IT'S HARD OUT HERE FOR A PUMP
by Ann Coulter
April 26, 2006
I would be more interested in what the Democrats had to say about high gas prices if these were not the same people who refused to let us drill for oil in Alaska, imposed massive restrictions on building new refineries, and who shut down the development of nuclear power in this country decades ago.
But it's too much having to watch Democrats wail about the awful calamity to poor working families of having to pay high gas prices.
Imposing punitive taxation on gasoline to force people to ride bicycles has been one of the left's main policy goals for years.
For decades Democrats have been trying to raise the price of gasoline so that the working class will stop their infernal car-driving and start riding on buses where they belong, while liberals ride in Gulfstream jets.
The last time the Democrats controlled the House, the Senate and the presidency was in 1993. Immediately after trying to put gays in the military and socialize all health care, Clinton's next order of business was to propose an energy tax on all fuels, including a 26-cent tax on gas. I think the bill was called "putting people first in line at the bus station."
Al Gore defended the gas tax, vowing that it was "absolutely not coming out" of the energy bill regardless of "how much trouble it causes the entire package." The important thing was to force Americans to stop their infernal car-driving, no matter how much it cost.
And mind you, this was before we knew Gore was clinically insane. Back then we thought he was just a double-talking stuffed shirt who seemed kind of gay.
Democrats in Congress promptly introduced an "energy bill" that would put an additional 25-cent-a-gallon tax on gasoline to stop "global warming," an atmospheric phenomenon supposedly aggravated by frivolous human activities such as commerce, travel and food production. This is the Democratic Party. That's their program.
Democratic House Speaker Tom Foley endorsed the proposal on "Charlie Rose," saying: "I'd have a five-cent increase every year for five years. ... But that's not going to happen ... because we've got people who fret and worry that one- or two-tenths of a cent of a gasoline tax is going to cause some revolution at home." So in Tom Foley's universe, two-tenths of a cent is the same as a quarter — another testimonial to the American public educational system.
The Democrats' proposed gas tax did cause a revolution at home, and consequently the Democrats were able to sneak through only an additional 4.3-cent federal tax on gasoline. After tut-tutting the idea that voters would object if the Democrats attempted a huge gas tax increase, Speaker Tom Foley soon became former speaker, and indeed former Congressman Tom Foley.
Gary Hart, another whimsical demonstration of what Democrats think a president should be like, said at the time, "I certainly favor consumption taxes, particularly on energy." Then there's John Kerry, who favored a 50-cent increase in the gas tax in 1994. If he were a rap artist, Kerry's stage name would be "Fifty Cent a Gallon."
Last year, a couple of green "climatologists" at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign were back at it in the journal Science, wheeling out their proposal for a 25-cent-a-gallon tax on gasoline as an "insurance policy" against global warming.
Just two months ago, we were being confidently told — on the basis of a New York Times/CBS News poll, so it must be true — that "Americans might OK a gasoline tax hike if it reduced global warming or lessened U.S. dependence on foreign oil." (This poll was wedged in among the 29 polls claiming Americans think we're losing the war in Iraq.) Other results from the Times' "meaningless polls" section: Americans might "OK" a Dennis Kucinich presidency if it meant free ice cream every Tuesday.
How many times do Democrats have to tell us they want to raise the price of gas for the average American before the average American believes them? Is it more or less than the number of times Democrats tell us they want to surrender in the war on terrorism?
It's as if a switch goes off in people's brains telling them: The Democrats can't be saying they want to destroy the lives of people who drive cars because my father was a Democrat, and the Democrats can't be this stupid!
The Democrats' only objection to current gas prices is that the federal government's cut is a mere 18.4 cents a gallon. States like New York get another 44 cents per gallon in taxes. The Democratic brain processes the fact that "big oil companies" get nearly 9 cents a gallon and thinks: WE SHOULD HAVE ALL THAT MONEY!
When the free market does the exact thing liberals have been itching to do through taxation, they pretend to be appalled by high gas prices, hoping the public will forget that high gas prices are part of their agenda.
