Pump It Up
For the national media, higher gas prices at the pump are always deserving of banner headlines and sob stories about how tough it is for families to make ends meet. But reductions in gas prices are invariably a snoozer. So that's why the latest data on gasoline prices falling comfortably below $3.00 a gallon in most markets has been mostly ignored. AAA reported an average price of $2.84 -- which, in the wake of prices as high as $3.29 a gallon at many service stations, is a blessed relief.
Lower gas prices act like an economy-wide tax cut and if prices stay down they should have a dramatic impact on consumer prices and thus the inflation rate. As one Treasury Department official notes: "The CPI will start to really come down as energy prices do. And that means that real wages will start to show some impressive gains."
The political impact of lower gas prices could be enormous come November 7. Across the country Democrats and liberal interest groups like MoveOn.org have been honking the horn over the high cost of gas in nearly every campaign ad. "Republicans side with the gas gougers and the big oil companies," says MoveOn. It's a pocketbook issue that almost every voter sees up front and personal on nearly a weekly basis when we fill'er up. But the latest projections by energy analysts, including Fred Rozell of the Oil Price Information Service, suggest that because of a huge surge in supply, prices could come down to $2.50 a gallon by November.
This may not be good news for Al Gore and the global warming fanatics. Nor will it be good news for the producers of hybrid cars, to say nothing of the ethanol industry and Midwestern corn growers. But for the rest of us, a 50-cent a gallon cut in gas prices is roughly $50 billion more in the wallet to spend on everything else. And of course the surest way to keep gas prices low would be to tap the huge resources in places like Alaska and the outer continental shelf. Democrats like Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi insist they favor low gas prices -- but not that much.
-- Stephen Moore
Will Maryland Blacks Turn Out for Cardin?
At the beginning of 2006, Republicans had hopes that three high profile African-American candidates could provide the party of Lincoln with major breakthroughs and begin the process of chipping away at the Democratic Party's stranglehold on the black vote. Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell and former Pittsburgh Steelers great Lynn Swann's campaigns for governor received most of the early attention. Maryland Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele was always the third candidate mentioned in this group of African-American GOP prospects, though he was generally thought to be a considerable long shot to succeed Senator Paul Sarbanes in overwhelmingly Democratic Maryland.
But with Labor Day fast upon us, it looks like Mr. Steele is the one who has the best, and perhaps only, shot of winning this fall. While Messrs. Blackwell and Swann have faltered, Mr. Steele has quietly put himself in position to pull off an upset in November. A poll released this week by Maryland-based Gonzales Research shows Mr. Steele trailing Democratic Rep. Ben Cardin by five points, 44% to 39%, and ahead of former Congressman Kweisi Mfume by four points, 42% to 38%. The Democratic primary will occur on September 12 and despite a current consensus to the contrary, it could turn out to be a lose-lose contest for the Dems.
The polling is split on which Democrat has the edge in the party's internal nomination battle -- Gonzales Research has Mr. Cardin ahead, SurveyUSA has Mr. Mfume in front. And the contest has its own racial dimension, with Mr. Mfume, a former NAACP president, complaining about a white-controlled Democratic machine trying to hand the nomination to Mr. Cardin. Most analysts feel that Mr. Steele would have a solid shot against Mr. Mfume in the general, and the polling tends to bear that out, with Mr. Steele running anywhere from 5 to 10 points better against Mr. Mfume than Mr. Cardin.
However, if Mr. Cardin holds on to win after what has been a racially tinged primary against Mr. Mfume, Democrats could face the very real prospect of a disappointed African-American base in the fall. One of the key reasons Governor Bob Ehrlich was able to become the first Republican in over 40 years to win the Maryland statehouse was an unenthusiastic black vote for Kathleen Kennedy Townsend in 2002.
With Mr. Steele having just picked up a high-profile endorsement from hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, if Mr. Cardin is the Democratic nominee, Mr. Steele is poised to capture a quarter to a third of Maryland's very large African-American vote. That means the conventional wisdom may be wrong on Maryland's Senate race: A primary win by Mr. Cardin might be what Michael Steele needs to pull off the upset.
-- John McIntyre, managing editor of RealClearPolitics.com
Quote of the Day
"What was lost [with the new Democratic plan for early primaries in Nevada and South Carolina] was any sense of public deliberation about the choice of the next president. In the general election, people have two months or more to evaluate two or maybe three candidates. In the early primaries, eight or 10 people may be vying. What is most needed is time -- and a place -- for them to be carefully examined. Historically, New Hampshire has fulfilled that responsibility. Voters there -- in both parties and especially among the numerous independents who also vote in the primary -- take their role seriously. They turn up at town meetings and they ask probing questions.... [But now] the country will be forced to witness the huge field of candidates flashing by in perpetual motion during the December holidays and the frantic first weeks of January, not standing still anywhere long enough to be measured for the job they are trying to win. Thanks a lot, Democrats" -- Washington Post columnist David Broder on the Democratic Party's plan to increase "diversity" by scheduling a more crowded slate of early primary races.
Welfare Reform Was a Success, So Let's Never Do It Again
The Cato Institute marked the 10th anniversary of welfare reform last week with a symposium featuring Charles Murray of the American Enterprise Institute and Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation, two scholars who provided much of the intellectual underpinnings of the reform.
Both agreed that while welfare reform has been a tremendous success on one level -- single mothers entering the workforce helped reduce black child poverty to 30% from 45% after a quarter century of Great Society programs that made no progress -- they gave a sobering assessment of the work that remains to be done. Noting that an increasing number of both white and black young men are outside the labor force with no prospects of getting a stable job, Mr. Murray warned that America is in danger of "looking more and more like Latin America with gated communities on a hill and the underclass down below... We have taken a very large problem that continues to grow and slid it under the rug."
Mr. Rector noted that the percentage of children born out of wedlock remains high -- over a third of all births -- and the appetite for discussing the consequences of this development or pursuing further reform is very limited. "We still have 70 means-tested aid programs costing $587 billion a year. Welfare reform only changed one of those programs," he told the Cato audience. "Every Congress since the one that passed welfare reform has inched to the left so rather than be emboldened by its success we have stood still." Since it's highly likely the Congress elected this fall will be even less willing to tackle the difficult subjects raised by Messrs. Murray and Rector, the signal success of welfare reform is likely to remain an example that Washington celebrates rather than emulates.
-- John Fund
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