This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Economy

  • Shocker! Tax hikes causes smuggling!

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    Last November, Maryland Governor O’Malley snuck up behind Marylanders and stabbed us in the back with a massive tax hike. Part of that tax hike was a doubling of the cigarette tax. At the time I wrote;

    A pack of cigarettes in Maryland is already nearly $5/pack. Jack it up to $6, you fools – most Marylanders only need to drive a few miles in almost any direction and buy them cheaper. Raising the price $10/carton more makes it much more attractive to buy them out of State. How much revenue ya got then, chump?

    Well, now we get our answer a mere nine months later as reported in the Wall Street Journal;

    Politicians in Annapolis are scratching their heads wondering what happened to all those chain smokers who were supposed to help balance Maryland’s budget. Last year the legislature doubled the cigarette tax to $2 a pack to pay for expanded health-care coverage. Eight months later, cigarette sales have plunged 25% and the state is in fiscal distress again.

    A few pols are pretending to be happy that 30 million fewer cigarette packs have been bought in the state so far this year. As House Majority Leader Kumar Barve put it, fewer people smoking is “a good thing.” Yes, except that Maryland may be losing retail sales more than smokers. Residents of Maryland’s Washington suburbs can shop in nearby Virginia, where the tax is only 30 cents a pack, and save at least $15 per carton.

    The Maryland pols are so afraid this is true that they’ve made it a crime for residents to carry two packs of cigarettes that weren’t purchased in the state. In other words, the state says it’s legal to smoke, so long as you use cigarettes that the government can tax and thus become a financial partner in your bad habit. But if you dare to buy smokes across state lines, you can be fined.

    Um, didn’t I warn you goofballs? Hell, you can even buy cigarettes on line, pay for shipping and it’s still cheaper than cigarettes in Maryland. Not that I do it – I don’t have to. But smuggling is a fact of life that politicians don’t understand. Whenever you make something difficult or expensive to buy, people will always find a way around it. It’s human nature.

    As soon as Maryland’s tax went up, the border with Pennsylvania was dotted with new cigarette shops – the same thing that happened when New York raised it’s cigarette taxes. I was in Delaware a few weeks ago and it’s the same there.

    Too bad O’Malley can’t find a way to tax the American spirit.
    Crossposted at Red Maryland.

  • The new “Gang of 10”

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    The Wall Street Journal‘s Kimberley Strassel throws back the covers on the new traitors to the Republican Party, led by COB6’s favorite bitch-slap target;

    …in stumbled Sens. Lindsey Graham, John Thune, Saxby Chambliss, Bob Corker and Johnny Isakson — alongside five Senate Democrats. This “Gang of 10” announced a “sweeping” and “bipartisan” energy plan to break Washington’s energy “stalemate.” What they did was throw every vulnerable Democrat, and Mr. Obama, a life preserver.

    That’s because the plan is a Democratic giveaway. New production on offshore federal lands is left to state legislatures, and then in only four coastal states. The regulatory hurdles are huge. And the bill bars drilling within 50 miles of the coast — putting off limits some of the most productive areas. Alaska’s oil-rich Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is still a no-go.

    The highlight is instead $84 billion in tax credits, subsidies and federal handouts for alternative fuels and renewables. The Gang of 10 intends to pay for all this in part by raising taxes on . . . oil companies! The Sierra Club couldn’t have penned it better. And so the Republican Five has potentially given antidrilling Democrats the political cover they need to neutralize energy through November.

    When are these peckerheads in the Senate going to learn that you compromising with Democrats wins nothing? Chuck Hagel tried to throw in with the anti-war caucus eighteen months ago and he’s become a punchline. Graham has turned every Republican in the country against him for the capitulation to the pro-illegal-immigrant clowns. And now, they’re recommending the same failed policies of the last forty years as an energy solution.

    This isn’t a compromise – it’s a Democrat victory. And the five Republicans who’ve pretended to hammer out this surrender package (when all they really did was let the Democrats dictate the terms of the new programs) need to explain to the American workers why they think $4/gallon gasoline is reasonable. And then resign…or run for their seats as Democrats and see if their constituents want to be represented by turncoat, traitorous, backstabbing, two-faced, cowards.

    This isn’t an energy plan…it’s wishful thinking and $84 billion to special interests who haven’t come up with an alternative fuel source in the last forty years. What makes them think they come up with one a timely manner now? Even if one began production today, do we really think Americans will just park their current vehicles and run out to buy the new vehicles? Who are these f’in retards and do they have a brain in their heads?

  • Duplicitous Democrats

    Remember when Congressman Kanjorski admitted what we all knew, that Democrats knew they couldn’t end the war yet they promised their voters they would if only those voters would put them in the majority? Well, all of those suckers did so well, that the Democrats are going to try it again with their energy policy.

    From Baldilocks;

    As it turns out, the Speaker of the House of Representatives has instructed House Democrats whose seats are hotly contested this November to publicly oppose her stance on domestic/offshore drilling in order to get elected. One presumes that said representatives would resume opposition to drilling after they’ve successfully hoodwinked their constituents been re-elected.

    This shows that Pelosi knows that she’s going against the will of the People. She does not care, however, because she has a “higher calling”; in her own words, she’s “trying to save the Planet.” Apparently the messiah syndrome is quite the contagious disease.

    Yeah, yeah, I know…they all do it. That’s your excuse for every bonehead vote you Democrat koolaid drinkers cast. But, it’s not true. The only ones who break their promises to their constituency is Democrats. Republicans hold their candidates accountable – that’s how Democrats won in 2006. That’s how Clinton became President in 1992. And that’s why Democrats don’t feel a need to accomplish anything – ya’all don’t hold them accountable. That makes you complicit in their scam.

  • MoveOn Won’t Part III

    There was more coverage of the Move On protest yesterday from Politico;

    Thomas Cannady, 53, a graduate student who lives in Hyattsville, Md., said he was on a MoveOn training call at around noon when someone broke in to say that the trainees were, to borrow a phrase from Bill O’Reilly, going to do it live. He spent the next few hours calling about 50 other MoveOn activists and then made his way to the Capitol.

    He said that the European tourists, here enjoying the cheap dollar, were especially receptive to his call. “A lot of the Europeans are very much for it. ‘You should see how expensive it is in our country,’” he said they told him. The Old Worlders, he said, insisted that drilling alone was no solution to the high prices and that conservation and renewable energy investments were crucial.

    Yuh, if a couple of European tourists say we shouldn’t drill, that’s who we need to listen to instead of policy makers and economists. Jeez, a 53 year-old grad student, for pete’s sake.

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  • MoveOn Won’t Part II

    As I wrote earlier, MoveOn dot Org is upset that the Republicans are staging a revolt on the floor of the House this week demanding that Speaker Pelosi recognize that this is a crisis and that Congress do something about it instead of taking an well-deserved vacation after accomplishing absolutely nothing in the last two years. Under the gaze of Ulysses S. Grant MoveOn.org tried to protest for $10/gallon gas today. General Grant didn’t look pleased.

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  • MoveOn won’t

    Concretebob emailed me last night that MoveOn dot Org plans to “push back hard” against the House Republicans who are staging a revolt on the floor of Congress this week. Bob pointed me to a Free Republic link that had the call to action from MoveOn;

    Emergency Rally to Stop Big Oil Gimmicks.

    To make sure all our voices are heard, we’re going to rally in front of the Capitol tomorrow afternoon at 4 P.M.

    Can you make it?

    Here are the details:

    What: Rally to Stop Big Oil Gimmicks

    Where: US Capitol Building Meet in front of Grant Memorial (statue of Grant on a Horse) On the Mall, 1st Street, between Pennsylvania Avenue and Maryland Avenue, below the west front of the United States Capitol Building

    When: 4 PM EST

    The Hill reports from MoveOn’s press release;

    “Republicans have been escalating their attacks on [Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.)] and the Democrats over oil drilling, and we need to push back hard,” the group said in an e-mail to supporters, asking them to come to a 4 p.m. rally at the Capitol.

    “Speaker Pelosi blocked their plan because it won’t help lower gas prices—but it will line the pockets of Big Oil executives, the same people donating millions of dollars to Republicans,” the e-mail said. “But Republicans are working hard to make it seem like they’re fighting for cash-strapped commuters—and not the oil companies who wrote their plan.”

    The group plans to point to the ties between the GOP and Big Oil.

    So the Republicans must be getting under the Left’s skin. Of course Democrats can’t pay the Republicans any attention because they’d appear to be standing in the way of developing our own resources, so they mobilized the special interest groups to do their dirty work for them.

    CNN reported last week that the majority of Americans support drilling domestically;

    The poll, which surveyed more than 500 adults by phone in July, found that 69% of respondents support the idea of offshore drilling, while 30% opposed it. In June, 73% were in favor of offshore drilling.

    Zogby got the same numbers in June;

    Three in four likely voters – 74% – support off-shore drilling for oil in U.S. coastal waters and more than half (59%) also favor drilling for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, a new Zogby International telephone poll shows.

    But MoveOn has never been about the majority of Americans anyway – just for advancing their own narrow, childish interests. Those same poll numbers were enough for MoveOn to decide that we shouldn’t impeach Clinton.

    Anyway I bagged my trip to the House floor this morning in favor of covering the MoveOn protest…and the Free Republic’s counter-protest…since it’s my milieu, so to speak.

  • Republicans in revolt

    I wrote about the Republican revolt last Friday in Congress. It drove the Left crazy; Newshounds called it a “stunt aided and abetted by Fox News“, Gay Talk called it “election pandering” so you know it resonates with real America. I’d hoped through the weekend that Republicans would continue their antics since it seems to stick in the Left’s craw. Well, I got this email this morning;

    Dear Conservative Friends:

    As you are hopefully aware, on Friday, House Republicans staged a sit-in of sorts on the House floor to protest Speaker Pelosi’s decision to go home for the August recess without a vote on the American Energy Act. Although the lights, mics, and CSPAN cameras were turned off, we were successful in sending a powerful message to the American public who were seated in the gallery.

    We are continuing the fight throughout the week with many Members returning to DC to take part. To that end, Paul Teller and I would like to ask if you could send people from your groups to participate by sitting in the galleries? We are making every effort to show a strong presence in the Chamber each day.

    We will start each day this week at 10:00 am and continue as long as possible.

    Please let either myself or Paul if you’ll be able to send folks.

    Thanks so much in advance!

    Ashley Hoy,

    Office of the Republican Whip

    Paul Teller

    Republican Study Committee

    I received it a little late, so I won’t be able to make it today, but I just talked to Roy Blunt‘s office and they’re going to get me on the House floor at 9 AM. I won’t be able to take a computer or camera but I’ll report on it when I get back out.

    Like I said the other day, it’s too bad Republicans waited until now to show their cajones.

    Michelle Malkin has more on today’s activities (h/t Mike)

  • “You’re not covering this are you?”

    I missed this other night; the Democrats tried to shut down debate over the Republicans proposal to drill domestically by shutting off the lights in the chamber, shutting down C-SPAN and by shooing off reporters. Luckily, some reporters stuck around;

    Only about a half-dozen Republicans were on the floor when this began, but the crowd has grown to about 20 now, according to Patrick O’Connor.

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