Well, you proved my point. No one agrees. Except, wait, who’s this … arguing for a gas tax hike and an income tax drop as a great way to reform taxation? Drum roll, please … Greg Mankiw, Bush’s economic adviser. Two arguments count against it: no tax is good. I agree. But if we’re not going to cut spending and we have a war to fight, the question is which taxes do we use? A gas tax for the war would be a great idea: it would mean a real general sacrifice, it would help wean us off the oil that is one reason we’re mired in the politics of the Middle East, and it would cut down on those ghastly, unsightly, fuel-wasting armored tanks that now pass for cars throughout America. Yes, I mean SUVs. Then there’s the cultural argument. This is America, goddammit. Here’s a typical email:
I am baffled by your bafflement. I urge you to reread your entry about Alistair Cooke and your sojourn from Miami to L.A.. to Seattle to Boston, and points between. Can you imagine trying to do the same via Amtrak?
Mass transit is precisely that — mass. America is not the land of the mass; it is the land of the individual, the entrepeneur, the explorer. It is the land that does not want to wait for the governmentally-scheduled transport. It is where Henry Ford invented the assembly line to produce cars and transformed the global economy. It is the land where the car allowed for the creation of the suburb, the ranch house, the white picket fence. It is the land of manifest destiny; we drove to California, where we had Fun, Fun, Fun once her daddy took the T-Bird away. [Indeed, Rumsfeld might agree that the East Coast is Old America and the West Coast is New America, less tethered to our Euro-roots.] Before the Interstate, it was the land that got its kicks on Route 66, all the way from Chicago to L.A. It is a culture in which generations of teenagers have received their driver’s licenses as rites of passage — to adventure and romance, away from the watchful eyes of the parental units.
Still don’t get it? Rent Cameron Crowe’s “Singles.” Or “American Graffiti.” Or “Animal House” (“ROAD TRIP!”). Or “Swingers” (We’re going to VEGAS, BABY!”). Or even, from the opposite perspective, “The Magnificent Ambersons.”
There’s a reason why it’s funny when Rush Limbaugh says that the engine of freedom runs on oil; it’s true! If cars had existed in the 1770s, it would have been gasoline we threw in Boston Harbor.
Okay, I give up.
THE WHITE HOUSE VS BLOCH: The Bush appointed head of the Office of Special Counsel, Scott Bloch, recently declared that gay federal employees can be fired for being gay. That’s where the religious right stands. But it isn’t what Bloch promised in his Senate hearings, and it isn’t, apparently, White House policy. At least, that’s according to the Federal Times. Hmm. Who really represents the administration?
AIR AMERICA AND NADER: For a column, I forced myself to listen to liberal talk radio this week. (Subscribers will get the column over the weekend. The rest of you freeloaders can wait.) It was mainly dreary. But I did enjoy Randi Rhodes losing it with Ralph Nader. You can listen to the exchange at the Daily Kos.
The Dish 