After railing against it, NC Democrats support gas tax suspension | Hour 1

All righty, so the North Carolina... gas tax has now been suspended for bad behavior. What was initially railed against and criticized by Democrats as just an election cycle gimmick, apparently something happened because they all voted for it. And the governor today signed it into law, using it as a campaign stop for a congressional candidate. They used it to tout a Democrat congressional member's run for Congress, even though it's a state action or something. But, yes, don't you see? This all makes perfect sense in the Democrats' mind. I will give you a classic example of the broken logic that Democrats are applying to this issue. Look, I am under no illusions. that Republicans did the suspension of the state gas tax at this time in order to help their electoral prospects. Sure. Okay. Don't have a problem with it either. Like the rationale to me does not matter. If Democrats had done it, I would say the same thing. Yes, they're trying to win votes by lowering taxes, even if temporarily. Absolutely. That's what they're trying to do. Here's the thing. I don't care because my taxes are going to be lower. I am going to fill up. I'm going to fill up tanks of gas on cars that I don't even own because it's going to be I'm going to save six dollars on a fill up. Boom. Yeah. But there's one question that nobody seems to really be addressing, which is what exactly can the state do otherwise? Right. People are worried about or angry about the gas tax or the price of gas being high. And so the state Republicans, they look around and they're like, well, we're slapping a 41 cent tax on every gallon of gas. We have one of the highest gas taxes in the nation. So what can we do as a state? Well, we can. Suspend that gas tax. Can't do it permanently, because if you do that permanently, then you have to fund all of the highway construction and road projects from some other source, which would be income taxes, basically, right? Sales taxes, which are regressive. You can't do those. Oh, I know, I know. Let's soak the rich. That's the answer for the Democrats on every one of these budget issues is always the same, which is soak the rich, right? Higher taxes for the wealthy. And wealthy is a sliding scale depending on how much money they need to fill the government coffers. And lest you think that this has not been tried, let me disabuse you of that idea right now because it was tried. And it led to the Democrats being utterly routed out of power in 2010. This was what the Democrats, under the leadership of Roy Cooper, while he was in the legislature, when he was a senator, this is what the Democrats did. They had a progressive income tax rate. They charged different amounts for different income levels. Our state had stagnated. We were running deficits, structural deficits in our budget. And Republicans came in and proceeded to enact a reform agenda, overhauling the tax code, implementing a flat tax. And what has happened in the last 15 years has been North Carolina ranking as like the top three, depending on which year you're looking at. Some years we were number one, some number two. But it propelled us into one of the top states to do business. People are moving here. Like, no state really is seeing more people move into it because of the opportunity. So the Democrats' idea on taxation and government funding levels, it has been tried right here in North Carolina. For over a century, they were running that ideology, and it failed, okay? But what can a state do when looking at gas taxes or the price of gas? Well, the only thing that they can look at is really the price of gas. Unless you want to start, you know, doing a bunch of offshore drilling. No, no, no. Democrats are going to oppose that. See, again, like I feel like I need to point out here that I don't really have a lot of bandwidth for your opinions. If you've been abdicating for gas to be more expensive up until about six seconds ago, you know, If your position has been we need to limit fossil fuels, we need to raise the price artificially, slap massive taxes on gasoline to get people to abandon their cars, to go to EVs, then I don't believe you when you come out to represent as the voice of the everyman that gas is too high. Because you want gas prices to be high. You have said this for the better part of 20 years. So you're just using it as a political weapon. So I saw this story come across the Twitter feed that Governor Josh Stein, a.k.a. Mini Cooper, that he signed the gas tax into law today or the suspension of the gas tax into law today. Do you know where he did it? He did it at Jamie Ager's farm, Hickory Nut Gap in Fairview, which is in Western North Carolina, outside Asheville. And Jamie Ager is running for Congress. And that's where they went to sign the bill. And by the way, the bill passed the House in with every Democrat except for one, the leftist moonbat, Pricey Harrison, although I would say she's at least consistent. She wants gas prices to remain high. Every Democrat voted for it. Over in the Senate, every Democrat voted for it. It gets to the governor's desk. He signs it. And not only does he sign it, he uses it as a campaign item. He goes to Jamie Ager's farm in order to tout him signing the bill that Democrats had railed against for the last week and a half, two weeks since Republicans first announced this idea. So they've been railing against it for, for suspending the tax. They all then vote for it. And then they use it for a campaign event. And here's the twisted thinking on the left. There is a troll on Twitter saying, She goes by the name of Mrs. Cleaver in it. Mrs. Cleaver in it. Whatever. Anyway. Mel C. Whatever. She says this is how she's rationalizing all the Democrats' support for this suspension of the gas tax. She says that's because it's going to blow up in the Republican NCGA's, North Carolina General Assembly's, faces. So the Democrats are supporting this. Stein signed it. And Stein used it at Ager's farm for a campaign event for Ager because this is going to blow up in the GOP's faces. Oh, y'all want more of this rope? Well, gosh, okay. Which does not make any sense. Why? Because the Republicans could have passed it without you. If you're looking to make the issue blow up in the Republicans' faces... Then you let them do it on their own. Just get out of the way. You don't have enough votes to stop it. Stein could have just let it become law without vetoing it or signing it. He didn't have to sign on to it. He darn sure didn't need to make it a campaign event. But he signed this thing lickety split. Why? Because it's going to somehow blow up in the Republicans' faces? Again, that would work, but you guys signed on to it too. If it's going to blow up in the legislature's faces, it's going to blow up in everyone's faces who supported it, and that includes every single Democrat except Pricey Harrison. This is just bizarre. I point this out. And this lefty says, you think a load of Democrats are going to put Stein in the position of having to sign legislation they didn't support? Why would Stein have to sign it? He didn't have to sign it. Again, you're the one who said it's going to blow up in the Republicans' faces. Why does Stein have to sign it? Or that Stein would not sign and let y'all continue to crow about a silly election month Stein? as if you solved world hunger? No, they are suspending the gas tax. World hunger's got nothing to do with this. Like, this doesn't make any sense. 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The legislation keeps the DOT's budget whole by transferring money from the state's savings, which the state has accumulated over years and years of fiscal discipline, funding the rainy day fund, right? things that Democrats have been, this is the account that the Democrats have constantly wanted to raid. They did not fund a rainy day account. Republicans came in, they bolstered the rainy day account and they've got it up to about $ 11 billion. Okay. So this way, when something bad happens, you can tap into that fund and use the money to offset losses somewhere else. So that's what they're going to do. $ 350 million will be taken from the rainy day fund, from the savings, and used to replace the $ 350 million that is generated over this period of time by the loss of the gas tax. Stein said, quote, grocery bills are going up, power bills are going up, health care bills are going up, and thanks to the Trump administration's disastrous war of choice against Iran, not sure it's disastrous there, but Anyway, gas prices are sky high. So when we have a chance to bring down costs for families, we need to take it. Take that, Republicans. It doesn't make any sense. I got a text, actually. Who was it here? Yes, it was the grumpy major. He says the Democrats are mad because Republicans beat them to this proposal. They should have proposed it themselves and then dared the GOP to be against it. That way they could claim the victory of lowering the taxes and beating the Republicans to the punch. That would have been a better move probably, but no, they did not. They did not do that. In fact, on October 3rd, the Senate minority leader, Sidney Batch, Democrat, she put out a statement. that said North Carolina families have been getting screwed over by rising prices for months thanks to failed Republican leadership, yet somehow Phil Berger and Destin Hall, that's the Senate majority leader, the president pro tem, I should say, Phil Berger and Destin Hall, the Speaker of the House, that they just now noticed exactly one month before Election Day, perhaps they should spend time with hardworking North Carolinians rather than wealthy donors. We were supposed to be in legislative session last week. If lame duck Phil Berger actually wanted to help families, we could have done it literally days or even months ago because high gas prices aren't new. This is the same pattern from the same failed weak leadership that took three years to produce one state budget. Again, we have a continuation budget, so if you don't pass a new one, the existing budget just carries over. Yeah, so... She said this proposal reeks of desperation from a flailing NCGOP, not real and lasting relief for hardworking North Carolinians. Again, when it comes to gas prices, what can state leaders do? This is basically the only tool they have in their toolbox. And the fact that every single Democrat but one voted for it and it got signed into law in a big flashy campaign event for a Democrat, like that should tell you that all of their kicking and screaming and criticisms that they had over the last week were all just political theater. That's it. They all signed on to this. Let me go back to the WRAL piece. The law goes into effect Saturday. You're probably not going to see prices drop immediately. Why? Because the tanks at the gas stations... already full and they were purchased for a certain price right when the prices then come down then they have to purchase the next they're always you're always buying the next batch right so they have those calculations they don't make huge more the the gas station does not make huge margins on the on the gallon so they make their margins they make their profits inside on the on the snacks and stuff so You've got to wait for the next shipments to start coming through, basically, because they've already paid the tax on the gas that's in the ground, in the tanks. Does that make sense? So you're probably going to start seeing this in a few days or a week or two. That's when you're going to start seeing the prices start dropping. All right, real quick. Every government number gets revised, right? Every projection gets walked back. Gold does not file corrections like GovCo. Revelation Gold Group helps families hold physical gold and silver, including in a tax-advantaged gold IRA. It's real, it's in your name, and 10 minutes tells you if your retirement account qualifies. If you want to learn more, go to calendarmetals.com. That's calendarmetals.com. There is a link in the podcast description. Or if you want to talk to somebody, you can call 888-465-3049. One other thing I mentioned earlier that like if you've been advocating for higher gas prices for the last 20 years, I'm not going to listen to your opinions with any kind of like modicum of a benefit of the doubt that you're dealing in good faith here because you've wanted high gas prices. So now you're complaining about the gas tax being suspended and the price of gas being too high. It's like you want to complain about the price being too high, but you don't want to reduce the price because the gas tax and it's a gimmick and it's all about politics. And by the way, remember when Joe Biden drained the strategic petroleum reserve? I do. Oh, and do you remember when Donald Trump wanted to make massive purchases when The price of a barrel of oil was trading at, it was somewhere around $ 60 or something, and Democrats blocked him from doing that. See, so I don't believe you when you say that you want gas prices to come down. I don't believe you. All right, let me go over to the text line. Jeff says, what is to keep the gas stations from just keeping this tax cut as profit? Well, nothing. If you own a gas station, And now you don't have to collect the 41 cent per gallon tax and you want to keep your price at the same level and pocket that 41 cents per gallon. You are, I guess, free to do so. I'm not sure you're aware of this. There's a gas station right across the street and they've got the price of their gas per gallon on a huge lit up sign. And it's going to be 41 cents lower per gallon than yours. And so people, when they look at those signs, they're going to pull into the gas station with the lower price, and then you're not going to be able to sell your gas. So, but you are free to keep it that high. You can do that. These are all franchise gas station owners, right? Let me see here. Kevin, I hope this is not too troll-y. Okay, if you have to start off by saying that, Kevin, then... You're giving an indication that you think it might be. All right. Let's see what he says here. If it is. I know you'll for sure let me know. Okay. Yes, I will. If the Democrats did not vote for temporary suspension of the gas tax, the Republicans would be saying, see, they don't care about making things less expensive for North Carolinians. Correct. Yes, they would be saying that. Absolutely. Absolutely. And they should. They should say that they should beat the Democrats up if they were to try to block the suspension. Because that is what they would be doing. Right. Voting for the tax suspension was the only logical response the Democrats could do. Maybe I'm wrong. I know you'll let me know. Keep up the good work. Well, I agree. I agree the Democrats should have voted for the suspension of the gas tax. I applaud them for voting for it. Every single one of them voted for it except Pricey Harrison. So I'm not criticizing Democrats for voting for it. I am criticizing them when they complain about it. When Democrats and their activists are out there railing against gas prices being too high... And then when Republicans say, OK, we'll suspend the gas tax, and then they complain about that before they vote for it. Voting for it is the logical, politically expedient thing to do. It makes sense. It's logical. They should have done it. My beef is that they complained about the option to vote for it. When Republicans came forward and said, we're going to do this, Democrats criticized them for it and then turned around and voted for it. Gary says, most Democrat discussion and debate boils down to emotional screeching, though the Michigan Democrat Senate candidate made the claim we don't need to move fossil fuels with pipelines. He wants all green energy and batteries. Yeah, again, these are the people that have blocked pipeline construction, refinery construction, nuclear power generation, right? I don't believe you when you say You are looking out for people's pocketbooks when it comes to energy costs, because everything you have done over the last 40 years has been to drive up those costs. You know, even just Governor Josh Stein today, when he says taking action four weeks before an election is not enough. So then this is the other tact, which is like, yes, this is good. That's why I'm signing on to it. But we need to do more. Right. So this law cannot be the end of our work to lower folks's cost of living. Well, again, this is what Republicans have been doing in North Carolina. They have been reducing the costs of being a North Carolinian because the driver of the cost of living is government, right? If you live in an expensive place, it's because of the government policies, the area's He then goes on to say that the state should take up legislation to make housing more affordable. Oh, you mean like overhauling the building code, reducing regulations? Reducing the requirements that builders have to meet in order to build a home, right? Because we've gone over these numbers before. It's somewhere in the neighborhood of about $ 100, 000 of the price of a home is due to government regulations. Do you want to get rid of that, Democrats? Oh, no, not that. No. No, no, we don't want to get rid of that. How about zoning laws? You want to get rid of all the zoning laws and let people build whatever they want, wherever they want? No, no, no. We're not saying get rid of the zoning laws. We're not saying get rid of the mandatory tree, save areas. I'm not making any argument against the tree, save against the buffers against sidewalks being, you know, mandatory in Charlotte. I'm not arguing yay or nay on any of these issues. I'm simply pointing out that when local governments mainly controlled by Democrats, when they implement these, uh, these mandates on building that drives up the cost of So when you're like the developer needs to fix this intersection, if they're going to put, you know, an apartment complex there. OK, well, guess what happens to the price of that building now? It goes up, which means what? Higher rents or or listing prices for if they're condos or something. It's a think of it as a balloon. And when you squeeze one side, the other side just gets bigger. Like you can, you can squeeze it in different ways, but there's still a certain amount of air that's in there. You're just, you're just moving the air around. But this, this, this is a common tactic as well, which is like, okay, fine. They did this good thing, but they need to do these other things that I think are good too. But then when you start talking like for, he also lists improve access to affordable food and healthcare. Again, I thought you Democrats solved all of the affordable health care with the Affordable Health Care Act, didn't you? That's what you told us it was for. Oh, it didn't solve that problem? Oh, it actually made health care more expensive? Who could have seen that coming except, you know, every Republican who voted against it, but you rammed it through anyway. Affordable food? So, like, what does that mean? Government-run grocery stores? You're going to go Mamdani on that? You realize grocery stores have like razor thin margins. These people don't, oh, we need to make things more affordable. This is like the equivalent of the Roy Cooper campaign, right? Make stuff cost less. How? I don't know. And I'm not going to say, I just want things to cost less. Oh, and by the way, I think we should also be, you know, increasing government spending. Oh, we're just going to tax the rich and they'll pay for it all. Yeah, they don't have enough money to pay for everything that you're proposing. That doesn't matter. I need to win election. This is the stupidity that we live in. Mike over on the text line says, funny, the gas stations raise prices immediately with the cheap gas in the pump. What? They raise prices immediately with the cheap gas in the pump. I don't know. I'm not following that. Also, look at the spread in price from one side of town to another. They make big money on gas. All right, Mike, that is just not true. I'm sorry. It's not true. You do not understand the economic model of a gas station. Now, I did not either until 1998, I believe, is when I I did a bunch of interviews with gas station owners and the petroleum, the local industry guys. There was a disruption in the pipelines and there was a gas shortage and stuff like that. And so I interviewed a bunch of people and learned about it. And you can actually just Google this now and your local data center will give you the answer here. The average... net profit margin, right? The profit margin for a gas station, because remember, these are locally owned gas stations. These are franchises. Okay. So just like a McDonald's is owned by a local person. It's a franchise model, right? They, the, the profit margin, not total profits of the gas station, but the profit margin. So take in the revenue, pay out your expenses and, And what do you clear? What's that net? And that net profit margin for a gas station for fuel sales is somewhere between 1% to 3%. And what does that mean? That means on a gallon of gas, 3% to 7%, that's their profit. 3% to 7%. Because the rest of it goes to taxes, labor, utilities, credit card transaction fees. The purpose of the gas is to get you to stop at the gas station. You have to buy the gas for your car. They want you to buy the gas at their shop. So you will walk inside and you will buy a hot dog. or you will buy some Chica Ronis or a Big Gulp, right? That's where they make their money. If you don't want to be supporting, you know, your local franchise gas station, you want to really stick it to them, just buy the gas and don't buy anything from inside. That's how you rob them of their profits because that's where they make their money. They're making three cents on a gallon of gas. I mean, that's just the reality of it. Let's see. Scott says the price will drop as soon as they have new fuel in the ground, but as soon as the tax returns at the end of November, they will jack the price back up and pocket the 41 cent gallon. Like again, like guys, you're, you're displaying a profound lack of understanding of the business model, how gas stations operate. They have massive signs on their front lawn across the street from a competitor that And they're trying to get people to come into their place versus the competitor's place. They want that number on the front sign to be as low as possible. So that's why they're always trying to either match or beat the guy across the street. If I'm across the street from you and you're charging $ 3 per gallon and I'm charging $ 3. 50, what do you think happens? people are going to go to your gas station. Um, Alan says 80% or so of today's high prices can be attributed to one of the only few things Joe Biden increased illegals in the country spending and 9% inflation. We do not hate Democrats enough. Um, funny, the gas station. Oh, I already read that one. Sorry. Um, Joe says sounds vaguely familiar to old Roy's bit about vetoing everything out of the Republican legislature, but now taking credit for successful programs that he vetoed and Republican legislatures overrode. Democrat contempt for NC citizens and their own supporters is appalling. Not only do they think we really are stupid and have no ability to do even a second of research on the line. They hate us. Jeff says this is a different Jeff that says price gouging is illegal. Okay. I heard it reported earlier on your station. The gas tax is paid by the stations in advance. And then there is recouped by the buyer at the pump. So it will most likely not be seen until the gas that has already been purchased by the stations has been used up. Correct. Right. So until they, until they buy their next batch of gas until they resupply, that's when you'll see the prices come down. Now, some gas stations may start trying to bring down their prices earlier. and take a loss. Some gas stations will do that, right? They'll take a loss on something just to get you in the door. Trent says, leave it to Democrats to take ownership of someone else's work. Now I have to see stupid ads of Jamie Ager saying he was there when baby Cooper signed in the suspension to help with affordability. This will be insufferable, right? Yeah. So they're making political hay out of it. Of course they are. while accusing their opponents of making political hay out of it. But meanwhile, we're all going to pay a little bit less for gas for the next two months. I'm so mad. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast. So if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to the Pete calendar show.com. Again, Thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.