Have you ever thought about hunting quail Scotty?
Posted on 06/02/2008 9:33:04 PM PDT by The Pack Knight
WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney on Monday rejected a suspension of the federal gasoline tax as proposed by his party's presumptive presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain. Cheney said it would offer little help to consumers coping with gas prices around $4 a gallon.
The vice president's critique went further than President Bush's own comments on the idea, which appears dead anyway.
"I think it's a false notion, in the sense that you're not going to have much of an impact, given the size of the gasoline tax on the total cost of the gallon of gas," Cheney said when asked about the matter during a luncheon appearance. "You might buy a little bit of relief there, but it's minimal."
The national average for a gallon of regular gasoline on Monday was $3.98, according to a survey of stations by AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. Of that total, the federal tax on gasoline is 18.4 cents per gallon.
Both McCain, R-Ariz., and a contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, have proposed suspending the tax.
Bush has said he would consider any idea from Congress, but he was not enthusiastic about it.
Democratic leaders in Congress have shown little interest, too, and no votes are anticipated on the matter in the House or the Senate.
The gas tax is the main source of revenue for the Highway Trust Fund that provides grants for highway and bridge construction and repair.
Cheney said the broader solution is to expand the exploration of energy sources in the United States. Bush has long called for opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil development, which is strongly opposed by environmentalists, most Democrats and a few moderate Republicans.
The vice president spoke in a Q&A session at the Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prize luncheon.
When asked about the scathing tell-all book by Bush's former press secretary Scott McClellan, Cheney said he hadn't read it and had no plans to do so. But he did pointedly comment when asked generally about former administration officials who write such books, saying, "I thought Bob Dole got it about right."
Dole said, among other things, that "there are miserable creatures" like McClellan in every administration who are spurred on by greed. Cheney's comment comes after White House press secretary Dana Perino has said the White House harbors "no ill feelings" toward McClellan.
I definitely like how he's speaking his mind on one of McCain's dumber proposals. Someone needs to be the adult at the national level, and I can't think of too many people out there better than the Vice President.
Mr. Cheney would do all of us a great favor if he would take on the task of exposing the failed Democrat policies of constraining energy production and economy-killing cap and trade mumbo jumbo.
I’d like to see him debate the Dems more and speak out more, since the GOP Senators can’t collectively find their testicles any longer.
Big Giverment, which does NOTHING makes more revenue in this regard than Big Oil, which (by stark contrast) provides a very necessary service. I generally like Cheney but it is most distressing.
Excellent idea.
Perhaps some speaking engagements in high profile forums. Hell, the Republicans may as well go out fighting.
I don't know about you, but just about all the roads I drive on are built by government of one size or another, and paid for with fuel taxes.
You don't think that's a "necessary service?"
What is Cheney doing? Isn’t he supposed to help get the Republican elected in 2008 and not publicly criticize his policies? Cheney should be criticizing the democrats and save comments like this for a private conversation with McCain.
I swear Republicans are like crabs in a barrel, always bringing each other down when one makes a little bit of progress.
What do you find distressing about what Cheney commented on here? It was a nail on the head remark about Mcclellan, and as far as suspending the gas tax he is right, it will be a small dent, and as you know there is no free lunch so a suspended tax now which will provide little actual relief, will cost us more down the road to higher and higher taxes.
An incredibly stupid comment to make and position to assume - given the present situation, regardless of its veracity.
The fact is, the less government taxes the better, and perhaps $.18 per gallon means little to Mr. Cheney, but it may mean quite a lot realistically to individual Americans in need and quite a bit more to those of who don’t like taxes anyway.
The less Bush and Cheney say and do in the next few months, unless carefully crafted to help defeat Obama, the better. They have done adequate damage to America and the Republican Party as it is.
Once upon a time I really liked Cheney but he and his boss have become as wearisome as the idiot Democrats in Congress.
The Big Giverment which rips off the citizenry well beyond the Laffer Curve and then grandsatnds in dragging Big Oil execs before congressionsal showtrials?
Give me a break.
Talk is cheap. Why not an Executive Order to actually do something?
What progress are Republicans making with John Mccain as the potential President? Cheney makes a whole heck of a lot more sense than Mccain does or ever will. Maybe John could try to be more like Cheney, at least that might win back the conservative base somewhat.
I’m with McCain on this one. My New York State Senator [LeValle] wants to pull the STATE [and local] tax on gasoline, and that alone comes to 50 cents a gallon. Throw on what the Feds take, and $4.00 + gas is $3.00+ gas.
The cost of gas is killing the middle class and blue collar workers who live outside major cities -and don’t use mass transit. Republicans can attract a lot of those voters who are impacted by those those taxes- and they need all the hlp they can get.
Federal taxes, direct and indirect , are too high anyway. And Cheney’s dismissal of the taxes’ impact overlooks two key issues. Why the hell should they be able to tax gas, incomes, etc. with impunity? And why isn’t the GOP on offense on energy [more drilling, refineries, nuclear power, etc.], and tax reduction [direct and indirect] period.
Mr. Cheney would be serving the USofA citizenry better if he would rail against those Giverment entities that are denying us access to our own oil reserves, that are preventing us (for over 30 years) of building any new oil refineries, and are blocking the building of nuclear power facilities, no?
I agree 100%.
McCain is dead wrong on this, as he is a lot of other things.
But that isn’t the point. The point is that Cheney, Bush, and the Republicans in general are absolutely hated by the majority of the voting public at this point.
The more anyone in the administration gets involved they get in campaign issues, the easier it’s going to be for the terrorist’s choice candidate to link McCain with everything that’s going wrong lately and in November that’ll be all she wrote.
Public disagreement with McCain is probably about the best help they can give him. The substance of the disagreement is immaterial.
Combine it with suspending the Calif tax, and it would help a lot.
Of course for Cheney and the other politicians that can afford 10 dollar/gal gas, it's not an issue
Right now, DC is doing nothing about the pain people feel at the pump daily.
And like I told my two Senators’s offices today, the cost of heating oil and natural gas for heating homes by the fall will be a HUGE issue.
Cheney can help position the GOP out in front of the issue and lead the GOP in hammering away at the Dems for their failure to lead on the issue and their failure to lower energy costs promised in 2006. His wit and straight talk would also help out John McCain.
Look, we all know that the Dems and the media are going to paint John McCain as the third term of President Bush, so get out in front and beat them to the punch, I say.
The Dems always have a cohesive message, even when it is traitorous or wrong. The GOP acts like a bunch of unco-ordinated twits running around a field.
Too much is at stake for that nonsense any longer.
Where do you want them to get the money from to maintain the roads if they end the federal gas taxes?
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