Matt Miller is a snarky little prick whose function is usually as an echo to the larger leftist narrative. Showing unexpected business acumen, the Washington Post website insists on placing him as the last item in their list of Op-Eds just about every time he has a column. I’ve graciously let him while away his time in obscurity because he rarely comes out with anything uniquely stupid. Things certainly changed today. With oil prices skyrocketing and Ken Salazar’s illegal moratorium on domestic oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico still in place, Professor Miller--and I say that with all the dripping disdain I can muster (which is considerable)--decides that it’s about time that we double or triple our gas prices. Y’know, for shits and giggles.
Can Americans handle the truth about gas prices?
Discussion Policy
By Matt Miller
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Hello again, everyone! I'm Matt Miller. And welcome to "You Can't Handle the Truth,"
Bob Barker you are not.
our weekly quest to see if Americans can face the facts needed to solve our most pressing problems - or whether we'll succumb to the curse that trapped the Romanempire
I will generously overlook this as a transcription error by the Post’s crack team of HTML-wielding code monkeys.
before it fell, when, as the pundit Livy put it, "the people could bear neither their ills nor their cures."
This is about the time where most Americans turn the channel to something awesome like The Chicago Code or Burn Notice. Fortunately for you, intrepid reader(s), I’m resilient enough to stick with it. I’ll watch reruns of Arrested Development later.
[Turns to the studio audience]
Matt: What do you say, America
Audience [roaring in unison]: No!
Forget Bob Barker, this dude’s not even a Drew Carey.
Matt: But can we bear their cures?
Audience: No!
Keep in mind that these are the beacons of professional journalism in the United States
Matt [winking]:
Take a look at this guy’s stock photo on WaPo and fight to repress that reflexive vomit in the back of your throat. I need a Brillo pad and steel wool for my brain.
You see the dilemma.
Actually, I don’t. I assume that you’ll actually explain your wild suppositions, but that’s far more credit than this piece has thus far merited.
Today's rendezvous with truth? Gas prices. With Libya in chaos and Mideast jitters sending gas past $3.50 a gallon, we'll take on the most sacred cow in the entire bovine pantheon: the entitlement to cheap gas.
On the plus side, we’ve finally found an “entitlement” that Democrats are eager to get rid of: the entitlement to not be taxed. (Patriots know this as “freedom”)
In our pre-show poll, we asked our studio audience if they would support higher gas taxes (and thus even higher prices) to achieve a rare public policy trifecta.
Fuck me. This is going to be really dumb, isn’t it?
First, we'd reduce our dependence on oil.
I assume--and I’m going to have to assume a lot to make his arguments comprehensible--that he believes a gas tax would reduce supply and therefore reduce the market equilibrium price. That’s sound-enough economics, but woefully simplistic. The lack of valid substitute goods in the energy market means that oil and gas—as a whole—are goods with inelastic demand. Therefore, supply shifts imply small changes in quantity versus large increases in price. In other words, to significantly adjust the amount foreign oil consumed (quantity), you would have to use massive tax-induced supply shifts that would drive oil and gas prices to astronomical levels. Isn’t it just easier to drill in ANWR? Or re-open the Gulf of Mexico to exploration and drilling for American companies? Or project American power to break down OPEC’s monopolistic oil cartel?
Second, we'd create market incentives to invest in clean energy.
Actually, unbalanced tax impositions are the exact opposite of market incentives. (But then, so are the massive subsidies that we’re already giving to the “green economy.”) In fact, “clean energy” alternatives like the electric cars have proven so unpalatable that GM sold a whopping 281 Volts in February. I doubt that’s enough to cover their advertising budget this month.
It would be too cruel to tell you how the Nissan Leaf is selling.
And third, we'd raise much-needed revenue to shrink our budget deficit.
Well, that’s assuming that you don’t put American trucking and logistics companies out of business, drive international shipping to foreign competitors, crush retailers with skyrocketing inflation and generally hobble the economy by increasing wage demands for commuters—which gasoline taxes would.
In short, a big gasoline tax would achieve precisely zero of the above-stated goals, and be actively counterproductive to at least two of them.
As a bonus, we might eventually stop sending young Americans to die for oil in the Persian Gulf , too!
Lesser critics have gone into rage blackouts over such flippant espousals of nonsense. I prefer to save my ire for hippies.
Alas, 80 percent of you said "no,"
This means 80 percent of you reflexively loathe government intervention in the market in the name of making the market more efficient. Good for you! You’ve established adequate mental capacity to own and operate a waffle iron.
Wait a minute, I’m talking to Mat Miller’s non-existent audience from his non-existent television show…I’ll be by to turn in my waffle iron in the morning.
you would not support higher gas taxes, while only 20 percent said "yes" – and that's where it usually ends in real life.
That’s called “responsive politics.” Less intellectually strenuous commentators call it “democracy in action,” but that’s just foolishness.
But not on "You Can't Handle the Truth" - where public resistance to sensible reform
It must be nice to decide whether your ideas are sensible without any feedback loop from reality. You can take backhanded jabs at your better-informed colleagues for doubting the gospel of your word and snipe with moral righteousness upon the sane population that provides the backbone for your sustenance. It’s fun, right? Yeah, the apocalyptic hobo down the street thinks so too.
is just the start of the education campaign our politicians lack the guts or incentive to pursue!
It’s not our politicians job to educate us. It’s their job to communicate facts regarding the operation of the government and to represent our interests.
Before we turn to this week's quiz, let's check in with the lovely Angela Barrow,
Are you seriously making up co-hosts for your made-up show? What’s next week’s column? Twilight fan fic?
our damsel of debt. Angie, what's the latest number on the red ink we're running?
[Cut to curvy blonde in skimpy dress and high heels standing next to oversized national debt clock.]
Angela: It's so big tonight, Matt.
Keep your masturbatory fantasies to yourself, perv.
Matt: How big is it, Angie?
Angela: Mmmm . . . $14.2 trillion and rising.
Matt: Thanks, Angie - you always make the bad news a little easier to bear.
Wow. This is really sexist.
But now - time for another round of Mind-Altering Facts.
Jesus, forget Drew Carey; you’re not even a Louie Anderson.
You know how it works. Our studio audience - a representative sample of American voters - has instant-response devices to measure what they know, or don't.
First question: If you adjust for inflation, are gas prices today, with their recent spike, higher, lower or about the same as they've been over the last 40 years?
Sadly, I’ll play along. Higher.
Answer on your handheld, folks [camera pans audience as theme song from "Beverly Hillbillies" plays for six seconds] . . . Okay, let's see what we've got. . . . As the Truth Scoreboard shows, 60 percent of you think gas prices are now higher, 38 percent think gas prices are about the same and just 2 percent think they're lower than they've been in the past. . . .
Well, ladies and gentlemen, see if you can handle the truth, because adjusted for inflation, gas prices today are actually lower than they were decades ago!
Yeah…that’s not even close to true. Inflation-adjusted oil and gas prices were higher in 2008 than at any other point in post-war history. Oil prices now far exceed the 40-year average. In fact, the only point in that 40-year history that even comes close to right now was the oil shock of 1979.
Oil prices:
Gas prices:
(keep in mind that gas has increased to over $3.50/gallon since this chart was made.)
[Gasps from the audience]
I know, your hypothetical audience is shocked by your brazen and easily-disprovable lies.
Next question:
Seriously, are we really moving on without examining the falsehood that you just told under the moniker of truth?
What does a gallon of gas cost today in England , Italy and Germany
Um…please explain how foreign gas prices in stagnating economies are in any way relevant to the discussion of a purely domestic issue. Will we also be examining gasoline prices in Iraq , Saudi Arabia , Venezuela , and Russia
Just pick from the choices now appearing on your dial. . . . Okay, here's what our audience says: Forty-two percent of you think it's between $3 and $4 a gallon; 22 percent say between $4 and $5 a gallon; and 36 percent say you have absolutely no idea!
Well, thanks for your candor! But here's the truth - in all three countries, a gallon of gas today costs more than $8!
Keep in mind, oil is a developed market with participating futures traders from across the globe. The only reason why gas is so high in Europe is because of obscene taxes that were designed specifically to reduce consumption. That’s why those miserable miscreants created the Smart car and believe that scooters are acceptable means of conveyance, which is only slightly less grotesque than the thought of Matt Miller winking at me.
[Gasps again]
I know, I know. Matt Miller winking is gross. Sorry for bringing it up again.
In a moment we'll go to primary battleground Iowa
Given that one is completely false and the other is completely irrelevant, I’m guessing no. Then again, this is a reflection of reality through the funhouse mirror of Matt Miller’s brain, so who the hell knows what’s going on.
but first let's check in at "The Safe House" with a Republican senator who says we need to raise taxes - so of course this person must remain nameless!
Damn right he would.
[Camera cuts to remote location where a figure sits in shadows]
Senator, what brings you to the Safe House today?
The liberal delusion that conservative opposition is based in anything other than an ideological schism.
What truth can't the American people handle?
Your grasp on the concept of truth has been pretty suspect all column. Might want to sit a few rounds out.
Senator [voice is scrambled electronically]: Matt, someone just has to say it. All of us in Washington
This is all about dependency. This “tax and dividend” would take money away from consumers at the pump and distribute the money, via payroll taxes, to all workers. In essence, it is a transfer of wealth from drivers to non-drivers. Why? What for? Why do non-drivers need more money? They already enjoy life without the costs of a commute. Of course, government wants to take its slice before making the distribution. That way they can continue to finance interpretive dance classes for construction workers and herpetology classes for convicted sex offenders. This way, not only does it generate revenue by simply being meddlesome, it entrenches a class of non-driving workers as dependent on a tax policy that Democrats endorsed. In addition to making it very difficult to repeal, it also makes those dependants very reliable voters.
But folks hate the idea of higher gas prices so much that none of us are willing to talk about it publicly.
It’s a good thing this guy is hypothetical. This idea is so contrary to the conservative ethos, that even the GOP—which suffered through Lincoln Chafee and continues to endure Susan Collins and Olympia
Matt: Senator, we know the courage it had to take to speak to us even under cloak of total anonymity, so thanks - and viewers should rest assured that the firm of Pricewaterhouse Coopers has verified the identity of this week's Safe House confessor as a bona fide United States senator from the state of . . . Just kidding, senator, not to worry!
[Crickets] Is it really a good idea to reprint a hypothetical bombed joke in a fictional recount of a nonexistent scenario? My better judgment says no, but then, there was obviously no judgment put into this column.
We go now to Homer's Diner in Des Moines
Seriously, is this a game show, or a news program with correspondants? If you’re going to come up with a fictional TV show, you at least need it to fit a familiar format for hypothetical viewers. This is Bush League.
where special Truth correspondent and Time magazine columnist Joe Klein has been talking for hours with farmers, small-business owners, union members, college students and policy experts about this idea of a gas-payroll tax swap. Joe, any takers?
Joe: Matt, the amazing thing is the goodwill that's generated when people actually work through these issues together.
I’m bored again. It’s like he just ran out of substance and wanted to give a shout-out to a colleague.
[Video of Iowans talking around table]
As you'd expect, folks who drive long distances as part of their job start out violently opposed to higher gas taxes.
Yes, but then again, I’m guessing people with blue eyes would be opposed to a Blue Eye Tax.
But when you show them how most people's bottom line wouldn't be affected,
Everyone’s.
and lay out the broader benefits this kind of tax reform could bring the country,
None.
they're ready to be part of the solution.
By not enacting a gas tax.
Question: If peoples bottom lines aren’t affected, what broader benefits could gas tax reform possibly bring? This is, of course, the proverbial magic act that for some unknowable reason, private citizens like Matt Miller is advocating the government propagate against us: making something from nothing, deriving tangible benefits from no discernable cost. He knows that it’s hogwash, of course. Not all the money taken through this tax will be paid back. Yet he, as a future financier of the fraud, insists upon it. More to the point, he implies that those who object are the descendants of the social and political rot that felled the Roman Empire . Why? What masochism drives this? What reverence for they mysticism of government budgeting compels the avoidance of basic mathematical truth?
Matt: Joe, hold that thought. After a brief break we'll go back to Des Moines
Read: fake people in Matt Miller’s misshapen head.
can cut the deals Washington
He’s now running promos and teasers for a non-existent segment of fake television. Stunning.
and then come back for a final vote with our studio audience to see how many minds we've changed on the gas tax.
Precisely 20%. Those who were in favor of raising the gas tax are now opposed.
Plus - this week's finalists imitating Jack Nicholson's famous line in "A Few Good Men," in full Colonel Jessup regalia. You're watching "You Can't Handle The Truth"
I get to be Kevin Bacon. You’re Demi Moore.
. . . only on HBO.
Well at least that explains why this column sucked as much as Boardwalk Empire.
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