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.

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.

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.

It’s been more than a week since Uncle Sam made you pay through the nose. Well happy Tax Freedom Day!

Every bit of production up until now has been for our glorious socialist dream, comrades. From here on out, we toil in misguided selfish materialism. With any luck, the Glorious Democrat Party will push Tax Freedom Day out past mid-year!

</sarcasm>

Yesterday on Montana Headlines, we took note of Montana Democrats distancing themselves from Sen. Obama over his recent comments at a San Francisco fundraiser. 

While there has been a lot of ink spilled over Obama’s “guns and religion” comments, today’s piece by George Will is particularly worth reading.  We’ve been enjoying Will more of late — he is drifting back toward his more old-fashioned conservative roots.  Like the recently passed dean of conservative writers and thinkers, William F. Buckley, Jr., Will has been increasingly critical of the Iraq War and the abandonment of the principles of limited government and fiscal discipline by many Republicans in recent years.

In this column, Will reminds us that Obama’s statement is just part of a continuum of American liberal thought that has a long history:

When a supporter told Adlai Stevenson, the losing Democratic presidential nominee in 1952 and 1956, that thinking people supported him, Stevenson said, “Yes, but I need to win a majority.”

He quotes Michael Barone as writing:

“Stevenson was the first leading Democratic politician to become a critic rather than a celebrator of middle-class American culture - the prototype of the liberal Democrat who would judge ordinary Americans by an abstract standard and find them wanting.”

Will continues by saying that Obama’s comment is in line with an approach pioneered by Columbia University historian Richard Hofstadter: 

The tactic is to dismiss rather than refute those with whom you disagree.

Obama’s dismissal is: Americans, especially working-class conservatives, are unable, because of their false consciousness, to deconstruct their social context and embrace the liberal program. Today that program is to elect Obama, thereby making his wife at long last proud of America.

Hofstadter dismissed conservatives as victims of character flaws and psychological disorders - a “paranoid style” of politics rooted in “status anxiety,” etc. Conservatism rose on a tide of votes cast by people irritated by the liberalism of condescension.

One recalls Lionel Trilling’s famous comment in the post-war era that American conservatives had no ideas, only “irritable mental gestures.” 

Anyone who has read Albert Jay Nock, Donald Davidson, or John Don Passos knows that Trilling was exaggerating about the right having a lack of intellectual credibility (but to be fair, all one has to do is read Jeffrey Hart’s New Criterion retrospective on WFB’s mentor at Yale, Wilmoore Kendall, to know that the “irritable” part wasn’t exactly groundless.)   

Such attitudes toward the right are convenient — the progressive/liberal wins debates by default because the opposition simply has psychological “issues” and is not worthy of debating.  And so the endless task of reminding the public that there are options — preferable options — to the solution offered by Sen. Obama.  That solution is a sort of progressive ”end of history” notion in which we will be swept up by the rapturous winds of change and converted to the true faith.  And because it is so inspiring and wrapped in colorful “post-partisan” rhetoric — we aren’t supposed to notice that it’s just the same old leftist pablum, preached with the same aloof hauteur that we have come to know so well.

Keep the faith, brothers and sisters in Hot Air.  And don’t forget to tithe.  Until it hurts.

A lot.

Amen.

I wrote a bit about what is going on with the financing problems for Montana’s student loan provider MHESAC here, but after today’s news I thought I would go a bit deeper into what is going on.

The crux of the problem remains that student loan providers are unable to find liquidity, which in turn will affect their ability to finance new loans. The problem over liquidity is not unique to the student loan industry, it is a market-wide problem right now. More after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

Jay Stevens claims that Republicans booed “zero-to-partisan in five seconds flat” Jackie Speier during her opening remarks on the House Floor. Here’s the transcript:

SPEIER: Recently, I was introduced as having been elected to replace Tom Lantos. I had to laugh. I was elected to succeed Congressman Lantos. No one will ever replace him. […]

Madam Speaker, I was struck with something while campaigning for this seat. A public servant is never more in tune with her constituents than when she is first running for the office. While holding over 60 community meetings across my district this year, the most common question was — when will we get out of iraq?

It was asked by voters across the spectrum, veterans, students, parents, the prosperous, middle class, those still working towards their piece of the American dream. The process to bring the troops home must begin immediately.

The President wants to stay the course, and a man who wants to replace him suggests we could be in Iraq for 100 years.

But, Madam Speaker, history —

(BOOS)

PELOSI: The House will be in order.

SPEIER: — will not judge us kindly if we sacrifice four generations of Americans because of the folly of one. And, Madam Speaker, as a passionate as people are of getting out of Iraq, they’re also worried.

PELOSI: The house is not in order. Will the gentlemen please take their conversations outside the chamber.

The C-SPAN video does not leave Rep. Speier so there’s no evidence as to who was doing the booing. Considering when the booing occurred though - right after she described the statements McCain made about how long the US might have a presence in Iraq - it’s not unreasonable to suspect that it was actually Democrats who were booing the McCain policy she was explaining.

At that point in her speech, it doesn’t really make sense for Republicans to boo. I think these boos came from the left instead of the right and were directed at the policy instead of the speaker.

Of course, it’s impossible to tell from the evidence we can see. I don’t know and neither does Jay.

Michael Ramirez

Two maps, one eye opening reality.

First, take a look at this “carbon footprint” map from The Vulcan Project.

Carbon footprint, of course, is the smoking gun in catastrophic man-made global warming. Those little red spots? Those are the sources of our collective environmental suicide. For shame!

Now take a look at this map of the political breakdown of the United States in the last Presidential Election. Blue spots are Democrats - Red is Republican.

Notice anything? Almost all of the carbon footprint hot-spots are also Democrat strongholds. It appears that Democrats cause global climate change!

Where can I get this bumper sticker: Save the Planet - vote Republican.