CNN: Time for a Gas Tax Hike
For the MSM, it’s always time for a gas tax hike; CNN joins the NYT, WaPo, and NBC’s Tom Brokaw in calling for one.
As Warner Todd Huston writes today at Big Journalism:
[CNN's Steve Hargreaves] mentions the other proposals to raise the gas tax, of course, but all this has been a continuing discussion, one going on for years, and has no connection specifically to the fiscal cliff talks or even the reason we got here… except for one thing—spending cuts.
Every “solution” this article presents is but one form or another of raising taxes. Not once is there a mention of cutting spending.
The truth is that Washington doesn’t have a tax problem. The annual federal deficit is over $1 trillion, and no new tax will raise this amount of additional revenue—merely stopping the addition of new debt—each year. Washington has a spending problem, and unless cuts in spending become part of the fiscal cliff talks, there aren’t any serious “solutions” in the offing.
File this one away for the next time gas prices rice and CNN pretends to be sympathetic to consumers in response by cranking out a boilerplate “Why are prices so expensive at the pump” story. They wouldn’t be the first to be “two networks in one” when it comes to being for/gainst high gas prices — taking their cue from the president’s own schizophrenia on the topic.
“File this one away for the next time gas prices ri[s]e and CNN pretends to be sympathetic to consumers…”
I can’t wait for that day; it’ll mean a Republican’s in the White House!
Not sure what brought it to mind…. for some reason this reminded of a local scandal a few years back. One of our local television stations had fallen on seriously hard times. There were rumors about them not being able to pay their bills. We knew they were done for when a reporter and cameraman were left stranded some distance from town one night when the live truck was out of gas, the stations credit card was declined as were the reporters (who found out their paychecks had bounced). No one from their station could come rescue them, because all of the station vehicles were out of gas. About 3am, they flagged down the crew from a rival station, who loaned them $50 for gas to get back to town.