From Joel Stein, one of those oh-so-awesome columnists currently occupying a slot that Bob Scheer could hold:
I know the high cost of energy takes an unfair toll on the poor because it's a much bigger percentage of their income. Those people are always getting screwed: checking account charges, easy-credit rip-offs, hangin' in a chow line. OK, most of what I know about poor people comes from watching "Good Times."
The rest of the article is a try-hard rant on how oil profits are totally tubular and fair, even though they seem a bit evil, just like that Stewie kid from that Family Guy show the young people watch. You know, the little football-headed guy who always wants to take over the world? I should take over the world. How sweet would that be? I'd make cars run on distilled cultural relevance. And trivialities. Definitely trivialities.
But the government should be helping them more directly with aid programs and public transportation. It's not going to help to slap the oil industry with some special end-of-the-year tax, as some propose. Or begging the oil companies to donate to poor people's heating bills, as Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley did. Helping people in need is the government's job, not something we should rely on business for.
No, I don't see any greater connection between taxing windfall profits and funding aid/transportation subsidies than I do between the pre-Ringo Beatles and Ja Rule. I think we should pay for government through a zany get-rich-quick scheme, like the ones that were always on Saved By The Bell. Man, that was a great show. Kelly was hot.
