Oil Tax Increase

Apparently new legislation recently went through Congress increasing taxes on petroleum, a tax paid by the oil companies. While I agree with the intended purpose of this legislation (raise money to take care of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico), I worry about the long-term effects on other things. For example, couldn't this cause a spike in gasoline prices? Oil companies will now be making less money per barrel, so it is fully possible that they will raise gas prices to make up for that loss. Unintended consequences plague all government actions, and the article I read even quotes Christopher Guith, vice president of the Chamber of Commerce's energy institute, as saying, "There hasn't been any sort of deliberation on" how this legislation would impact the economics of the country.

As I said above, I agree that money needs to be raised to clean up the oil spill, especially because BP does not seem to be doing much in that regard. However, I am concerned that there was no deliberation even on the laws most obvious, unintended consequences. Am I being paranoid or quite reasonable? Any one who has more information on this legislation, please feel free to share said information with me.

Words and Phrases We Avoid

My last post, which was mostly abour Obama, got me thinking about the Secret Service. One, that they are not that Secret, everyone knows they're there and two, that they could be referred to as the S.S. An agency that works directly for the man in charge and its title can be shortened to S.S. I find it intriguing that this is not seen as a problem, even while most people in theis country would be up in arms if someone dared call them socialist. Both the S.S. and Socialism have very bad connotations in the minds of most Americans, but only the latter appears to consistently provoke a response. I can't help but wonder why. The S.S. and Socialism both "belong" to former enemies of the U.S. Does a stronger reaction against the term 'socialism' mean the U.S. had and has a greater dislike of Russia than of Nazi Germany? Does that mean that anti-Semitism is seen as more okay than Socialism?

I really do not know the answer, but it keeps bugging me. Any help in understanding this is, of course, appreciated.

Obama losing his Jewish constituents?

Earlier this week, Obama had a meeting with the Prime Minister of Israel, Beyamin Netanyahu, which, I dare say, was a disaster (mostly for Obama). While I do not like their slant on the issue, Times Online provides a good explanation of what happened. Obama was, quite frankly, rude. He simply got up and left during a meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister and later uninvited him from dinner. Such behavior to a major political leader can be seen as an insult to said leader's country, or, in this case, even said leader's entire nation (i.e. a large percentage of Jews around the world are upset).

While upsetting Israel is not that big a problem for the U.S., in and of itself, Obama has also upset a large number of his Jewish constituents. Even back in 1974, when many recently-immigrated jewish families had yet to earn large sums of money, Jewish donors gave what amounted to ~75% of donations to the Democratic party*. Even if the number has gone down, pissing off even a few of these huge donors will damage the Democratic party and its ability to fund candidates. Without this funding Democrates will have a harder time winning elections, because, whether we like it or not, money spent on advertising is closely linked to winning elections.

If Obama does not scramble to make up for his insult to Netanyahu, he may well have destroyed his chances at a second term.


*http://www.davidduke.com/general/michael-collins-piper-jews-donating-70-to-80-to-democrats-gop-not-far-behind_1983.html