<p>I routinely travel between Los Angeles and San Diego and would love to be able to take Amtrak. However, I have two tiny dogs and you are not allowed to take pets even in carriers on Amtrak. I haven’t investigated but I’m willing to bet you’re not allowed to take pets on any public transport besides your private car. That needs to change IMO!</p>
<p>I think the gas tax holiday idea is ridiculous and a pandering for votes ploy. Kudos to Obama for thinking this issue through.</p>
<p>S1 has to drive 20 miles to work so he’s inherited the family car. H and I both walk to work. When we need a car, we use zipcar. $7.50 an hour if you rent a hybrid. It’s enough to do our grocery shopping.</p>
<p>I’m not a tax advocate and would generally like taxes reduced as much as possible. However, Reducing the gas tax for a short period of time like a few months seems counter-productive to me. Yes, people will save a few bucks on gas purchases for those few months but I’m certain the tax money will just come from somewhere else and trying to make up for it by increasing the taxes paid by the oil companies is also counter-productive (reduced income means higher charges, reduced exploration reduced available oil yielding even higher costs). And how will people feel when they go to fill up once the grace period is over and they find that gas has gone up at least 18 cents overnight? They won’t like it at all - especially since by then gas has possibly gone up 18 cents in the imterim anyway and now gas costs even more than before the grace period.</p>
<p>I can’t believe I’m saying this but I agree with the Obama perspective stated by the OP - i.e. no monkeying with the gas tax for what really amounts to a political talking point. If anything, I’d rather see the 18 cents for that period be invested in finding more oil and alternatives to oil so we can have a longer term action plan.</p>
<p>Kluge - I agree with you on the candidates’ plans. I’m just afraid that Obama is “not going to play the game” right out of contention. I think some votes are only worth about $28. Additionally, I am in favor of gas costing as much as it takes for me to never have to see another Hummer. I don’t care that someone will likely post that there are now Hybrid hummers (Hymmers) that get 40 mpg. They are stupid and I hate them. That’s my mature, rational argument.</p>
<p>I just googled zipcar because I’d heard of it but did not know what it was. What a fabulous idea!</p>
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I sure hope people won’t base their vote on a single small issue like this that has little to no effect on them over the next 4-8 years. But I suppose some will.</p>
<p>I also agree with Kluge on the candidates’ plans, but I don’t believe that any of them have the answer to the broader issue of a feasible US energy policy. </p>
<p>I strongly suggest posters go to CSPAN and listen to T. Boone Pickens’ speach in April 2008 at Georgetown University. He make sense.</p>
<p>I am part of a not for profit youth organization that has to move a semi-trailer and 3 buses about 6000 miles this summer. A gas holiday would really help our organization’s budget, and for selfish personal reasons I’d like to see it happen. But I agree that Obama has it right.</p>
<p>Hillary’s plan involves a multi-pronged attack, which seems quite logical, actually. But it seems to be a plan that would best work as a long term or permanent policy, not something that just works for the summer. There are a number of variables which effect the price of oil in the US. Her plan addresses a good number of them.</p>
<p>Certainly, it offends me that oil companies (which have shamelessly posted obscene profits over the past number of years), would have the audacity to claim that further taxing them would impinge on their exploration abilities. It would only result in them making slightly less of a killing.:rolleyes:</p>
<p>I wonder how effective any efforts to “pressure Opec” might possibly be. How do we get them to honor our anti-trust laws? They’ve got us over a barrel, and they know it as well as we do. We can’t exactly take our ball and go home, if they refuse to comply. Plus, I’m pretty sure our oil companies see no profit in greater supply. It would drive down prices, ergo their bottom line.</p>
<p>More than temporarily suspending Federal gas and diesel fuel taxes, changing the laws on gas futures speculation would really go a long way toward stabilizing the price of oil. I’m all for that, but wonder if it can be done—meaning, would congress actually support such legislation? </p>
<p>Truckers in particular, need a break from these skyrocketing prices. If they can’t operate, we are screwed. What percentage of our goods (you know, little things like food) get trucked overland? High oil prices are driving the steep increase in the costs of almost everything else. Whatever help we offer truckers needs to be long term, not just for the summer.</p>
<p>I can understand why Obama opposes such a band-aid approach as a 3 month suspension in Federal gas taxes. But what does he propose we do instead?</p>
<p>What does McCain propose we do in the way of long term solutions?</p>
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<p>As far as he’s concerned, all those bitter hillbillies can just cling to their religion and their guns. Those people’s concerns are beneath him. He’s a “big picture” visonary. Just ask him. Things will get better just from the mellifulous tones of his reading from a teleprompter.</p>
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<p>Only in Hillaryland, where being greeted on a runway by an 8-year-old girl is portrayed as landing amidst sniper fire, could Obama’s “bitter” comment, taken in context, be interpreted as showing a lack of concern; if anything, it demonstrated just the opposite. </p>
<p>Here’s what immediately led into the “bitter” line, which idad, reading from the Hillary camp’s talking points, has distorted beyond recognition (sniper fire, anyone?): </p>
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<p>Thanks for keeping on raising the tone, there, I-dad. </p>
<p>Well, as for me, Sen. McCain’s plan sounds pretty much the same as the usual Republican line of 'buy it now, pay for it later…or better yet, have the grandkids pay for it." Sen. Clinton sounds as if she’s echoing McCain but, in her usual wonky fashion, adding a ton of baroque embellishments to obscure the fact that she is echoing the Republican talking-points yet again. Sen. Obama is saying ‘no, that’s not what the country needs right now.’ Gosh, nice to see somebody who doesn’t pander or jump on bandwagons but who takes a thoughtful, long-term view. </p>
<p>A $30 dollar a person gas-tax break isn’t going to buy my vote any more than the $300 tax rebate did. Besides, I’ve got a Prius which is getting between 45 and 50 mpg when I drive it, which isn’t often.</p>
<p>I think the purpose of this thread is to (hopefully) have a civil, substantive discussion on this issue. Repeated postings dripping with sarcasm, and which are obviously meant to antagonize, are frankly counterproductive. Once someone feels they have to jump in to “defend” a candidate’s character, the discussion is sure to veer away from topic, and devolve into yet another snipe fest. Is it possible to have just one thread that refrains from vitriol? It’s going to be a looooong election season, no matter who the two candidates facing off in the fall happen to be:o</p>
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<p>What about her proposals merely echo Republican talking points? Which points would those be? I have to give her props for outlining specific proposals. It shows she’s put considerable thought into the problem (which is an admittedly complex one). </p>
<p>btw, I’ve never seen where providing fuel cost relief for low income families has ever been any kind of “Republican talking point”. Have you?</p>
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<p>Of course, here we have a candidate fudging the truth…and even more disturbing…undermining the record of the only two-term Democratic President since Franklin Roosevelt.</p>
<p>Job growth was significant in the United States under the last Democratic President. Real wages for the middle class increased.</p>
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<p>Really? When was the last time a Republican proposed taxing oil company profits?</p>
<p>We are paying the price for the 2005 Cheney/Obama energy bill that was loaded to the gills with giveaways to the energy companies, including Exelon, the country’s biggest coal/nuke outfit, whose water Obama was carrying when he voted for the bill.</p>
<p>I give up…:rolleyes:</p>
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<p>Idad, trying to keep the tone here civil and sarcasm-free (per previous requests), Obama wasn’t “fudging the truth.” You are changing the subject, conflating two different topics.</p>
<p>Clearly, Obama was focusing here on a specific sector of the economy - small towns in the Midwest and the East, where many residents had long relied for employment on jobs, in industry and manufacturing, that no longer exist. Your response? To offer statistics concerning the country as a whole. </p>
<p>Even assuming that your statistics are correct, it’s of little comfort to an unemployed factory worker in Pennsylvania that someone who answers the phone for a living in Arizona just got a raise.</p>
<p>And Obama cannot be faulted, much less accused of “fudging the truth,” because his apples don’t look like your oranges.</p>
<p>I think Interesterddad is very very bitter. He was silent for a long time and now he is back with a vengeance as the end is in sight for his candidate. :o</p>
<p>As for the gas tax issue, I agree that the proposed temporary “relief” is just a campaign talking point for McCain & Clinton and will really do nothing in the long run to solve the problem.</p>
<p>JM and HC both pander bears on this one.</p>