I'm with Hillary on this one. I just found out I need some transmission work on my car and I could really use that $8 billion.

Okay, does anyone think that the DNC is going to give her the nomination after she's shown she can't beat an upstart Senator who had to build his organization from the ground up....

Does anyone really think the DNC will overturn the pledged delegate leader and vote to instill her on August 28, the 40th Anniversary of MLK's "I Have a Dream Speech"?

Anyone?

This idea and the shrillness of its promotion are proof conclusive that the Clinton campaign is about one thing and one thing only - Hillary wants to be President so badly, she is not only willing to damage her political party but also the nation to get there.

I hope with all the hope I have that we never, ever see a Clinton or a Bush in the white House again. Both families have no respect for the USA, but they sure do for the power rush (and lining their pockets).

"In purely political terms, Hillary's gas tax holiday has never really been about gas tax relief itself. Rather, it's real goal was to implicitly make the case -- by suggesting she would take some kind of action, however dubious on the merits -- that she's the candidate who's in touch with voters' economic distress."

I'm sorry, but I don't get how you write paragraph without some kind of background. who said this? the clinton campaign?

seriously, I don't understand. I'm not a reporter, but how do you know this is the goal? and if it is, isn't this 'means-to-an-end' a bigger story than you're allowing here?

this could actually help hillary if the supers decide that ability to pander is the most important quality in a nominee. otherwise, not.

The interesting thing is Clinton's been hitting this issue about 800% times harder than McCain, but McCain seems sure to benefit in stature as much as Clinton from the framing here among anyone these ads actually connect with. Once again, the Clinton campaign lands on a strategy that in the end is not practically getting Clinton closer to a nomination, but may do a bit of long-term good for the McCain campaign...

Bring it Hillary, it will be the rope you end up hanging yourself with in the end:

http://www.thepersonalispolitical.com/2008/05/hillary-attacks-democrats-and-experts.html

Oh yeah, and the most recent poll shows the majority of voters see it for a political gimmick. So keep it up!

Billionaires would also get the same 18 cents tax relief from Hillary. She feels the pain of all those struggling Billionaires.

Announcer]: Hillary wants the oil companies to pay for the gas tax this summer - so you don't have to.

Hillary: in the fall and winter, you will have to resume paying those taxes at the pump. I know that you will then have to pay for back to school expenses, and very high heating costs, but by then your primary will be over, so Screw You Then!!!

I can't wait for Obama's response #4!

OBAMA: Mention the $10 BILLION boost it would give to the oil companies she keeps saying she is "taking on"!

The thing is that the oil companies will simply pass whatever additional taxes they have to pay back to the consumer, who will save nothing with Hillary's "plan." Plus, it's not like Congress is going to pass this plan anyway or, even if they did, Bush would sign it.

It's such a transparent political ploy that shows Hillary for who she really is--someone who will do, say, promise anything to get elected.

BLEAAAHH.

Please Hoosiers, wise up and resoundingly reject this craven shill.

Hillary is where Bob Dole was on this. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/5/5/4595/33889

And will soon be wherever Bob Dole is now, if anyone can find him.

Could this be the reason he is against a windfall profit tax against Oil companies?

yes, the entire community of economists and other pointy-headed innerlectchuls is owned by the oil industry. only hillary, with her 8th-grade education (in a one-room schoolhouse!) has the guts to stand up to washington. when those peaceniks in washington wanted to NOT kill thousands of americans and furriners in iraq, only the tigress of tuzla had the guts to stand up and make them invade!

as john cole put it, "Her foreign policy seems lifted from the Weekly Standard, her domestic policies from the Kingfish, and the faux-populist nonsense seems designed only to dumb down the debate enough to grab a few more votes in the hopes that the supers decide to change their mind and throw the race to Hillary."

dumbed down enough for you, apparently.

So I gotta buy another friggin' Hallmark card?

The only way to reduce oil prices is to eliminate speculators (forcibly, if necessary).
Th only way to do that is to nationalize the energy industry (which should have been planned, at least, 40 years ago).
It's no trick to nationalize any industry. Countries do it all the time (though usually they're immediately overthrown by USers)...
Ipso facto, as the Latins say...

Eight B-I-L-L-I-O-N Dollars....(insert evil laugh)!

what about the silly stimulus package you're all going to be getting? where is your outrage?

think about how much you'll be paying for THAT boondoggle at least Hillary says its a temporary solution and NOT LONG TERM, to OBAMAS NO solution.

just complain and complain. BO outta touch with mainstream America.

hyper,

answer, all the above, you answered your own question, thats Obama for you, he's all over the place. The man has little convictions, doesn't stand for anything, wheres the solution to help hurting families when the barrel of oil hit 120$ today, hmm?

wheres the solution to help hurting families when the barrel of oil hit 120$ today, hmm?

It's not coming from Hillary. Hurting families won't see a cut in gas prices when the oil companies jack up their prices again to make up that 18 cents a gallon.

How does a gas tax holiday affect the price of oil? It doesn't. It's a non-solution. (Hint: listen to the elitist economists)

Obama didn't take bold steps like Hillary did bringing a gas tax holiday. It is *SOMETHING* and she's covering the bases untill we change the awful policies of GWB. I think Obama will bring more of the same failed policies of GWB. For the great orator he's known for he comes across short on ideas.

he's known as a "me too" candidate because he waits for Hillary to start the conversation or answer a question, and says "me too". He's the reactionary candidate.

From what I've heard from him he doesn't relate well to working people, but aside from that lets hear HIS PLAN....I want to know how he will ease my pocket book for me and my kids.

aside from that its nice you're voting!

I hope the NY Times -- having bizarrely ignored the dangers implicit (and explicit) in Hillary Clinton's deranged idea for the U.S. to provide a nuclear shield to Saudi Arabia, KUwait, UAE and Dubai -- will bring more seriousness to bear on her statement today that she would try to break up OPEC (the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries):

"We’re going to go right at OPEC," she said. "They can no longer be a cartel, a monopoly that get to gether once every couple of months" at a hotel in "some plush place in the world" to set prices, she told a crowd a volunteer fire house in Merillville.

In order for polls to have Hillary beating McCain by 15 to 20%, she would have to retain Black voters at the rate Kerry did AND wing White males at a higher rate. Those two things will happen on the same day Miami Beach freezes over and penguins walk the entire distance from Chile to Key West on a giant ice sheet. In other words, never!

Let's take it step by step.

Sure, let's take it step by step.

Now Clinton comes along with two messages. One message is to the oil companies. It says you guys are price gouging the consumer. You're making excess profits. In other words, your rate of profit is too high. I'm going to take some of that profit away, and give it back to the consumers.

The way I'm going to do that is I'm going to tax that extra profit away and use it in place of the the taxes consumers have been paying to fund highway construction. Now you can raise the price of gasoline if you want to, but if you do, the extra profit you make is just going into that highway fund.

Right, but she put the steps in the opposite order. It was:

Step 1) I'm going to give you money!
Step 2) I'm going to get that money from the oil companies

Just from a procedural perspective, there's no way a windfall profits tax is passing in Congress before the summer is over. There's no way it's passing before the election. And, no way it's passing before the next Congress is seated. And she knows it. She's not even going to be able to rush the gas tax holiday through Congress before the summer is over. So, this is all academic, anyway.

But, if we can pretend that anything would even come of her plan, let's address one of your arguments:

So what motive do oil companies have for raising prices if they don't get to make any profit on the price raise?

It's a tax on the profits. It doesn't mean they surrender all of their profits. It means that, to overcome the discount in their profits caused by the tax, they increase prices, and therefore profits, even more. If an oil company's profits were $10 billion and they were taxed at x%, they can increase their prices by x+% and still get their $10 billion.

Pass the windfall profits tax first, or find an even better way to rein in the oil companies. But, the gas tax isn't the cause of high gas prices. It's stayed steady for years. Why attack something that isn't the cause? That doesn't do anything to deter the oil companies from raising prices and neither does a tax on their profits.

Besides, if cutting the gas tax is such a great idea, why just do it for three months?

Thanks, man. Well, as I understand her plan, the holiday and the tax go together. I could be wrong, because I haven't seen her actual bill. I know she links them in her talking points, so I assume when she says it will work if you implement it right that she's planning to make the holiday contingent on passing the tax. If I'm wrong, then she needs to do it like that to keep the Congress from gaming her by passing the holiday without the tax. That would be McCain's deal. Not Hillary's.

As far as the tax goes, once you set a fair rate of return on a company's investment, you can tax anything that would increase that rate over the fair rate of return. In other words, if we decide 15% is a fair return, we can tax 100% of the revenue that makes the return greater than 15%. She needs to make sure people know the tax on the oil companies could actually be more than 18 cents/gallon. I'm getting excited just writing this.

I'm sick and tired of watching oil companies make obscene profits as the world's supply of petroleum runs out.

You said it! And that's why Hillary is my revolution, and that's why the oil and gas companies are going after her on this one, aided and abetted by everyone's favorite Progressive candidate for President, you know who.

The first step is to tax their fucking obscene profits. She knows that. Open up their books and tax their fucking obscene profits away. She's a warrior and Obama is an empty suit in the tank for big oil.

If you're going to call yourself a Progressive, be a damn Progressive.

A way to get votes?

Apparently not.

You're far too clever to do something for your own good.

The oil companies said so.

You're so much smarter than folks that see blood-soaked obscene profits and record prices at the pump and can add 1+1.

You've out thunk them folks. If it's good for big oil to avoid paying a war tax, than by golly, it's good enough for you.

Especially since they couched it in terms relating to how you're just so much smarter than your neighbor.

Oh, that yellow, smelly stuff running down your back? It's rain.

hey idiot it is a statute.

Well, then I suppose it wouldn't matter so much that it's a stupid idea that wouldn't work, since it would never pass and would never get signed. So I guess that would make it brilliant? Is that how it works, Einstein?

hey jack,so by your logic, you're saying high prices on everything so its ok to hurt America's families? so is that the solution? there are some sick people out there. nuf said.

what part of TEMPORARY solution don't you understand?

It works for me. Are you going to return the stimulus check president bush is going to send you?
you'll take it won't you? tell me you're going to send it to Obama, like he needs it. Are you one of his 96$ little people donors?

where is Obama's solution? nothing, because the guy is all hat and no cattle.

nice guy though