Year: 2015

Eric Jaffe at CityLab reports on a good thing that our own Tom Carper has proposed. Indeed, I am personally shocked, and I am sure Jason is currently being resuscitated at Christiana.

The federal gas tax that pays for America’s highways hasn’t been raised in decades, but that doesn’t stop some determined lawmakers from trying. The latest effort comes via Senator Tom Carper of Delaware, who has introduced a plan to raise the tax four cents a year for four years then index it to inflation so it remains effective over time. The move would ultimately bring the fuel tax to 34 cents a gallon—nearly double the existing rate of 18.4 cents. That might seem like a big bump, but even a gas tax twice as high the current one would be incredibly low by global standards. A U.S. Department of Energy review of fuel taxes among Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries in 2011 placed the U.S. just about at the bottom of the pack. Kyle Pomerleau of the Tax Foundation recently updated these figures to reflect 2013 tax rates via OECD data—and found very little change. The U.S. rate of 53 cents a gallon reflects the federal gas tax as well as the average state tax. Adding Carper’s 16 cents wouldn’t budge the U.S. position way back of the pack—nor would doubling the entire 53 cent average. As the numbers stand, lawmakers would have to raise the average gas tax at least eight-fold for Americans to pay the steepest rate in the world.

From the bill in question's sponsor, Representative Kim Williams:

I found out today that Governor Markell is vetoing a bill that I sponsored, House Bill 130, Unlawful Sexual Contact. It passed the House and Senate unanimously. The Criminal Justice Council voted in support of this bill and whose members are Delaware judges, AG Denn, and other respected folks. I never heard a word from the Governor's office until the day he decides to veto the bill that his office had an issue with it. I filed this bill early May. The only group that I heard a peep from was the Medical Society and that was after it was released from the House Judiciary Committee. I spoke to them briefly and never heard another word from them. Currently, if a healthcare worker (person of trust) has sex with a patient it is a misdemeanor, this bill would make it a felony. If a prison guard has consensual sex with an imate it is a felony but a healthcare worker who is treating a patient who has been sexually abused and the healthcare worker gains the individual's trust and has sexual relations it is not a felony. This is unbelievable to me.

I look forward to Governor Markell's explanation, and I do not envy his spin doctors. For the General Assembly, override.

Donors are not especially anxious about Joe Biden getting into the race. If he did declare this late in the game, he would be in at least a $45 million dollar fundraising deficit against Clinton, with no real hope to catch up since virtually every major fundraiser in the party — including many who were once Biden people — are now on Clinton’s team. For this reason, as I have said many times here, I am not a fan of Joe Biden getting into the presidential race, for I believe it will tarnish his legacy. Instead, I viewed him as a Plan B that could step in should Clinton die or drop out. But it seems that Joe Biden, while on vacation down in South Carolina, was actively considering a campaign, if not planning for it. And one of the trial balloons that was floated as a result, through the fingers of one Carl Bernstein, was this notion of a one term Presidency that would finally bring this country together.

“[O]ne thing that I keep hearing about Biden is that if he were to declare and say, because age is such a problem for him if he does, I want to be a one-term president. I want to serve for four years, unite Washington. I’ve dealt with the Republicans in Congress all my public life,” Bernstein told CNN’s “New Day.” “I think there’s a conversation going on to that effect among his aides and friends,” he said. “It could light fire to the current political environment.

Fuck. No.

Molly Ball asks “What on earth do Republican voters want?"

"The candidates, at this stage, are as clueless as the pundits, and the pundits have no idea. They certainly never foresaw Donald Trump, this election season’s flesh-colored gap in the space-time continuum. Trump has inspired horrified bouts of introspection within the GOP, as shocked party stalwarts try to figure out where the tycoon’s momentum is coming from—and how it can be stopped.”

I think they just want to scream.

Juan Cole:

Jeb Bush very unwisely went after Hillary Clinton last night on the grounds that her Iraq policies gave us Daesh (ISIS, ISIL). Bush may think he is cleverly pulling a Karl Rove, attacking his opponent on her strong point (foreign policy), as Rove swiftboated John Kerry in 2004. But this isn’t 2004, and virtually no one is excited about having more Bushes in the White House (apparently a third of Republicans want Trump and like 12 percent want Bush, despite his advantage in name recognition). The fact is, every time Jeb Bush says “Iraq,” he loses more votes. One of the arguments Mr. Bush made was that while his brother, George W. Bush, didn’t get everything right, he did have a brilliant moment with the 2007 troop escalation or “surge,” which put the world right. Then that horrible Obama crew, including Mrs. Cinton, came along and screwed things up by withdrawing from Iraq in 2011. First of all, saying that W. didn’t get everything right in Iraq is like saying that Custer didn’t get everything right at the Little Bighorn. Bush’s Iraq misadventure was the biggest foreign policy screw-up in American history. Didn’t get everything right, indeed. Second, Jeb Bush’s narrative about the “surge” is mythical history unconnected to reality. See my Engaging the Muslim World for the real story. In brief, here is what happened.

I tell them, Juan. It was both the Iraqi government and the Bush Administration that set the 2011 withdrawal deadline. The Iraqis wanted us gone. We had fucked up their country enough.

At Politico, Sen. Claire McCaskill explains "How I Helped Todd Akin Win -- So I Could Beat Him Later." It is an enjoyable read, including the ancedote that she shotgunned a beer after Akin won the GOP primary. I wish there was video of that. However, I have to criticize her this morning because she has recently said that Bernie Sanders is the Democratic Trump. That is not even remotely true, on every possible level, and it is an insult to Bernie Sanders.