Israeli attacks: Airstrikes continue, at least 280 dead.

More troops: Israel will call up 7,000 reservists for possible ground war in Gaza.

Blame game: White House says Hamas responsible for current conflict.

Bad year: Cuba’s economy slows down.

White elephant library: Good for band names and President-defect Bush, bad for America.

Blagojevich: Rahm Emmanuel and Valerie Jarret will not be subpoenaed.

Madoff’s money: Investigation focuses on offshore tax havens.

Central District Metro: Buses are mostly back.

No flood: “Orderly melt.”

SPD officers assaulted: Man arrested for allegedly being belligerent and kicking officer in the throat.

80-year-old woman blogs: Seattle Times profiles their editorial director.

13 replies on “The Morning News”

  1. In the United States of America circa 2008, you know an idea is radical when (A) it actually makes economic sense, and (B) it’s not painless. Well, here’s a radical idea in today’s New York Times:

    Today’s financial crisis is Obama’s 9/11. The public is ready to be mobilized. Obama is coming in with enormous popularity. This is his best window of opportunity to impose a gas tax. And he could make it painless: offset the gas tax by lowering payroll taxes, or phase it in over two years at 10 cents a month. But if Obama, like Bush, wills the ends and not the means — wills a green economy without the price signals needed to change consumer behavior and drive innovation — he will fail.

    OK, yes, the author is Tom Friedman, and it seems there’s a whole contingent of Seattle liberals who will not hear a word Tom Friedman says, the way there’s a contingent of Slog readers who cannot read a word Dan Savage writes about frisky pit bulls or frisky pastors without reminding themselves of Dan Savage’s endorsement of an Iraq invasion. So let’s set the messenger aside for a moment.

    Maybe you’d prefer the name Al Gore associated with a revenue-neutral gas tax or carbon tax. In fact, that’s what Gore too has been championing.

  2. Yes, we want a gas tax.

    Why isn’t Obama building support for it now? Why isn’t he telling us all his plans now so we can mobilize and activate that huge grass roots network and get everything freakin’ passed right away?

    Tying gas tax to Detroit aid to stimulus to greening the economy would be the way to go. GOP wants him to go slow and take things on piece by piece to better beat us.

    I say do it all in one fell swoop.

    Now on Israel, it’s pretty clear there was a cease fire and HAMAS broke it by rocketing all of southern Israel, targeting civilians. Now Israeel responds, targeting Hamas rocket militants, and even Palestinian sources say most of the casualties are militants, in the link you cite.

    So to label this an Israeli “attack” is a smear. Because when Hamas fired its rockets to try to kill as many Jews as possible, I didn’t see any headline about “Hamas attacks” and when you’re attacked your response is retaliation. The word attack suggests an unprovoked attack, and to make this suggestion is misleading.

    Israel was keeping the ceasefire; Hamas broke it; Hamas is the wrongdoer.

    Both sides need to make peace but when it’s one side rocketing civilians throughout all southern Israel, it’s not right to blame the victim for responding. Hamas wanst to kill Jews. Hamas treis to kill Jews. Isreal reacts, and you call it an attack by Israel.

    Mamzers.

  4. The sins of the rich? There aren’t enough rich people to fill up our freeways. If you rule out taxation to internalize externalities what are we left with? Quotas?

    The pull quote itself suggests offsetting taxes which could theoretically leave the average person at par. Obviously the poor among heavy drivers would be hurt by this. I’m fine with that.

    We have Obama’s $500 for everyone deal, we have the EITC. These things can improve the “lot” of the poor.

  5. DavidC @3: A gas tax is not progressive. Why punish the poor for the sins of the rich?

    A gas tax isn’t about punishing people. It’s about this nation’s national security and economic security, and it’s about staving off global environmental and economic catastrophe. Having to pay more at the pump to keep from siphoning off $700 billion a year to the likes of Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Venezuela is a pretty trivial sacrifice compared to the sacrifices Americans had to make to preserve the union and save the world from fascism. I’m sure there were some isolationists complaining in 1941 that Americans shouldn’t be punished for the sins of some European dictators.

    As daniel @4 notes, the way to address charges that a gas tax is regressive is to offset it with a cut in the payroll tax. Unlike the income tax, the payroll tax is effectively regressive because it stops at around $100K and every worker, no matter how little they make, has to pay it.

    But would a gas tax really be regressive at all? I don’t know if there’s a study out there, but I think you’d find a pretty strong correlation between personal income and fuel consumption.

  6. Gotta agree on the gax tax – and I suggest some of the revenue is used to support rail and buses. Cars and trucks are the most heavily subsidized methods of transportation in our country [as a former highway engineer I could cite chapter & verse, but I won’t bore you]. It’s time that cars and trucks paid their fair share of the true travel costs – those roads cost billions each year to maintain and forget new highways!

  7. The gas tax is a good idea and its regressive nature, as has been pointed out, can be offset by a payroll tax cut. Obama’s other tax reforms, ridiculed by Joe the Plumber as socialistic, will also help make the federal tax system more progressive. Hopefully the states, Washington included, will follow this lead.

    But he has to act fast. I was leafing through a new book yesterday about FDR’s first hundred days after he took office in 1933. The New Deal was (mostly) successful because Roosevelt built on the momentum and demand for change that got him elected in the first place. The Supreme Court stepped in a few times, but basically the country moved forward.

    Obama has a tremendous opportunity to turn the country around after the disastrous last eight years but he has to move quickly. Push the right wing out of the way and leave them so far behind in the dust that their opposition sounds like the whining of spoiled bratty children. They had their way under Bush and look where it got us. Now it’s time for them to move aside and let the grownups run the country.

  8. @6,

    Yeah, and by pouring money into transit, it takes away some, not all, but some, of the whining about the increased cost of gas. Don’t like it? Take the bus or train.

  11. I say tax ourselves to oblivion!!! $35.00 on a gallon of gas and $25.00 for each plastic bag. Oh and fast food should be taxed at 75% of the value along with processed food. You know, that stuff is bad for you.

    ONWARD TO ECONOMIC PROSPERITY!!!

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