At 2:15 the Senate will take up the nomination of Edward Chen to be a district judge for the Northern District of California. Following up to 3 hours of debate, senators will vote on the nomination early this evening. Yesterday, Democrats failed to get the 60 votes needed to invoke cloture on the nomination of James Cole to be Deputy Attorney General. The cloture motion failed by a vote of 50-40.
The top three Democrat leaders of the Senate, Harry Reid (D-NV), Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Chuck Schumer (D-NY), all went to the floor this morning to argue for their plan to raise taxes on domestic energy producers, despite the fact that doing so would clearly result in lost jobs and higher gasoline prices.
The worst part about their plan, it’s the middle class that feels the pain the most, with 9 percent of the average household budget eaten up by fuel costs.
But you know what, shame on us for being surprised, this was part of the plan all along. Obama’s own energy secretary was quoted saying, “Somehow we need to figure out how to boost gasoline prices to the levels in Europe.” Gas is now $10 a gallon in Europe and the energy secretary says the entire Obama administration has been focused on this “plan.”
We are already seeing that plan put in motion, starting when President Obama a year ago placed a moratorium on offshore drilling. Here we are a year later, with $4 a gallon gas. But that hasn’t stopped Obama and Senate Democrats. Now they’re exploring another idea to boost the price at the pump: tax you for every mile you drive.
Sending a message to your Senator to reject the Democrat mileage tax.
The Hill writes, “Democratic leaders and several politically vulnerable members of their caucus are introducing legislation Tuesday that would repeal several tax breaks for the largest oil companies. The bill, which faces major hurdles, represents an escalation of Democratic efforts to criticize oil companies amid high gasoline prices and politically tether Republicans to the industry.”
Yesterday evening, House Speaker Boehner spoke to the Economic Club of New York on jobs, debt, and gas prices. In his speech, he addressed today's gas prices and the democrats efforts to increase taxes, "“We've also seen the arrogance of government recently in the skyrocketing gas prices our citizens and businesses are dealing with. There's a clear connection between high gas prices and the weak dollar that some in Washington have quietly welcomed over the past couple of years.
"It's well known that when you print tons of money, the dollar sinks, and the price of food and energy rises -- significantly. Yet the American people are told there is nothing that can be done about it. This is simply untrue.
"Washington has also kept most of our nation's vast energy resources under lock and key for decades, over the clear objections of the American people -- the people who own those resources. If we had listened to the people decades ago -- or even a few years ago -- many of these resources would be available to us right now to lower the price of energy. And we would probably have about a million private-sector jobs in America that we don't currently have. Instead what Washington has done is raise the specter of higher taxes, creating more uncertainty for those in America who create jobs."
Also speaking on the floor yesterday, Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell took a dim view of Democrats’ latest political gimmick, saying, “All across the country people are suffering from the run-up in gas prices that we’ve seen over the past few months. It’s squeezing family budgets, tightening margins at already-struggling small businesses, and it poses a mortal threat to any economic rebound. This is a critical issue. Americans are looking for answers. And yet all they’re getting from the President and Democrat leaders in Congress are gimmicks and deflection.
“We’ve seen this before. Every time gas prices go up, Democrats claim there’s nothing they can do about it. Then they propose something completely counterproductive just to quiet their critics. This time it’s a tax increase. That is the Democrat response to high gas prices: a tax hike.”
Of course, raising taxes will do nothing to lower the price of gas. Instead, according to the Congressional Research Service, those tax changes “would make oil and natural gas more expensive for U.S. consumers and likely increase foreign dependence.”
Further, other Senate Democrats have pointed out that raising taxes on energy producers would discourage domestic energy production and cost jobs in many states. Reacting to a similar proposal in President Obama’s February budget, Alaska Sen. Mark Begich said, “The president’s call for eliminating incentives for oil and gas production is a non-starter and could hurt Alaska’s energy industry.” He also pointed out, “[The President’s proposal] would cost thousands of jobs in Alaska and across the country.” And Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu said, “The administration has put forward draconian taxes on the oil and gas industry . . . . It seems very contrary to our stated goal of being more energy sufficient in the United States. Taxing this domestic industry will instead cut jobs and increase our dependency on foreign oil. . . . We have bipartisan opposition to increasing taxes on this industry.”
As Leader McConnell explained yesterday, “Beyond raising taxes, Democrats insist that there’s nothing they can do about gas prices. . . . [But] Democrats need to stop deflecting attention from their own complicity in our nation's over-dependence on foreign oil. They need to stop paying lip service to the need for American exploration while quietly supporting efforts to suppress it. They need to end an approach that hasn’t changed since the days of Jimmy Carter. Just like Carter before them, today’s Democrats are using the crisis of the moment as an excuse to push their own vision of the future with a ‘windfall profits tax’ on energy companies; and just like Carter before them, they have rightly been accused of bringing BB guns to a war. This is a serious crisis. It’s time for serious solutions.”
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