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Duopoly in Action: Dems and GOP Agree it’s a Great Time for a Gas Tax Hike

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You might have noticed the spectacular collapse of global crude oil prices reflected in the commensurate reduction of your weekly gasoline bill. Gas prices are lower, much lower, than they were just a few months ago. For Washington D.C., that represents an opportunity. Even for congressional Republicans, even a little bit more money in your wallet presents a chance to hike your taxes.

On Wednesday, the new GOP chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works panel, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), said a hike in the gasoline tax is on the table as a means of paying into the Highway Trust Fund. As President Barack Obama would no doubt note, that fund is of vital importance for keeping the nation’s roads and bridge up to code.

“It’s not a tax,” Inhofe said. “It’s a user fee.”

Outside Beltway, that’s a distinction without a difference.

Inhofe’s embrace of a new, ahem, “user fee” for those who purchase the gasoline was shared by the new Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT). “We’ll have to look at that. I’m looking at everything—every possible way of taking care of the highway bill,” Hatch echoed. (Read more about the gas tax hike HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Spineless Republicans Elected With Anti-Obama Mandate Turn Their Backs on Voters, Pledge No Action Against Obama's Amnesty

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Democrat=GOPPretty much all post-election analyses – on the left and right alike – agree that the Republican landslide earlier this month was a result of broad voter discontent with Obama’s agenda.

For instance, every successful GOP senate candidate campaigned for a full repeal of Obamacare. Republican candidates also hammered Obama’s amnesty push. Across the country, Republicans ran aggressively against Obama as it resonated with the People more than anything else. Americans are sick and tired of the President’s destructive socialist policies.

Even the Democrats recognized Obama’s toxicity, having their candidates stay as far away from the President as they could.

The end result was that Republicans took eight seats in the Senate (and may have nine if Cassidy knocks off incumbent Senator Landrieu in Louisiana’s runoff election next month) , and gained a likely 13 seats in the House, giving them a solid supermajority of 247 there. This was a considerable shift in power, with the GOP having more seats in Congress than at any time since Herbert Hoover in 1928.

In short, America voted decisively against Obama’s agenda. And now, the Republican Congress unquestionably has a broad mandate to confront and stop it.

So what are we hearing from Republican leadership? Well, two weeks ago, newly-elected House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said he would not push for a vote to repeal Obamacare. That spawned a mini-rebellion among conservatives bloggers. The grassroots was justifiably outraged by the House leader’s approach to such a key issue for conservative voters.

Fast forward to King Obama’s executive amnesty this past week. Did the GOP leadership learn from McCarthy’s misstep? Not even slightly. On Saturday, out-going Rep. Michelle Bachmann reported that during a closed door GOP caucus meeting this past week, Speaker of the House John Boehner and many other congressional leaders “acted as though the amnesty issue wasn’t even an issue.”

She continued, “They said that the President is going to do what he’s going to do, and we are not going to get down in the mud with him. We are not going to engage, and what we are going to do is to talk about our positive solutions on jobs, the economy, education, and manufacturing.”

In other words, every House GOP leader agreed that Republicans were going to do NOTHING about Obama’s unconstitutional power grab this past week. But they didn’t stop there. According to Rep. Bachmann, the self-congratulatory leadership all concluded that taking this passive approach to Obama and remaining positive was a “brilliant strategy,” thus assuring the caucus that they would maintain this go-along-get-along strategy throughout the next Congress.

Newsflash to Boehner, McCarthy, et al.: such an approach isn’t brilliant, it’s moronic. The voters elected you to confront this administration, not bow to it. Confrontational approaches – like defunding the White House – is not something that will harm the party. On the contrary, it will strengthen it, showing the grassroots that there really is a difference between the two parties. But now, you’re risking it all, preparing to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. You are rejecting the confrontational mandate that brought you the largest GOP caucus in almost 90 years. And in the process, you are about to ensure that the same grassroots that brought you your current supermajority will opt for a different approach in 2016.

Many of us held our noses and voted for the lesser of the evils in this year’s midterms, thinking we’d help get our country back in the process. A GOP failure to take meaningful action to restore our great nation will cause many of us to take a different path in the future. We’re sick and tired of voting for the same thing, no matter the ticket. We want our country back.

Oppose and repeal Obamacare, oppose and defund Obama’s amnesty, or make way for real patriots to lead.

So Who Else is Running for President?

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Mainstream media coverage of the presidential election has focused almost entirely on President Obama and Mitt Romney, the only two candidates who polls suggest have a legitimate chance of victory in November. But among the 415 people who have filed statements of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission are a handful of lesser-known candidates who are fighting hard to make their case to the American people.

Four of those candidates will face off next Tuesday in a Larry King-moderated debate hosted by the Free and Equal Elections Foundation, which describes itself as dedicated to creating “a climate where all voices are heard regardless of political party or persuasion.”

Below is an introduction to those four candidates: Libertarian Party candidate and former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, Green Party candidate Jill Stein, Justice Party candidate and former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, and Constitution Party candidate and former Congressman Virgil Goode.

Gary Johnson. Johnson, who served two terms as the Republican governor of New Mexico, wants to cut government spending across the board by 43 percent in order to balance the budget, including a 43 percent cut to the military budget. He would make massive cuts to Medicaid and Medicare and either raise the Social Security retirement age or institute means testing. Johnson would not raise taxes, though he would replace the tax code with the national sales tax known as the “FairTax.” [Read more HERE about his pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, and pro-drug legalization views].

Virgil Goode. Goode, a Democrat-turned-Republican former six-term Congressman from Virginia who says he would like to personally see Mr. Obama’s original birth certificate, is known primarily as an immigration hardliner: He argues for a fence along the Southern border, says “we must end the anchor baby situation,” and argues that “[w]e need to utilize troops, fences, and other measures to stop the invasion from Mexico.” He says he would put a near-moratorium on green cards until the unemployment rate drops below 5 percent, wants English as the official language of the United States, and calls the Arizona immigration law a model for the nation. [Read more HERE about his anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, and anti-gun control views].

Read more about the other candidates HERE.