mediapro

The Current Stagnation of Natural Gas Vehicles in America

A good balance of comments. For those who favor domestic oil production, perhaps I would be more sympathetic with your comments if I ignored the environmental impacts of same. What has not been mentioned in this stream is VERY important to turning the corner. A bit off subject, but intimately interrelated to the issue.

Consider the following four giant effects on tax policy that those who only look at the income tax seem to conveniently forget:

1. Our effective cost per gallon of gas is ~$10.00 when one factors in the roughly $30 billion dollars in tax subsidies ANNUALLY provided to the oil and gas industry. This is the most egregious, downscale tax imaginable. Moreover, the oil and gas companies simply need to bid and secure future leases and INTENT to drill for the largess we reap upon them every year. This ponzi scheme against the American taxpayer is one of our dirtiest tax secrets.

The attempted movement away from an oil-based economy is long overdue. Eliminating these subsidies and replacing them with a carbon tax and offsets would be a dandy replacement for current outlays while returning the investment towards modernizing the electrical grid and smart energy technologies while contributing towards deficit reduction. Even an oil guy as purile as T. Boone Pickens has attempted to wake up and smell the coffee.

2. Add to that tax subsidy the protectionist import rules on sugar, milk, etc. Removing sugar tariffs alone and replacing this supply with a much more efficient cane sugar ethanol source could end the corn producer/fertilizer manufacturers stranglehold on the taxpayer's neck. If one wants to make the small farmer argument, then set resdiency, gross receipts and size requirements on farm subsidies. This reward for planting inefficient crop supply and for NOT PLANTING crops drawfs even the oil subsidies.

3. For people who don't count the payroll, FICA, SUI, etc. automatic worker payroll contributions while conveniently ignoring the offshore accounts, shell businesses, and other manipulative uses of the tax code by those who can afford tax attorneys, don't be so quick to condemn the extra pittance through earned income tax credits, adjusted rate schedules for wage earners and such put into the pockets of those who actually contribute a day's labor for a fair wage vs. the incredible sums paid to those who move money through the system. Look where that system of rewards has put us.

4. Finally, would someone please explain to me why there is a ~$100 K cap on wage contributions to Social Security?

Sarah Palin's Stock Portfolio

curious cat.

What state (of mind or otherwise) do you live in? Just want to make sure that I stear clear of your mind (lessness).

Sarah Palin's Stock Portfolio

When I read mindless comments about a woman that ho one really knows, simply because she is John McCain's running mate, I wonder whether I live on the same planet as these posters, much less the same country.

Forget the question of whether Palin or Biden a heartbeat away from the Presidency is a more frightening proposition. A Repubican colleague of mine, a Republican before that word meant neo-conservative, will not be voting for a Republican for the first time in his long life. His words: I can't think of a person (McCain) that I would least like to have the ability to launch nuclear weapons. He scares the livin' begeezus out of me.

This debate isn't about Sarah Palin, her experience, her portfolio or who handles her finances. It's about John McCain and his choices.

John McCain has demonstrated in the last few weeks a glimpse of that fear embdoied in my Republican friend's words. He saw our economy as "fundamentally strong" before he saw the need to suspend his campaign to save same economy, before he saw the need to attend the debate that he earlier had cancelled, before he saw the need to not suspend his campaign when the deal that he had sought to save the country had failed, but now it was OK to go ahead and confer with colleagues by phone when he criticized Obama for doing the same.

That's all politics, but illustrative of McCain's state of mind.

I could care less about Sarah Palin and her experience... fear John McCain.