Virginia’s Transportation Problem

Virginia has a transportation problem. Traffic is badly clogged in both Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads and the primary funding mechanism in Virginia’s 2007 Transportation Bill was largely struck down by the Virginia Supreme Court in March. That was after the other funding mechanism in the bill, the abusive driver fees, had to be repealed [...]

Look at that, people are price sensitive

A couple of days ago I noted that DC Metro ridership is way up in this era of high gas prices. Today, in the New York Times, I see that it’s not just DC, but the entire country that’s seeing a mass transit boom. In the New York region ridership is up between 5 and [...]

If We Really Want to Stick It to the Oil Companies

As much as I can understand the impulse to stick it to the oil companies, a windfall profits tax would be a terrible idea. In an economy like ours, which relies on innovation by private companies to grow, confiscating profits when we decide someone has made “too much” money makes no sense. We have a [...]

Stupidest Policy Ever

In the wake of the gas tax idiocy that we’ve recently seen, James Fallows held a competition to determine the stupidest bipartisan policy ever. The winner? Ethanol! The wonderful policy we’ve dreamed up to pander to a few Midwestern farmers and as a result, has led to us BURNING OUR FOOD to run our cars. [...]

Good for Us

I see via Matthew Yglesias that Americans don’t seem to have bought into John McCain and Hillary Clinton’s gas tax holiday idea. Its not much, but even the small majority that oppose the idea is progress. Obama’s strong stand and repeated attempts to explain the issue coupled with the universal disdain for the idea expressed [...]

Howard Wolfson is right

I can’t quite believe that I’m actually writing this, but Hillary’s spokesman Howard Wolfson actually got something right about Hillary’s gas tax proposal. He said that the gas tax issue is “”an important policy difference that says something larger.”
He’s right. It says that Hillary Clinton, his boss, is a political whore. Barack Obama and his [...]

“Politics as Usual”

From Robert Reich:

When asked this morning by ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos if she could name a single economist who backs her call for a gas tax holiday this summer, HRC said “I’m not going to put my lot in with economists.”
I know several of the economists who have been advising Senator Clinton, so I phoned [...]

Credit where credit is due

The other day I criticized Senator Clinton for not introducing legislation to actually enact her idiotic gas tax proposal. Well, I was wrong. She introduced a bill to do just that on Friday. She also somehow managed to get Senator Robert Menendez to go along with her and cosponsor the gas tax holiday. Menendez must [...]

Why Doesn’t She Introduce It Then

Via Andrew Sullivan I see that Hillary Clinton is now pushing for members of Congress to go on the record about her idiotic gas tax pander:
“I believe it would be important to get every member of Congress on record,” she said, per NBC/NJ’s MIke Memoli. “Do they stand with the hard-pressed Americans who are trying [...]