If We Start Seeing Signifiant Increases in Gas Prices -- The President -- Note To the Granddaughters on Theodore Roosevelt and Hunting

"...and if we start seeing significant increases in gas prices, losing that $40 could not come at a worse time,” Obama said.

Link here. Note: this site often rounds off numbers. The actual gasoline price rise under the Obama administration has been 83% according to some sources. For newbies, a 100% rise is a doubling in price. For all intents and purposes, an "83-percent" rise in price is a doubling in price.

The extension of the payroll tax cut will help offset this doubling in the price of gasoline, at least according to the president.

President Barack Obama listed rising gas prices as among the many reasons to extend the payroll tax cut Tuesday, flanked by individuals the White House promoted as being affected by $40 per paycheck the average American would lose if the tax cut is not extended at the end of February.

“And when gas prices are on the rise again – because as the economy strengthens, global demand for oil increases – and if we start seeing significant increases in gas prices, losing that $40 could not come at a worse time,” Obama said. “One local entrepreneur named Thierry – where’s Thierry? He’s right here.

“He told us that $40 would cover the gas that gets him to his day job, or, alternatively, the Internet service his small business depends on. So he’d have to start making a choice – do I fill up my gas tank to get to my work, or do I give up my entrepreneurial dream. ‘Forty dollars,’ he wrote, ‘means a heck of a lot,’” the president added.

The most important nugget in that link? The payroll tax cut? The doubling in price of gasoline? Nope, this one line:  "...and if we start seeing significant increases in gas prices, losing that $40 could not come at a worse time,” Obama said.

That, folks, is the first trial balloon of the administration in preparing Americans for an increase in the price of gasoline this spring. $4 gasoline? You betcha. $5 gasoline? Not a problem; the tax cut will cover it. That statement is about as clear a message that can be delivered that the government expects to see $4.00 gasoline this spring.

So, if the payroll tax cut is extended, no more whining about the price of gasoline; it is being offset by a tax cut.  

Oh, by the way, most in Congress now agree that adding $100 billion to the $15 trillion debt is no longer an issue. 

"...and if we start seeing significant increases in gas prices, losing that $40 could not come at a worse time,” Obama said. 

"Significant." That is not a good word to hear. 

Notes to My Granddaughters

I have almost completed reading (for the first time), Don Aakland's 2010, In Trace of TR: A Montana Hunter's Journey.

This may just be one of the finest books I've read on the subject(s) and it will be sad to have finished it. But I will probable re-read it. The subjects: Theodore Roosevelt; Montana outdoors; hunting; national parks; elk; bison; wolves.

Now that I am finishing it, I wish I had noted some of the best writing, but did not. That's why I will probably go back through it and capture some things to place here. It will be hard not to go overboard.

I will start here:

"...which underscores the oneness of Man the hunter and Man the meat eater. It contains a quotation with which to tease vegetarian friends (if they have a sense of humor). We're told that, in the Blackfeet language, "the term for 'meat' is nita'pi waksin, which translates as 'real food.' All other food is called kistapi waksin, which translates as 'not real food.'" -- p. 234.

The vignette of TR reading Shakespeare's Hamlet to a Texas cowboy when both were stranded in a small hut during a North Dakota blizzard -- priceless. -- pp 250- 251. I particularly enjoyed that vignette (besides being completely surprised by it) because I very much enjoy reading Shakespeare's works to my older granddaughter. At 8 years of age, she knows the plot lines of at least two tragedies, Hamlet and Macbeth, as well as Romeo and Juliet, and a Midsummer Night's Dream, the latter I have never understood nor enjoyed.