I'm baaaack!

Sorry, been busy. I know the millions that read this have wondered about me, and I appreciate all of your emails wondering why I have written anything. But hey, saving the world is a big job and sometimes you have to focus on the actual work instead of criticizing it.

What's motivated me today is my homeboy, Robert Robb is trashing Democrats again with some more ideological nonsense. Seems he's a little annoyed with his Republican pals who are (gasp) pandering for votes with this silly "gas price relief" nonsense. Robb seems to want to paint Democrats into anti-Big Oil demagogues who will reign in the nasty big-profit-making while the price of everything else goes up corporations. While that's a picture conservatives love to paint, it hasn't been true in the past and it isn't true now. But it's an election year and you have to get in as many digs as you can while the fire's hot.

As for the Republican plan, it goes like this. If you paid income taxes and you earned less than $125,000 per year, you get a whopping $100 from the government. I went to the IRS web site and found there are about 120 million people that fall into that category. So right out of the gate, the cost is $12 billion dollars.

Well there goes the surplus... Oh, wait. We don't HAVE a surplus. That means we have to borrow the money to pay out the $12 billion. Let's see, what pigeon, er, patriot can we borrow this from? Hmmmm. Ah! Our kids! Great, now that problem is solved, we need to mail them out. Okay, 120 million times 33 cents for stamps...that means we need another $40 million for postage. Oh, kids, we need another $40 big ones, and it's a lot less than the $12 billion we just borrowed, so we're sure you won't mind. It's money to make your parents feel better about voting for Republicans and enables them to drive you to soccer practice for a week.

Now that 120 million Americans now have $100 to burn in their pockets, the Republicans want you to use that to do what? Buy gas. Not that everyone will, mind you, but that's the hope. So whom will be the beneficiary of this $12 billion gas relief program? Why, the oil companies. Who contributes money to the Republicans? The oil companies. So who is the real beneficiary of this $12 billion? You got it. The oil companies.

Now before you call me cynical, I have to point out that the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, Jim Pederson, has his own idea. He'd give even more people $150 (not the measly $100 Republicans want to hand out), but to people who make $150,000 per year (like they really need it), which means Pederson's deal will cost somewhere around $18 billion. Where his plan differs is he'd use money from doing away with tax credits the oil companies now receive to fund his rebate.

But here's the problem with that idea: the money wouldn't be taken FROM the oil companies as in "right now" like the idea suggests. Pederson's plan would use money the oil companies --would-- have been able to deduct from their taxes which presumably is sufficient to cover the cost of the rebate. Unfortunately, these monies really aren't in the treasury in the first place because they were never paid, which means we'd have to borrow the money now hoping we'll get it from the oil companies in the future, which further presumes there aren't other ways the oil company accountants can figure out some way to avoid paying an equivalent amount of taxes. At the end of the day, it's a net wash for the oil companies because they'll continue to rack up big profits and the U.S. Treasury will still be short $18 billion. So while it makes it look like we're penalizing those big, bad oil companies, we're not. We're subsidizing them. They win either way.

What amazes me is neither party sees the real problem. If you ask any oil trader why oil futures are going through the roof they will tell you because of risk to the delivery of the product to the refineries and the market. What causes that risk to increase is war and political unrest. Hmmm, where are we at war right now? That part of the world where the oil comes from (not all of it, mind you but oil market prices are global and not regional). So, the right answer is to deal with the problems in the Middle East in a way that reduces risk and not increases it. THAT will reduce the price of gas, not incremental tax and rebate policies.

If only people would listen...

Amnesty? For What?

Let's review the other types of amnesty programs we have had and continue to have in the U.S. that allows people to get away with breaking the law or breaking the rules.

Illegal weapon amnesty. Misdemeanor warrant amnesty. Illegal explosives amnesty. Traffic warrant amnesty. Toxic waste amnesty. Civil fine amnesty and even library fine amnesty. Except for the library fines, all of the above could be felonies or low-to-high grade misdemeanors. Being here illegally is a civil infraction and in the whole scheme of things is a lesser “crime” than most of the above.

So you don't have to do the research, here it is:

a. Gun Control Act of 2004, MD, gun amnesty:
b. New York State Legislature, 1994, gun amnesty:
c. City of Rochester, NY, gun amnesty:
d. City of Philadelphia, PA, gun amnesty
e. Columbia, SC, gun amnesty
f. Pittsburgh, PA gun amnesty
g. Dona Ana County, NM, explosives amnesty
h. Ralston, NE, explosives amnesty day
i. Lancaster County, NE, misdemeanor warrant amnesty day
j. Sarpy County, NE: misdemeanor warrant amnesty day
k. Tulsa County, OK, misdemeanor warrant amnesty day
l. Lake Forest Park, WA, warrant amnesty day


I’m not saying whether we should offer amnesty to illegal immigrants or not. But it seems to me that when we discuss granting amnesty to those who "don't understand some part of the word 'illegal'," we should remember for whom and for what we have granted amnesty in the past and whether granting it completely solved those problems either.