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You just gotta love a liberal. It seems that with many Americans now buying smaller, more energy efficient cars, hybrids and electric vehicles … the Gas-Tax money is starting to dry up. Let’s get this straight. The Obama Administration has been advocating fuel efficiency for going on 3 years … and now that the American public is starting to begrudgingly comply … the folks in DC are upset because gas-tax revenues are down.

Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND), the head of the Senate Budget Committee is calling for a tax on the number of miles driven, instead of on gasoline. Conrad noted that soon the tax receipts on gasoline will not cover federal highway spending. The gap is supposed to reach $18 billion a year by 2021. Senator Conrad lamented that the change in American driving habits has created a disparity between the funds needed and the way that we pay for them.

Maybe the Senator doesn’t realize that all people who drive cars DO NOT make over $250,000.00 a year. Can he remember back to 2007? All the promises about no new federal taxes “of any kind” … but then again, nobody ever expected the Democrats to keep those promises.

Just wait till people stop smoking ... What are they going to do when all that tobacco tax money runs out?

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OBAMA'S $33 BILLION TAX CREDIT

During his State of the Union speech on Wednesday, President Obama brought up one point that really interested me. I guess the reason that it made me wake up from the mind-numbing stupor that the rest of the speech had put me in is because ... I had advocated it from the time of the first stimulus program.

The tax credit for businesses that hire new employees should have been part of the stimulus program from the beginning. Not that I don't think that building tunnels under roadways in New England so that frogs can safely cross the road was not a good use of my tax dollars (NOT!), but encouraging companies to hire workers ... Now there is an idea that will improve the employment situation in the United States.

Of course, besides being late, there are several other things the President has gotten wrong on this idea. Feel free to add others if I miss anything.

1. The money should be taken out of the unspent portion of the pork-laden stimulus package ... not the TARP money that has been paid back. Use the TARP money to pay down our national debt.
2. A company can hire a worker that makes $7000.00 a year and get the entire $5000.00 tax credit ... Why would we want to do that? We need full-time job creation, not part-time jobs.
3. Companies would be capped at $500 million dollars in tax credits so that big businesses would not be getting the lions' share of this money ... If I'm an unemployed worker ... I don't care if my paycheck comes from IBM or Moe's bar and grill, a job is a job. Don't cap a large company ... if it wants to hire, let it.
4. The current proposal has provisions for tax incentives to companies that increase pay ... this is estimated to account for more than half of the $33 billion. Drop this provision and use it all for the creation of full-time jobs. At $5000.00 per job, this translates into 6.5 million jobs ... Voila, back to 5% unemployment.

As usual, the Democrats can screw-up even a great idea. Don't let them. Call your representatives and offer your support for this idea ... but ask them to make some changes.

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Be Fair To Our Troops

One of the longest deployed military units in Iraq is the Minnesota National Guard's 1st Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division. This unit returned the the United States earlier this year and found out that about half of them were not eligible for full GI Bill benefits. These Guardsmen had spent from 20 to 25 months on Active Duty.

Under the rules of the GI Bill, all 2,600 members of the unit qualified for $282.00 a month in benefits as full-time students, but half of them qualified for $800.00 a month. Why the disparity you may ask? Seems that the benefits are broken down into two category's; those that served less than two years and those that served longer than two years. Some of these returning veterans missed the cut-off for the higher benefit by only one day.

Going a bit off topic here but, Hilary Clinton wants to give every baby born in the US $5,000.00 for a college education http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/09/29/clinton-give-every-newborn-5k/ ... and we want to rip-off American Veterans because they missed an arbitrary cut-off date by a matter of days? I know the argument will be, Once we make an exception for one unit, then we will make one for a unit that only served 18 months, then 15 months, etc. I say let's give all returning vets full GI Bill Benefits, even if they only served a 6 month tour of duty. If my taxes have to go up to pay for that, that's fine with me ... I will finally have a tax that I am proud to pay.

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