"Americans have a deep and understandable aversion to gasoline taxes. In a culture more single-mindedly devoted to individual freedom than any other, tampering with access to the open road is met with visceral opposition. That's why earnest efforts to alter American driving habits take the form of regulation of the auto companies--the better to hide the hand of government and protect politicians from the inevitable popular backlash.

But it's not just love of the car. America is a nation of continental expanses. Distances between population centers can be vast. The mass-transit mini-car culture of Europe just doesn't work in big sky country.

This combination of geography and romance is the principal reason gas taxes are so astonishingly low in America. The federal tax is 18.4 cents per gallon. In Britain, as in much of Europe, the tax approaches $4 per gallon--more than 20 times the federal levy here."

Then the author goes on for the rest of his article describing how to impose a European style gas tax on the American people.  While the fundamental reason that one is wrong for Americans hasn't changed, at least for Americans west of the Mississippi.  The distances needed to be covered are too vast for European style vehicles to be the norm.  Heck I live close to my work here in Wichita and still drive 20 miles a day back and forth to work.  That's 100 miles of driving if I chose not to go anywhere but work and home (120 most weeks since I work a lot of saturdays.)  There are many who work at my plant who drive as much as 60 miles one way to reach work.  Tell me they want to spend 120 miles a day sharing highways in a Smart Car with 40' tractor trailers.

"House Republicans swiftly voiced their opposition and called for a plan that would instead provide government insurance to subsidize new private investment in the Big Three automakers, demand major labor givebacks and debt restructuring at the companies, and encourage them to declare bankruptcy."

Well...the plan the Republicans aer supporting here is what would happen in a bankruptcy...so why do they even need to endorse a plan at all?  In fact, if congress would just let the business cycle run its' course and for the Big 3 to file chapter 11 and reorganize then there would be no need for the federal goverment to spend any money at all  in a "bailout".  I expect "government solutions" from the Democrat Party, but if the Republicans don't learn soon that their scaled-down "government solutions" are part of the same problem they will be out of power for a long, long time.

Meanwhile, the Illinois governor continues to suck all the oxygen out of the room and finally the media is concerned about OoPE Obama's past associations.  Too bad they didn't show this much interest during the election.  Even now the story is mainly about how the OoPE is able to rise above the scandal.

"Bringing the modern nanny state to heel will depend on countless individuals standing up against those who would trade our liberties for their preferences. On this Repeal Day, raise a glass to freedom regained and to freedoms still to be won. Cheers to the 21st Amendment!"

 "...will be the great foreign policy experiment of the Obama presidency," one of his senior advisers said recently."

"The adviser...said the three have all embraced "a rebalancing of America's national security portfolio" after a huge investment in new combat capabilities during the Bush years."

"...There wasn't a meeting that didn't include a discussion of the need to strengthen and integrate the other tools [re: diplomatic and aid work] of national power to succeed against unconventional threats."

While I am not opposed to using non-military power to deal with national security issues, we need to avoid the appeasement and engagement policies of the 70s that ended up giving us a resurgent Soviet Union and a weakened United States military due to large budget cuts in military spending.  Our technological and training edge in combat is one that costs money to support and maintain and if the new administration truly plans on cutting defense budgets it could lead to many long term problems down the road.

The second is the announcement of the POTUS to expand military authority within the borders of the United States.  Pres. Bush has attempted to expand military presence within US borders since 9-11, but has run into resistance from both political opponents and those who value the Posse Comitatus act, which limits military use as internal security.  Unleashing these plans now with a congress that is sympathetic to a new administration who has already stated his desire for a "civilian" security force that rivals the military and will now have power to unleash military troops in a similar fashion is frightening.