Histrionics will only cloud budget debate
By Steven Pearlstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Imagine that a year ago the president had proposed to begin dealing with the government's budget deficit, and the urgent need for infrastructure investment, by raising the federal gas tax by 60 cents a gallon, from its current level of 18.5 cents. One can only imagine the howls of protest and condemnation, with dire warnings about how it would bring auto sales to a grinding halt, force entire swaths of rural America into bankruptcy and plunge the economy back into recession. Oil industry economists would surely have projected the loss of millions of jobs.
It didn't happen, of course, but guess what? Over the past year, the average price of a gallon of unleaded gasoline in the United States actually increased by the same 60 cents, according to the American Automobile Association. Instead of that money - as much as $100 billion - going to the U.S. Treasury for deficit reduction and infrastructure, it went straight into the pockets of Arab sheiks, Russian oligarchs, global commodity speculators and oil company shareholders.
During that same period, private businesses created 1.2 million jobs and recorded near-record profits, stock prices rose by more than 20 percent and auto sales were brisk enough that General Motors recently handed out $4,000 profit-sharing checks to each of its unionized workers.
History will also record that, during that same time period, not one politician that I am aware of took to the floor of the House or Senate to denounce this "job-killing" 23 percent increase in the price of gasoline.
(More here.)
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Imagine that a year ago the president had proposed to begin dealing with the government's budget deficit, and the urgent need for infrastructure investment, by raising the federal gas tax by 60 cents a gallon, from its current level of 18.5 cents. One can only imagine the howls of protest and condemnation, with dire warnings about how it would bring auto sales to a grinding halt, force entire swaths of rural America into bankruptcy and plunge the economy back into recession. Oil industry economists would surely have projected the loss of millions of jobs.
It didn't happen, of course, but guess what? Over the past year, the average price of a gallon of unleaded gasoline in the United States actually increased by the same 60 cents, according to the American Automobile Association. Instead of that money - as much as $100 billion - going to the U.S. Treasury for deficit reduction and infrastructure, it went straight into the pockets of Arab sheiks, Russian oligarchs, global commodity speculators and oil company shareholders.
During that same period, private businesses created 1.2 million jobs and recorded near-record profits, stock prices rose by more than 20 percent and auto sales were brisk enough that General Motors recently handed out $4,000 profit-sharing checks to each of its unionized workers.
History will also record that, during that same time period, not one politician that I am aware of took to the floor of the House or Senate to denounce this "job-killing" 23 percent increase in the price of gasoline.
(More here.)
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