Thursday, July 17, 2008
Energetic pandering: Is Obama's new ad deceptive?
The Real Barack Obama claims that the above Obama campaign ad is even more deceptive than his first one was. According to TRBO, the ad slams McCain for supporting this bill (H.R.6) -- even though McCain actually voted against it, while Obama voted yea.
I believe that this ad refers to H.R.6 when it accuses McCain of voting to give "tax breaks to big oil." It is indeed true that McCain voted no and Obama voted yes on that particular piece of legislation. Public Citizen denounced the bill as a giveaway to the energy companies -- one which will only "make matters worse."
But that's not all.
Watch carefully. Toward the beginning, the spot denounces McCain for backing a drilling plan which will not bring in new oil for (shudder!) seven whole years. You'll see a tiny-type citation of a McClatchy story from June 17, 2006 -- a story which I cannot find online, and which probably does not exist. Judging from context, I believe that the reference actually goes to this article from June 17, 2008. That article does indeed state that McCain supports an offshore drilling plan that won't bring in oil for "seven to ten" years.
Offshore drilling is, of course, quite popular right now -- which explains why the key word "offshore" does not appear in this spot. Team Obama has decided to slam a well-liked idea without informing the public as to just what he is slamming. Hence, perhaps, the "typo" in the date, designed to trip up those pesky double-checkers.
We are told that the problem with McCain's drilling scheme is that it won't bring any relief for seven years. So what does Obama suggest? He says he wants to "fast track" alternative energy solutions. So do I. Alas, no matter how fast the track, any alternative solutions will take years, perhaps decades, to implement. Question: Why is waiting intolerable in one case, and not-so-intolerable in the other case?
Update: Newsweek calls Obama's plan a ten-year research effort which may or may not lead to results. I applaud the proposed research effort (as long as it doesn't turn into a Chicago-style crony give-away scheme). I cannot applaud any attempt to present seven years as slow and ten years as swift.
McCain also favors alternative energy proposals. The Obama ad offers no critique of those proposals -- it simply pretends that they do not exist.
In the end, what distinction does this ad draw between the McCain and Obama energy policies? Simply this: Barack Obama opposes offshore drilling, which the public favors. For once, Mr. O has taken (and stuck to) a principled stand -- only to mislead the public as to just what that stand is.
What really steams me is the $1000 rebate idea. Remember when Obama slammed Hilary for her gas tax holiday proposal? Remember when he (and the Kos krowd) accused Hillary of pandering?
I'd like someone to explain why Hillary's tax holiday plan constitutes pandering but Obama's more aggressive tax rebate plan does not. By all means, dear readers, educate me on that point. Strained rationalization is my favorite form of humor.
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5 comments:
Ok, I'll bite.
The point of criticism of HRC's gas tax holiday being a pander was not particularly that she was addressing a hot button issue important to voters. That isn't necessarily a pander.
The point was that its effect would be so small as to be little or no help, and might not even deliver that meager amount of relief to consumers anyway (the oil companies might just take back the very small reduction in price to their side of the transaction). That was why ECONOMISTS weighed in against her plan: that it wouldn't do much, and might do nothing whatsoever.
I think the federal excise tax on gasoline is 8 cents a gallon. Assuming average use at 30 gallons a week (probably high), her cut, if it went entirely to the consumers and was not partially or fully recaptured by the companies as an increased price, amounted to all of $2.40 per week, or $124.80 in a year's time.
That is, her plan offered no real money to consumers, or at least, certainly too low an amount to make any difference to most. And part of it would likely go to oil companies' bottom line, not to consumers at all.
So her proposal was seen as all show, no go, an empty appearance of an answer that wasn't really one at all.
...sofla
sof, Hillary's proposal had measures to keep the oil companies from stealing the "holiday" money. Nothing changes the fact that money is fungible. A plan to give back $125 per year is essential no different from a plan to give back $1000 a year. One figure is larger than the other, but that only means that Obama wants to do what Hillary wanted to do on a larger scale.
Although the MSM lulled everyone into believing otherwise, the Clinton campaign have always been the insurgents, and Obama (the $99 million dollar man) the choice of the entrenched powers.
The Big Dog, during his administration, did the unforgivable when he drew down the federal deficit and began amassing surpluses. Gore should have been the one using those surpluses; had he won he would have supported alternative energy development, and had the means to pull it off big time. With the growth of alternative energy sources and the absence of middle eastern wars, the price of oil would likely have held steady over the last eight years.
Instead, Bush grabbed the ring and began draining the U.S. Treasury of it’s obscene superfluity (obscene because it wasn’t in their hands), and began flowing it to the top .005%. He caused conflagration in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the price of oil soared from less than $25 a barrel, heading toward $170 by summer's end...with green technologies still languishing without significant government support, solely in the hands of the private sector (realize that without government support, we’d still be using mainframe computers, affordable only to large corporations). I digress.
By Iowa, the Clinton campaign had nothing to lose. The power brokers were lined up behind Obama and weren’t going to change. She came out with a battle cry - Money to the people. Nothing infuriates them more. Make the oil companies pay. Heresy! Investigate price fixing. Off with her head! Initiate a windfall profits tax. Kill the bitch!
It was more of an irritant than anything else. Nancy (absolutely on the dole) cut it down aborning in the House without even so much as a debate, as Hillary knew she would. Can you recall the bemused expression on Hillary’s face as she discussed her gas tax holiday? But that was also the true Hillary. The one who really cares, and shares along with her husband a real desire to help people and use government toward that end.
Instead we got roboton Obamacon (with emphasis on the ‘con’ part). He’s their man. We’re pawns in their game. Bush with a ‘D’, coming to your government this fall.
Have you heard Naomi Klein this week? On one hand, she's hawking the new paperback edition of her "The Shock Doctrine: Disaster Capitalism", but on the other hand she's significantly brilliant; she weighs in heavily on oil - its spikery, its market speculating, and its silly Arctic & offshore appeals. Plus she sparkles with distaste for Obama's conservative economics.
Tuesday: http://www.democracynow.org/2008/7/15/with_crises_in_fuel_food_housing
Wednesday:
http://lauraflanders.firedoglake.com/2008/07/16/capitalism-in-crisis-progressive-books-and-kbr%E2%80%99s-malfeasance-in-iraq/
Padraig
Assuming the consumers did receive all the benefit of HRC's proposal, it is still thin gruel at $2.40 a WEEK (or less, if one averages under 30 gallons a week).
So, while her proposal APPEARED to do something, in reality, it was de minimus, and a gesture rather than something that would be effective. And a gesture that would SEEM to make a lot of difference when it would not. (People like the sound of it, because they assume something like 50% of the price at the pump is the excise tax. It's more like 2% of the price, so her proposal had elements of deceiving the less informed public.)
Arguing that a ten-fold increase is no difference, how would you compare being offered a job at $10k a year compared to $100k a year? No difference, or all the difference in the world? (Yes, both are 'salaries,' but one is so low as to be illegal for a full time employee, and the other, enough to almost qualify in the recent past for the top bracket of income tax (formerly reached at about $125k/year for a single person)).
...sofla
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