% of our energy needs. 

Painful… sure.  So is paying more for gasoline when OPEC raises the price of crude oil… but we get nothing out of it when they raise the price.  If we ever expect to kick the oil habit and fund the war on terror… we need to be willing to make some sacrifices. 

Now that we have experienced the pain of high prices and are now enjoying lower prices, this is the right time to act, and the window of opportunity may not be very long.  It may even be wise to accelerate the proposed phase-in at this point, starting with 50 cents a gallon the first year.

I don’t like taxes, but I think this tax, if done right, will effectively limit the ability of oil producers to raise prices, thereby keeping more money here in the US to fund programs that will benefit the long-term security of our nation.

Barack Obama 8/4/2008 – “I believe we should immediately give every working family in America a $1,000 energy rebate, and we should pay for it with part of the record profits that the oil companies are making right now.”

Barack Obama upped the ante today, promising to tax the profits of every corporation that makes a profit during his administration and give that money to anyone who does not have any visible source of income. 

By law, company owners, aka stockholders, will continue to have the privilege of buying stock, but all dividends will be transferred to a fund to assist those who can not afford to purchase stock, all capital gains will be taxed at an appropriate rate to ensure that greed is no longer rewarded and the neediest among us, especially those most likely to vote their conscience in November (ie: vote for Obama), will receive a weekly social dividend check in compensation for their long suffering under the repressive regime that has controlled this great country for more than 200 years.

Barack Obama… buying votes the old fashion wayed: with other people’s money.

… hypocrisy.

Found this video at one of my favorite stops on the net: Bottom Line, Up Front. 

From the folks at Americans for Prosperity:

Click here to view the embedded video.

At first I laughed, but after awhile I was so annoyed at the hypocrisy I no longer found it humorous.

Maybe that’ll shut her up.

AP: President Bush has been a “total failure” in everything from the economy to the war to energy policy, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday. In an interview on CNN, the California Democrat was asked to respond to video of the president criticizing the Democratic-led Congress for heading into the final 26 days of the legislative session without having passed a single government spending bill.

Pelosi shot back in unusually personal terms.

“You know, God bless him, bless his heart, president of the United States, a total failure, losing all credibility with the American people on the economy, on the war, on energy, you name the subject,” Pelosi replied. She then tsk-tsked Bush for “challenging Congress when we are trying to sweep up after his mess over and over and over again.”

Don’t ya just love liberals who have no other way to defend against justified criticism than to resort to personal attacks.  The president has lost credibility? What about Pelosi and Reid leading the Congress to an all time, in the entire history of our country, low public opinion rating of NINE PERCENT!  She is sweeping up after the president’s mess?  What the hell has the Congress accomplished under her steady hand? Have they kept any of their campaign promises? What mess have they swept up?

Pelosi has been a fount of insightful statements lately:

“Once again, the oilman in the White House is echoing the demands of Big Oil,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said. “The Bush plan is a hoax. It will neither reduce gas prices nor increase energy independence. It just gives millions more acres to the same companies that are sitting on nearly 68 million acres of public lands and coastal areas.”

“I’ve been in Washington long enough to know a political stunt when I see one,” said Rep. Rahm Emanuel, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. “The good news is the American people won’t be fooled. If the President wants to lower gas prices, he should stop hosting press conferences and start taking action.”

Spot on Nancy.  Way to go Rahm.  The American people weren’t fooled by all this talk of increasing supply to address demand and lower prices.  Who among us are stupid enough to believe that increasing supply would lower prices.  You’d have to be a total moron.

Gotta hand it to her though, she sure has chutzpah going on the attack so soon after being proven a complete idiot.   Just days after Pelosi declared the president’s call for offshore drilling a hoax, Bush announced the lifting of an executive order banning offshore drilling and oil prices dropped.  DROPPED Nancy… the prices dropped from just a hint that we may be tapping into our immense reserves of oil off our coast; imagine what would happen if  Congress got off their collective butts and did something useful for a change.   

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino defended Bush.

“What the president said is a fact – this is the longest a Congress has gone in 20 years without passing a single spending bill, so it’s clear that the speaker is feeling some frustration at their inability to do so.”

Pelosi’s counterpart in the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid, long ago took off the rhetorical gloves. Last month, he ridiculed Republicans who sided with Bush on a Medicare bill.

“Who would be afraid of him?” Reid, D-Nev., said as many senators looked on. “He’s got a 29 percent approval rating.”

Which is 20 POINTS HIGHER THAN YOURS…  or maybe this will make it clearer for you,  it is 3 TIMES HIGHER THAN YOURS, in fact, the president’s rating actually is in the double digits while your rating is in the SINGLE DIGITS… Nine Percent folks… lower than most dictators.

Last week Reid and other Democrats dropped any pretense of trying to fight the president on battles they were likely to lose – even on the most important part of their jobs, which is passing spending bills that keep the government running.

Of the 12 annual appropriations bills, Congress is likely to pass one or two and send Bush a temporary spending fix for the rest. That would have to suffice until a new president takes office, Reid told reporters.

Folks… Reid, Pelosi and the Democrat controlled Congress have thrown in the towel.  Maybe we can’t dock their pay for poor performance, but we can certainly fire them for refusing to perform at all.  Unfortunately, if election polling data is correct, although we Americans think Congress stinks, we apparently don’t realize the Dems are the source of the odor.

Pray all branches don’t go to the Dems in November.  If that happens we could be facing a decline not witnessed since Jimmy Carter “led” us into a pit we were fortunate to climb out of during the Reagan years. 

Originally published in 2006, republished in 2007.. and now here we are in 2008 and it still may not be too late, but it sure as heck would have been better if we had addressed this two years ago.  Reprinted here in it’s entirety:  How to Break the Oil Habit

_________________________________________________________

The following was originally posted July 2006. I decided to repost it (with some minor updates) because I believe we need to stop talking about freeing ourselves from our addiction to oil and start to actually do something about it. Also, since it was only the 3rd article I posted, odds are I’m the only one who read it

Although the price of oil has come down since this was written, the key points remain the same:

• We need to encourage research and development of alternative energy sources
• We need to encourage conservation of existing sources
• We need to do this in a way that limits the money funneled to terrorist backers like Iran
• We need to counter the money flowing out to terrorist nations with money flowing into our own government until we can break our addiction to oil

The bottom line for those not planning to read the entire article:

I propose that for the next five years, a new federal tax on gasoline (not diesel.. just gasoline) be phased in, increasing from 25 cents a gallon the first year to $1.25 in year five and continuing until the end of the war AND the identification of a viable alternative to oil for 50% – 75% of our energy needs. 

Painful… sure.  So is paying more for gasoline when OPEC raises the price of crude oil… but we get nothing out of it when they raise the price.  If we ever expect to kick the oil habit and fund the war on terror… we need to be willing to make some sacrifices. 

—— July 23, 2006 ——

How many of you believe the price of fuel is too high, probably going higher, will ultimately wreck our economy and we need prices lowered, stabilized and affordable? … Raise your hands.

How many of you believe oil is a limited resource, that we need to encourage conservation, we need to identify alternatives to our dependency on mid-east oil and until we find a way to break the shackles of oil dependency, our future will continue to be threatened by nut cases who line their pockets and grow their weapons stockpiles with buckets of money shipped overseas in empty crude oil containers courtesy of you and me?  Raise your hands.

Did you raise your hand both times?  I wonder how typical that is of Americans.  We want fuel to be cheap and “affordable” so we can use as much as we want, yet we know that we also need to conserve this limited resource and find alternatives.  Trouble is, as long as fuel is affordable, there is no incentive to conserve and little incentive to find alternatives.  As with any addict, we won’t stop consuming until the supply is gone or the cost is so high we can’t pay for the fix.

How much does a gallon of gasoline have to cost for us to change our driving habits.  Gas hits $5 a gallon, are you still driving down to the shore or out to the country every weekend? Would $8 a gallon convince you to walk to the corner store instead of drive?  $10 and maybe it’s not worth driving 15 miles to see if you can get this new lawn mower at another store for a few dollars less?

What about commuting?  There will always be jobs where commuting is required (hard to work construction from the comfort of your family room); but do we all have to commute, or do we all think we have to commute?  Until 6 years ago, I commuted to work, 100 miles round trip, every weekday.  That’s 500 miles/week; assuming four weeks for vacations, holidays, other days off, that’s 24,000 miles per year.  My car got 30 miles to the gallon, which is better than average, which means I was using about 800 gallons of gas a year just to drive to work!

Assuming there are just 1 million people in a similar situation who could be working from home.  (not out of the question considering our current population is about 300 million according to the US Census and 14 million of us commute 45 minutes or more one way to work), that would be a yearly reduction of 800 million gallons of gasoline!!!!

According to the Energy Information Administration, in 2004 47% of the cost of a gallon of gasoline was to pay for the crude oil.  Assuming a gallon of gas costs $3.00, those 800 million gallons means more than $1.1 BILLION dollars going to the crude oil producers like Iran!!  Every year.  From those 1 million of us who might want to consider not commuting and setting up a home office.

$1.1 Billion dollars that could be spent here in the USA instead of on rockets for Hezbollah who then fires them into Israel while trying to distract us from the nuclear games Iran is playing. 

So demand continues to rise, prices continue to rise, the amount of real dollars shipped overseas to crude oil producers continues to rise, and available supplies continue to drop.  Even if raising crude oil prices causes a drop in consumption, the profit margin for the producers likely offsets the decrease in volume since the bulk of the price hike goes into their pockets.  What we need to do is reduce demand by raising prices in such a way that the crude oil producers do not benefit.

I can’t believe I am saying this, because I am almost ALWAYS opposed to new or increased taxes, but….

1. We need to encourage research and development of alternative energy sources
2. We need to encourage conservation of existing sources
3. We need to do this in a way that limits the money funneled to terrorist backers like Iran
4. We need to counter the money flowing out to terrorist nations with money flowing into our own government until we can break our addiction to oil

We need a (hand shaking as I type) Homeland Security and Energy Evolution Tax.

Look, the price of gas is going to go up until the demand comes down, and a lot of the money will go to weapons for terrorists.  In simplistic terms, if raising prices reduces demand, and if demand outruns supply, the prices are going to go up until demand and supply meet a state of equilibrium, period.  Inserting a tax into the equation drives down demand without increasing the flow of money to the crude oil producers.

Demand goes down, less money flows to terrorist nations, and we perhaps buy some time to develop alternative energy sources.

So where does that revenue go?  Two places, and only two places.  First, 50% goes to sponsor research for domestic sources of energy that require no dependence on foreign resources.  The other 50%, directly to Homeland Security and Defense. 

Are we at war? Well duh! So why are you whining about a tax to support the war effort and to eliminate one potential cause (if not the root cause) of the war? (Come on, some of you are whining and you know it)  If we weren’t dependent on foreign oil maybe our decision making when attacked wouldn’t be so complicated… bad guys go boom!

I propose that for the next five years, a new federal tax on gasoline (not diesel.. just gasoline) be phased in, increasing from 25 cents a gallon the first year to $1.25 in year five and continuing until the end of the war AND the identification of a viable alternative to oil for 50% – 75% of our energy needs.

Painful… sure.  So is paying more for gasoline when OPEC raises the price of crude oil… but we get nothing out of it when they raise the price.  If we ever expect to kick the oil habit and fund the war on terror… we need to be willing to make some sacrifices.  This doesn’t even come close to what our country sacrificed in World War II.  Time to suck it up people!

The following was originally posted July 2006. I decided to repost it (with some minor updates) because I believe we need to stop talking about freeing ourselves from our addiction to oil and start to actually do something about it. Also, since it was only the 3rd article I posted, odds are I’m the only one who read it

Although the price of oil has come down since this was written, the key points remain the same:

• We need to encourage research and development of alternative energy sources
• We need to encourage conservation of existing sources
• We need to do this in a way that limits the money funneled to terrorist backers like Iran
• We need to counter the money flowing out to terrorist nations with money flowing into our own government until we can break our addiction to oil

The bottom line for those not planning to read the entire article:

I propose that for the next five years, a new federal tax on gasoline (not diesel.. just gasoline) be phased in, increasing from 25 cents a gallon the first year to $1.25 in year five and continuing until the end of the war AND the identification of a viable alternative to oil for 50% – 75% of our energy needs. 

Painful… sure.  So is paying more for gasoline when OPEC raises the price of crude oil… but we get nothing out of it when they raise the price.  If we ever expect to kick the oil habit and fund the war on terror… we need to be willing to make some sacrifices. 

—— July 23, 2006 ——

How many of you believe the price of fuel is too high, probably going higher, will ultimately wreck our economy and we need prices lowered, stabilized and affordable? … Raise your hands.

How many of you believe oil is a limited resource, that we need to encourage conservation, we need to identify alternatives to our dependency on mid-east oil and until we find a way to break the shackles of oil dependency, our future will continue to be threatened by nut cases who line their pockets and grow their weapons stockpiles with buckets of money shipped overseas in empty crude oil containers courtesy of you and me?  Raise your hands.

Did you raise your hand both times?  I wonder how typical that is of Americans.  We want fuel to be cheap and “affordable” so we can use as much as we want, yet we know that we also need to conserve this limited resource and find alternatives.  Trouble is, as long as fuel is affordable, there is no incentive to conserve and little incentive to find alternatives.  As with any addict, we won’t stop consuming until the supply is gone or the cost is so high we can’t pay for the fix.

How much does a gallon of gasoline have to cost for us to change our driving habits.  Gas hits $5 a gallon, are you still driving down to the shore or out to the country every weekend? Would $8 a gallon convince you to walk to the corner store instead of drive?  $10 and maybe it’s not worth driving 15 miles to see if you can get this new lawn mower at another store for a few dollars less?

What about commuting?  There will always be jobs where commuting is required (hard to work construction from the comfort of your family room); but do we all have to commute, or do we all think we have to commute?  Until 6 years ago, I commuted to work, 100 miles round trip, every weekday.  That’s 500 miles/week; assuming four weeks for vacations, holidays, other days off, that’s 24,000 miles per year.  My car got 30 miles to the gallon, which is better than average, which means I was using about 800 gallons of gas a year just to drive to work!

Assuming there are just 1 million people in a similar situation who could be working from home.  (not out of the question considering our current population is about 300 million according to the US Census and 14 million of us commute 45 minutes or more one way to work), that would be a yearly reduction of 800 million gallons of gasoline!!!!

According to the Energy Information Administration, in 2004 47% of the cost of a gallon of gasoline was to pay for the crude oil.  Assuming a gallon of gas costs $3.00, those 800 million gallons means more than $1.1 BILLION dollars going to the crude oil producers like Iran!!  Every year.  From those 1 million of us who might want to consider not commuting and setting up a home office.

$1.1 Billion dollars that could be spent here in the USA instead of on rockets for Hezbollah who then fires them into Israel while trying to distract us from the nuclear games Iran is playing. 

So demand continues to rise, prices continue to rise, the amount of real dollars shipped overseas to crude oil producers continues to rise, and available supplies continue to drop.  Even if raising crude oil prices causes a drop in consumption, the profit margin for the producers likely offsets the decrease in volume since the bulk of the price hike goes into their pockets.  What we need to do is reduce demand by raising prices in such a way that the crude oil producers do not benefit.

I can’t believe I am saying this, because I am almost ALWAYS opposed to new or increased taxes, but….

1. We need to encourage research and development of alternative energy sources
2. We need to encourage conservation of existing sources
3. We need to do this in a way that limits the money funneled to terrorist backers like Iran
4. We need to counter the money flowing out to terrorist nations with money flowing into our own government until we can break our addiction to oil

We need a (hand shaking as I type) Homeland Security and Energy Evolution Tax.

Look, the price of gas is going to go up until the demand comes down, and a lot of the money will go to weapons for terrorists.  In simplistic terms, if raising prices reduces demand, and if demand outruns supply, the prices are going to go up until demand and supply meet a state of equilibrium, period.  Inserting a tax into the equation drives down demand without increasing the flow of money to the crude oil producers.

Demand goes down, less money flows to terrorist nations, and we perhaps buy some time to develop alternative energy sources.

So where does that revenue go?  Two places, and only two places.  First, 50% goes to sponsor research for domestic sources of energy that require no dependence on foreign resources.  The other 50%, directly to Homeland Security and Defense. 

Are we at war? Well duh! So why are you whining about a tax to support the war effort and to eliminate one potential cause (if not the root cause) of the war? (Come on, some of you are whining and you know it)  If we weren’t dependent on foreign oil maybe our decision making when attacked wouldn’t be so complicated… bad guys go boom!

I propose that for the next five years, a new federal tax on gasoline (not diesel.. just gasoline) be phased in, increasing from 25 cents a gallon the first year to $1.25 in year five and continuing until the end of the war AND the identification of a viable alternative to oil for 50% – 75% of our energy needs.

Painful… sure.  So is paying more for gasoline when OPEC raises the price of crude oil… but we get nothing out of it when they raise the price.  If we ever expect to kick the oil habit and fund the war on terror… we need to be willing to make some sacrifices.  This doesn’t even come close to what our country sacrificed in World War II.  Time to suck it up people!