They did that when they tried to link Obama to Reagan early in the campaign. They're essentially assuming that people are too stupid to realize that this is a bad idea that won't save them any money at the pump... Hillary Clinton starts her rallies by saying we need jobs, jobs, jobs. Well, by the estimates of the Department of Transportation this will cost 300,000 jobs just this summer in the construction trade... It will bring repairs of our highways to a screeching halt. She talks about a findfall profits tax on the oil companies, which is a good idea: Obama and others support this as well. The problem is, that won't pay for this gas tax holiday because she's already said that the money from a windfall profits tax would be used to develop renewable energy. So she's spending that nine billion dollars twice. What she's hoping is that only elites will know any of this and that everybody else just won't care. The problem with this is that a lot of elites are superdelegates and they're not buying this.... It's a hail Mary pass, and what they're figuring is if they can run up a big victory in Indiana with this pander, and a lot of people drive long distances in Indiana, then the superdelegates will figure, Hey, maybe the best pander is the best ticket in the fall and that Obama is too hung up on the merits of these issues, the substance of these issues instead of the politics of the issues that we need to win in the old-fashioned way. That might work with the superdelegates even though they don't agree with her on the merits of the gas tax. There are a lot of what are called low-information voters. They're really not reading the unanimous newspaper editorials against this.... The thing that's so onious about this idea is that there are other kinds of relief. You could get a tax credit for people at the low end of the income scale. You could give them other forms of relief. This is the single worst kind of relief because it's terrible for global warming, terrible for foreign policy, and terrible for jobs. It's just unfortunate that she had to embrace what people agree is the single worst policy idea of the entire campaign.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- A detailed critique of economic proposals and job impact.
- In plain terms
- Criticism of economic plans and job losses.
- What can you take from it?
- Economic policies have tradeoffs.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Are these economic plans sound?
- What impacts jobs most?
Another view
It assumes complex calculations are widely understood.
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