Big Sky Cairn

Democrats swept into power in 2006 on promises of lower gas prices. High costs, they argued, were hurting the working poor, one of the constituencies they were courting in their move toward Populism. See, unlike our tax code, gas prices act regressively and have a particular impact on rural areas where driving cannot be supplanted by public transportation.

We thought things were bad when gas prices were $2.33 for a gallon when the 110th Congress gaveled into session. Today, the national average is over $3.53 and rising. Why haven’t Democrats done anything?

They’ll never admit this - and they hope that we’ll all have goldfish memories - but high gas prices are just what Doctor Democrat has been ordering for years. See, while the working poor are important because they vote, environmentalists are even more important because they donate. A lot.

And for years, environmentalists have been complaining about the low price of gas. They complain because low gas prices prevent the market from adopting more expensive alternatives. They complain because low gas prices make gas-guzzling SUVs economically viable. They complain because low gas prices don’t account for what they call the environmental footprint of fossil fuels. And they still think gas prices are too high.

Economists feel that gasoline prices would need to double and remain there (i.e. $7-8/gallon) before behavior would really change, and advocate a gas tax to get us there. The externalities (accidents, smog, global warming, etc.) are simply not reflected in the current price of gasoline.

They have proposed carbon taxes, mileage taxes, gas taxes, energy taxes, congestion taxes and just about any other mechanism they could think up to make the price of a gallon of gasoline higher. The price we’re paying at the pump is the result of years of their efforts to prevent us from tapping our own energy supplies.

So when Americans wonder about the plan to lower gas prices, I am skeptical whether the Democrats would enact such a plan even if they had one. Given their record of fighting for higher gas prices, their promises in 2006 seemed hollow to me.

It has been a while since I have read something in the Gazette I agree with, but they pretty much hit it right on with the MHESAC/SAF question.

I written my thoughts before on what I think should happen with the student loan markets. But, transparency in government agencies is rarely a bad idea. It should be noted that the Montana Guaranteed Student Loan Program has been audited by the State Legislature each of the last two years according to the quick google search I put in (reports here and here). However, those reports only tangently mention MHESAC and SAF.

My one problem with the reporting this spring has been a lack of mention that the Montana student loan industry received a clean audit from the AG last fall. I mention this because I get the impression that Baucus, Tester and Schweitzer are accusing MHESAC/SAF of acting in an unethical, or unprofessional way. The distinction should be made that this is audit is a question of competence and judgment, not corruption. Given what came out of New York last year, I would think it important to make sure those are not the sort of allegations being made here.

All that said lets shine the light on these groups. At the very least it should be concerning that the same folks setting tuition rates are also in charge of the groups processing student loans.

We’ve seen the lack of respect Governor Schweitzer has for laws that don’t suit his goals. We’ve seen that he’s not the first Montana Democrat to shun the laws they want to be elected to create. The case for a Culture of Corruption is getting more compelling. And there’s more.

Investigators will tell you the best way to find underhanded activities is to follow the money. Gaps in the money trail - unaccounted for sums, and unrecorded expenditures - are tell-tale fingerprints of shady activity. Governor Brian Schweitzer maintains an unregulated political account worth at least $46,000. Where the money came from and how he spends it are unknown because he has refuses to disclose. What is the Governor hiding?

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Heh…

Each of the following quotes is taken from a popular news source. Some were published in the decade between 1970 and 1979, while others are more contemporary ranging from 2000 to present. This is quiz number two.  See if you can identify which decade gave birth to what rhetoric:

____ “To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advancd signs of fundamental changes in the world’s weather.”

____ “Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects.”

____ “The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.”

____ “Some observers have tried to connect the eleven-year sunspot cycle with climate patterns, but have so far been unable to provide a satisfactory explanation of how the cycle might be involved.”

____ “Whereas ocean and land surfaces reflect 5-25 per cent of the incident solar energy back into space, snow and ice reflect 80 per cent of solar energy back into space.”

____ “We can also think about the problem from the points of view of the safety engineer and the politician. To each of these the probabilities and the costly demonstration of natural forces in the last three years offers a significant threat.”

____ “It is based on the conjunction of several natural phenomena. The phenomena will occur. The expected consequences may not, but there is strong circumstantial evidence that suggests it is more likely they may.”

____ “The cod off the Cape aren’t coming as close to the land as they used to, says Joseph C. Allen, who has been covering fishing for The Vineyard Gazette for 50 years, and the fishermen believe that the reason si the unusually warm winter water.”

____ “Interest and concern in such events has thrust climatologists into the limelight and brought forth a number of popular books dealing with the general topic of climate change.”

Defining the meaning of “is” is too 90’s. The fun new words are “progressive” and “non-partisan.” Hattip to Andy who found this gem describing Forward Montana;

Forward Montana, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to electing a new generation of progressive leaders…

I am not going to knock anything Matt Singer does at Forward Montana, but to say a self-described progressive group is nonpartisan is a very tenuous stretch of the word.

I understand why groups like Forward Montana describe themselves as progressive and not liberal. Liberal are seen by the average Joe as being hopelessly out of touch and elitist; thus the liberals had to find a new more palatable label…progressive. After all who can be against progress?

Still I am fine with this, a phrase about pigs and lipstick comes to mind. But to say that progressives are nonpartisan is a farce. After all I believe it was the champion of the Progressive movement, Senator Paul Wellstone, who stated progressives represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.

*As an aside I am well aware of the historical context of the word progressive, but I would submit that modern progressives have very little in common with the legacy of early progressivism, namely Teddy Roosevelt.

We elect people to pass laws. We call them representatives because they are supposed to represent the people who elect them. That’s one of the reasons politicians brag about the laws they pass - because they perceive themselves as doing will of the people. So when they pass laws on our behalf and then ignore those laws whenever they are personally inconvenient they’re doing more than violating the law. They are betraying the people who elected them.

I commented on this before when I remembered the illegal actions of a Democrat candidate named Jon Tester. The law was clear, but Jon decided unilaterally that he didn’t think the law was Constitutional so he skirted the process and did what he wanted. Too bad he was running for the Senate and not for an appointment to the Supreme Court. I had this to say about his activity and the precedent it set:

The Culture of Corruption tag that was so effectively attached to the national GOP in 2006 ought to find itself a comfortable home right here with the Montana Democrats. Their candidates - their leaders - have only as much respect for the rule of law - laws that they pass - as they expect there to be political fallout for breaking them.

Well, he got away with it, and now we find Governor Brian Schweitzer demonstrating the same disrespect for the laws that were passed on our behalf. Except this time, the Governor is breaking a law that was enacted with his signature.

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I certainly don’t envy Jay in his self-imposed task to re-brand the Democrats as the party of Fiscal Responsibility. His effort to de-brand the Republican party isn’t as difficult a task as it should be. Some in the GOP lost their way, and for too long the philosophy of small government got lost. But it was the Party - not the philosophy - that failed.

I’m willing to concede that both parties actually want fiscal responsibility. The difference is how they prefer to get it. When a Democrat preaches fiscal responsibility, they are using code for “higher taxes” to pay for all their great ideas about how government can take best care of us.

Take, as an example of the Democrat’s habitual need to raise taxes, Jay’s criticism of Republicans for rejecting a tax increase tied to the continued extension of the Alternate Minimum Tax (AMT) - i.e. the preservation of the status quo.

Forty Republicans signed the letter, indicating that, once again, no responsible offsets will be included in an AMT patch. The Republicans have Congress and the country between a rock and a hard place: the only recourse Democrats have in this battle is to not implement a patch, which is neither politically palatable nor particularly progressive.

Here’s the problem for the claim that Democrats are acting responsibly. They spent money that they never intended on collecting.

That’s why they are insisting on an off-set. Think about it, the Democrats always intended to fix AMT so then they never expected the revenue that would have come from not fixing AMT. Since they always knew that revenue wasn’t going to be there, it was fiscally irresponsible for them to spend the money. By spending non-existant income, they justified for themselves a need to raise taxes - even though the policy they are off-setting is the status quo.

The last paragraph was a mouthful, so I’ll put it in terms of 13-year-old econ like Jay did. While I don’t know many 13-year-olds with credit cards (you have to be 18, don’t you?), you don’t need a credit card to understand that you shouldn’t spend money that you aren’t going to earn.

Each of the following quotes is taken from a popular news source. Some were published in the decade between 1970 and 1979, while others are more contemporary ranging from 2000 to present. I’ll post a list of quotes each day this week, and next weekend I’ll post the answers.

See if you can identify which decade gave birth to these arguments:

____ “There are ominous signs that the earth’s weather patters have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production - with serious political implications for just about every nation on earth.”

____ “If the frequency of mention in newspaper headlines is a guide to popular concern with a given subject, then climate and weather must rate highly on any scale.”

____ “Despite the various relationships of sunspot cycles (11-year cycles) to climatic features, no one, including Dr. Hurd C. Willett, professor emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and perhaps the leading authority on sunspots and weather, has been able to demonstrate conclusively what cause-effect might be involved.”

____ “Measurements since the late 1800s show that the volume of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by about 15 per cent, probably as a result of increased burning of fuels.”

____ “Such probabilities are well within the range that requires that even the costliest precautions be taken if we value life and our civilization.”

____ “How much money is half the world’s population worth, or large geographic areas of civilization? This problem is a moral one and science is not capable of providing an answer.”

____ “As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval.”

____ “The collision of air masses of widely differing temperatures and humidity can create violent storms - the Midwest’s recent rash of disastrous tornadoes, for example.”

____ “The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only ten years from now.”

One of my favorite Montana blogs is Kilo India Tango. She’s getting married pretty quick here, and I’ve been reading her progress complete with the cannon that she’s going to fire at her ceremony. Kit loves her guns, big noises and - of course - a little WoW. Although most of her material avoids political commentary, she does get into it sometimes. Her post on White Racist Voters is worth a read.

They went on to use the phrase “white racists voters” three more times, but portrayed the black voters as “the good guys.” Let me make sure I understand. If you vote against Obama because he’s black, you’re a white racist. But if you vote for him because he’s black…. you’re elevated to sainthood for canceling out those nasty white racists’ racist votes?