Trollish at Red State, trollish at Democratic blogs.

It's like a Troll Alchemist's dream.

"McCain's plan for gas tax holiday, and drilling in the U.S. would knock the price down immediately because of speculation"

No, it would not.  Please understand that NO ECONOMIST actually thinks that a gas tax holiday would work at all.  This is the worst sort of base error to make, failing to do research on an easy issue like this.

rec'd

"My Last Post"

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/3/2/20165 1/9568

"despite media spin; why delegates won't matter:Hillary wins!"

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/2/20/2044 31/818

"I voted today (low turnout): look for Hillary upset victories" (in Virginia, DC, and Maryland)

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/2/12/1141 38/204

Pffft.

I won't even comment on the sucker's game of a "gas tax holiday" or more drilling. Patently stupid concepts.

But there already have been tax credits for hybrids. They don't offset the price premium of the vehicles, and they do nothing for the limited availability either.

But as it is, the "don't give tax breaks to people who don't need them" doesn't sound American.

Is that the best reason to oppose Obama's plan?  Because of how it sounds/sells?  What do you have to say of the merits of the plan?

Also, I appreciate those who will vote for Obama critiquing his platform.  But my question is, to what end?  How do you propose to get Obama to change his platform to fit your views but still have him elected in November?

You write,

Please take the time to actually make this election matter by fighting for issues rather than empty slogans.  If not, we'll win without a clear direction, mess it up like after 1992 and be back in the wilderness really soon.

Saying you believe in the "goodness of America" to help the gas crisis and arguing that his tax plan "doesn't sound American" isn't exactly the kind of slogan-free discourse you seem to be calling for.

1. The time range for finding, constructing and drilling for new oil pushes any new online oil source out to between 8 - 14 years

2. Such a time frame invalidates any hope of oil speculation pushing the oil prices down, as oil speculators work in predominately 6 month increments, not 10 year increments.
   
3. Even taking the Bush White House estimates of offshore reserves (which are a bit more rosy than likely actual reserves), this is less than 1% of global resources.
   
4. Oil exploitation does not go directly to the US, it goes into the global whole.
   
5. Therefore, the absolute best we can hope for is a 1% reduction in price 10 years from now.

YAY!

(the only Americans this will actually benefit to any amount are oil company employees)

(and the tax holiday is just patently absurd)

McCain's plan for gas tax holiday, and drilling in the U.S. would knock the price down immediately because of speculation.

Not so. Drilling will not lower gas prices immediately since it takes at least 5  years to bring a well on line.

Drilling off the coast of California, Florida and elsewhere would increase domestic oil production by 7 percent by 2030, according to the Energy Information Administration. But "because oil prices are determined on the international market...any impact on average wellhead prices is expected to be insignificant." There is no short-term benefit to drilling, says the EIA, because it would take at least five years for oil production to begin. (Source: Center for American Progress.)

Gas tax holiday may or may not work depends on if oil companies pass on the savings. The when it ends up go the price by 20 cents in one day.

The fastest fix to high prices albeit temporarily since demand will increase. Would be to close the Enron loop-hole on speculation. By some estimates this would have an immediate effect of lowering price 30-50%.

"The proper range of crude oil is somewhere between $35 and $65 a barrel." J. Stephen Simon, Exxon-Mobil executive vice president, said in testimony to the House of Representatives, "The price of oil should be $50 to $55 per barrel based on supply and demand fundamentals." Gerry Ramm, an Inland Oil Company senior executive, said during Senate testimony, "Excessive speculation on energy trading facilities is the fuel that is driving this runaway train in crude oil prices."

McCain is certainly not better than Obama on the issues.

Taxes: McCain wants to extend the Bush tax breaks. The same tax breaks he once said went inordinately to the wealthy and would balloon the debt. What happened to the Straight Talker?

Energy: Obama - sensible proposals to move us towards a clean future and energy independence. McCain - pander, pander, pander.

FISA (fica? (sic)): We need to see how this plays out. For all the hype on this issue, Obama has not changed his stance. He's still against telco immunity. He should be, since encouraging breaking the law is not a good stance to take. What happened to the Law and Order party? They sure have changed their tune since Bush got in office. Think Libby.

Immigration: McCain and Obama are probably closer on this issue than any other, although McCain is running hard to the right in order to pander to his base.

Judicial appointments: McCain wants more justices like Roberts and Alito. He has stated this repeatedly. That's enough reason to vote against him right there.

Use of force: McCain is more hawkish than Bush and favors a more confrontational stance with Iran, Russia, and China. His actions would probably lead to a need for a reinstatement of the draft.

Foreign policy: Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran

Torture: McCain: It's ok as long as it's the CIA doing it. Obama: Torture is immoral.

Habeas Corpus: McCain: Worst decision ever. Obama: Right decision.

Roe v Wade: McCain wants to see it overturned. Obama: Full backing by Planned Parenthood and NARAL.

Do I really need to go on?

Now to see which trolls come out from under their bridges to defend McCain.

I appreciate honest thoughts and analysis.  I'm not in a position to delve too deeply right now, but I hope to return to this later.

To those who dog the diarist for this one, I would ask that you stop.  Substantive policy discussion is healthy.

"McCain's plan for gas tax holiday, and drilling in the U.S. would knock the price down immediately because of speculation."

That's not how it works, sorry.

1) Speculation is all short term. Until those new operations (drilling in ANWR, which McCain still opposes or offshore drilling) actually start placing new supply in the market they will not impact pricing.

2) It ignores bottlenecks: Offshore drilling as it currently stands is only operating at about 70%.  The bottleneck is tankers. After that, the next step, the refineries, are currently running beyond their capacity.  Obama is committed to building more of these.

3) The gas tax holiday has some nasty side effects that do more damage than help.  First, you have to hedge your bets on those 18.4 cents actually being realized by the consumer and not padding anyone's profit margin (If you think this will happen I have a subprime mortgage to sell you..).  Then you have to assume demand won't increase as a result swallowing up most of that discount.  Finally you have to deal with the gigantic hole you have in the infrastructure budget and the number of jobs its going to cost the country.  What's the impact of 300,000 jobs all at once?  Pretty devastating.

I can see why you think McCain is right on this issue.  The only thing this proves is the fact that John McCain does not understand the economy and is unfit to lead this nation.

You should vote for McCain since you believe he's better on the issues.

To the person who accused yellowdem of being a troll, you are wrong. He has been here for a while.

Having said that, this diary makes little sense. You said you agree with McCain on the issues, yet your item by item list pretty much has all the important issues weighted in favor of Obama(judges, national security solutions, AA) while a few couple of trivial things in favor of McCain(even if you support drilling, there is no new oil coming soon from those sources and your gas tax suggestion is too speculative to be serious about).

And the drivers license thing? What is wrong? For the record, I am actually one of the tougher MYDDers in the Lou Dobbs mode when it comes to tackling illegal immigration(had a diary about it in the past). Yet, I support Drivers licenses for them because it helps track people when it comes to accidents and forces them to get insurance. Drivers licenses for illegals is helpful for us more than it is for them.

A lot of your criticisms of Obama have to do with energy policy, so I'll challenge you to take a fresh look at whether McCain really has better ideas here.  In order:

1) maximizing oil production within  the US will have very little impact on the world price for oil.  Energy is a global market, prices are rising because global production is flat while global demand is increasing, and nothing which happens in the US on the production side can affect that, because the volume of any potential increase in domestic production is the proverbial drop the bucket.  ANWAR is not the next Saudi Arabia--not even close.  What the GOP is trying to do is exploit anxiety over high gas prices to help domestic producers pull off what they've been trying for years.  If you support these efforts, fine.  But don't do this because you think this would make any difference at the pump--it won't.

2) Obama isn't in favor of high gas prices.  He accepts that these high prices are market-driven--which is a totally different statement--and believes American consumers would have been better off if this increase had occurred more slowly than was the case--which is hard to contest, because people would have had more time to adjust.  While there are some Democrats who believe that high gas prices (eg. through taxation) would have some public benefits (eg. reduced consumption would equal a reduction in greenhouse gases), Obama, to the best of my knowledge, has never supported this position.  We're in a new world, once again, because global demand is increasing while global production is (and will probably stay) flat.  The old debate is moot.  No serious person expects the price of oil to go back to $35 a barrel or anything like this.

3) The gas tax holiday is just another drop-in-the-bucket solution (federal taxes just don't add much to the price at the pump, they do nothing to affect the world price of oil, this money would have to be recouped somewhere else, and there's no reason why oil companies would necessarily pass along the savings from a short-term holiday to the consumer, six months is not enough time for competitive pressures to do their work).

4) Government efforts to encourage more efficient consumption, however, can have a positive benefit if used intelligently.  I'm a big skeptic when it comes to government regulation of any kind, but it has its place and this is an area where it could work.  Simple story, what the government should be trying to do is give energy consumers and the companies which design products which use energy (eg. cars) incentives so that they'll pay the cost of maximizing efficiency now (eg. increase mpg standards, design better hybrids, electric cars, etc.), rather than wait and respond slowly to market signals.  This sort of effort would pay off (ie. save everyone money, both individually and collectively) IF it's true that the price of energy is not going down (with every conversion like this there are startup costs, costs for R&D, and economies of scale, but over the long-term the sooner one starts the better).

Upshot.  Does McCain really have a better energy policy?  Or is his whole approach to this issue based upon an assumption that we're not in a new world with respect to energy, the old rules still apply, and right now what the US has to do is ride out a bad storm?  Because if that's his approach, but the market has fundamentally shifted, we're going to have the same problems in the future.

Obama recognizes that we are in this new world, and not because of anything which is happening in the United States, or Iraq, etc.  The price of energy is increasing because of events in places like China (which, btw, aren't entirely bad, the US benefits a lot when the world becomes more prosperous, this is just one downside).

So ultimately, here's the choice: would you rather drive the same car you do now and pay $5 a gallon, with none of this going to the federal government, and where this revenue comes from other sources?  Or would you prefer driving a car which is very similar to the one you're driving now but which gets 60 mpg (and so you're basically paying the same total price for gas as you were five years ago).

To me this is a no brainer: give me the better car.  Obama understands this.  McCain, it seems, doesn't.  And yes, there are other benefits from this sort of energy efficiency--that just makes the argument more difficult to resist (but government can make this transition easier).

for example would not be availible for at least 10 years. So how that is a better policy to help at the pump is beyond me. The estimates of the price going down from speculation is rosy at best. I was going to address this in more detail but others have beat me to it. I just don't buy the drilling argument. What we should be doing is focusing on at first fuel efficiency, then after 5 years, maybe even up to 10, while encouraging new tech, we should have a viable alternate to oil based cars altogether. Why should waste time and more tax payer money subsidizing for more oil drilling when the technology is becoming obsolete does not make sense to me. The truth is we can not sustain the current energy system and we need something that will tranisition us off of it and not delay us with red herring of more drilling.