leftfielder.org

To quote from this article:

“The House approved $18 billion in new taxes on the largest oil companies Wednesday as Democrats cited record oil prices and rising gasoline costs in a time of economic troubles”

So… oil prices are going up, and the way to deal with that is to tax companies, who will pass on the tax burden to their customers and thus drive prices up further.

This “we won’t tax the little guy, we tax business” idea of the democrats is as nonsensical as the republicans “we’ll lower taxes to stimulate the economy”.

Hey Democrats: If you tax business, where do you think the money comes from to pay those taxes? Companies don’t magically have money. They have money because they charge for their goods and services. If the costs of providing those goods and services go up, they don’t take a loss, they pass on those costs. So… you’re charging the little guy, just indirectly.

Hey Republicans: You want to lower taxes to stimulate the economy, but if you don’t give that money back, what happens to the money? Governments aren’t just sitting on money, they’re spending it. If you give the money back, it might be spent, or it might be saved. If you don’t give it back, it will be spent, and it will stimulate the economy. So… giving money back won’t encourage consumption nearly as much as keeping it.

Should gasoline be taxed more? Probably – it will hurt the economy short term but encourage conservation and innovation in alternative energy sources. Should taxes be lower? Probably – we’ll run a deficit if we keep spending at our current rate and lower taxes, but I don’t like having a third of my paycheck taken by the government and being a libertarian I think the role of government should be drastically scaled back.

But the ostensible motivations behind these policies are ludicrous. Its like the politicians can’t see that there are such things as causal chains, and that actions have repercussions beyond the very basic effects of a policy. It’s inane!

Why is it that Ralph Nader has gotten as much media attention in his one day of running for office than Ron Paul has gotten in the entire race?  Ron Paul has consistently been polling at 6-10% and in some states has pulled in over 15% of the GOP vote.  He has raised a ton of money, and has a tremendously devoted base of supporters.

Ralph Nader’s candidacy is a joke.  In 2000 he won Bush the election, and no democrat has looked at him twice since.  The GOP, of course, wants nothing to do with him either.  He will have absolutely no influence at all on this campaign.  And yet, every paper in the country is covering him like his candidacy is important news.

Why does the media give Nader the publicity, and ignore a much more legitimate candidate in Ron Paul?