This aggravates the hell out of me. I don’t get it. The administration may want to push its agenda, but your darn agenda is not what we need right now. He wants to help the lower and middle classes, right? So driving prices up on items that don’t discriminate against their buyers is a good way to equally influence poor and rich alike. Think about a sales tax versus a tax on luxury goods (say European imported cars) – and you know Obama subscribes to exactly what I’m about to say…anyway, both Billy Grace on St. Charles Avenue and Leroy Jenkins in the 9th Ward have to buy a loaf of bread every week. A sales tax has an out of pocket expense that costs them both the same (4%? (federal) of every dollar spent), but it affects Leroy Jenkins much worse than Billy Grace, whereas a tax on European imported cars will affect Mr. Grace in a way that won’t affect Mr. Jenkins because Mr. Jenkins does not need a 2011 BMW to survive like he needs a bologna sandwich, but Mr. Grace does not mind absorbing that cost.
I am not suggesting heavily taxing imported cars or the upper class – there are plenty of reasons not to, but with unemployment almost at 10%, Mr. Jenkins may not have a job, and if he does he is probably living paycheck to paycheck. Whether Mr. Jenkins is lower or middle class, he just took a pay cut – as did the upper class. What about the stimulus? If it’s all about having people spend more money right now, and spend our way out of the recession, they sure did whiff on a fastball down the pipe.
As Paulie once said, there’s no way the benefit from affecting our carbon footprint comes close to outweighing the cost. Not that I’d be warm to the idea during a better economy, but this is THE worst time to do this.
Jennifer Lopez also said it right, “Lame-O.” I say, Obama, you’re fired, go sit on the bus.
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