The latest attempt by Democrats to use your tax dollars to buy votes in the 2008 election
As the U.S. economy teeters on the brink of recession, Democratic leaders are revisiting an idea born of the Great Depression: gas stamps to help Americans cope with high fuel prices.
The proposal to subsidize fuel costs for lower-income families and individuals would almost certainly be popular with white, working-class voters and could boost Barack Obama’s appeal with that critical voting bloc in this year’s presidential election.
Democratic lawmakers and their leaders say they are serious about including it in a second economic stimulus package expected to move this month. Meanwhile, Republicans ridicule the idea as a return to welfare-state politics, which they say characterized the Democratic Party before Bill Clinton.
“It’s certainly under consideration,†House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told The Hill on Thursday afternoon. “It would be like food stamps for those people who need help.â€
Gas stamps would work like traditional food stamps, which some Americans have collected since the 1930s. They would be used, however, to pay for regular unleaded instead of meat and potatoes.
Under one version of the proposal, a person earning up to $31,200 or a family of four earning up to $63,600 could receive government payments totaling $500 for gas.
Hoyer said he was not ready to discuss details about the proposal because he is focused on passing a comprehensive energy bill Democrats unveiled this week.
They forget, of course, that it was left-wing restrictionist policies that helped bring fuel costs to the $4 per gallon level. That some of them were promoted and signed off by someone with an (R) after their name doesn’t make them less restrictionist or make them right.
When you espouse an ideology that restricts the exploration and exploitation of natural resources used to make energy, you cannot then claim that you want to “help people” by taking from one person’s paycheck and giving it to someone less productive.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is slavery.
Let us hope that they get the same reaction to this idea that Dodge got when they were offering $3 per gallon gas guarantees: No Sale.
If you want to ween people off petroleum based fuels, why would you subsidize? It just create a larger dependency. Oh, wait. That’s what the democrats do best, create addicts.