Ann Coulter Says

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 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." This is the Democratic Party. That's their program.

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."

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 robotic. The important thing was to force Americans to stop their infernal car-driving, no matter how much it cost.

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.

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."

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?

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.

VS. MAX

Once again, rather than address the real issue we are dealing with now in 2006 (i.e. roughly the 10th year running of Enron-style corruption in the oil industry), the koolaid drinking conservatives will say anything -- yes anything -- to shift focus and blame away from their beloved corporate icons and, in the tradition of medieval Europe, place it on their favorite modern "devil" the Liberals and/or Democrats.

Lets take a critical look at what the right-wing wicked witch of west, Ann Coulter is saying here.  To do that, we have to parse out the fact from her editorial blather (which might take a while because 85% of this is blather).

26 cent gas tax increase?  50 cent gas tax increase? 4 cent gas tax increase?  4 is the correct one back over a decade ago and she eventually does get to that but not before throwing about the other figures in an attempt at guilt by association i.e. "while they didn't raise it more, those crazed tax-hungry Liberals would do it if given half the chance!"  She raises the spector of John Kerry as the wildest of the wild liberals, saying he "favored" a 50 cent tax increase back in'94. Did Kerry really support a 50 cent tax increase?  How much energy did Kerry really put into this proposal?

The answer is none.  It was mentioned in two news artcles at that time as something he had "considered" but he never sponsored any bills or voted for any that might have endorsed this. Nevertheless, for conservatives believing that Democrats are economic devils incarnate these inconvenient facts are unappealing to them so they just don't dealwith them.  But there is more.

If we look ahead 5 years to 1999, we do find a person who did come out in strong support of such a tax, so much so that he wrote an article in Fortune magazine at the time entitled, "Tax Gas Now!". Who is this person who did the unthinkable? It is none other than Harvard Economist Gregory Mankiw, who was (perhaps still is?) the chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisors. Imagine that!  Obviously this man is possessed by the spirit of John Kerry himself -- quick! Call Sean

Hannity -- we must have a political exorcism! 

To add more irony to this sad story, Bush attacked Kerry on this very point calling it a "wacky idea" to tax gas that high. But then in a breathtaking example of doubletalk and flipflopping (yes, flipflopping; I guess Kerry wasn't the only one doing it), Bush hires a man as his top economic advisor who empirically and demonstrably (not fictiously as with Kerry) supported this idea with his clout as a Harvard economist.

Is Ms. Coulter purposely omitting this fact or is she just ignorant of it?  Or perhaps she, like Bush, is a convenient amnesiac selectively choosing what to remember and what to forget as it suites her ideological whims.

But we still end up in the same place -- some conservatives prefer to protect corporate thieves as they economically suck the United States dry, threaten to recess the economy and place unecessary burden on those who can ill afford to bear it. It's 2006, not 1994 and a conservative economist favored high gas taxes, not a Democratic Senator.  And while we sift through Ms. Coulter's crude oil induced, conservative smokescreen of democratic demons, the oil companies executives are smiling as they think of their mentor and guide: former Enron Executive, Kenny Lay. I get goosebumps (and not the good kind).