What About the Poor?

Back from the holidays and of course I come up with a link to a commentary about the impact on the poor if higher taxes and fees are imposed on gasoline, automobiles, etc.

Warren Brown, the writer, has this to say:

Yes, higher gasoline and related taxes will hurt them, certainly in the short term, and most definitely if Congress does nothing to increase the minimum wage.

But if there is no interventionist policy to weaken our overdependence on oil and if there are fuel shortages as a result, what do you think will happen to the poor then?

Good question for the liberals to think about. And, interestingly enough, he has something to say about leadership vs pandering, emphasis mine:

...there is political opportunism masquerading as leadership. The practitioners of that charade equate leadership to pandering. But the two are very different. Leadership requires taking unpopular stands for a perceived greater good, even at the risk of losing the next election. Pandering is the child of dishonesty and cowardice. It will do anything, even the wrong thing, to curry popular favor and will do nothing to risk that popularity.

Not that any of our local elected leaders, never mind Congress, are guilty of pandering in this city.