Higher fuel costs are vexing most of us, but John McCain's proposal to suspend the federal gas tax of 18.4 cents per gallon and diesel tax of 24.4 cents per gallon this summer (since endorsed by Hillary Clinton) is irresponsible and probably ineffectual. The "tax holiday" would cost the federal government $9 billion--and McCain hasn't said how he would replace that revenue. It also wouldn't give drivers much relief unless oil companies also were banned from raising pump prices to swallow the difference. Oil companies have shown time and again that they have neither conscience nor national loyalty. Since the market has established that people will pay upwards of $3.50 a gallon--the average price for gasoline in mid-April--there is nothing to stop Exxon from treating McCain's "tax holiday" as just another windfall for petroleum retailers.

The Clinton and Obama campaigns have been tossing brickbats at each other over the details of their attempts to make health insurance affordable for the 47 million Americans -- mainly the working poor -- who do not have coverage. In brief, Hillary Clinton would mandate individuals and employers to buy insurance while Barack Obama would mandate employers to contribute to insurance coverage.

Both Democrats are better than John McCain, who only recently put up a health policy page on his Web site that basically parroted the Bush administration's proposal of tax credits to help individuals buy insurance with high deductibles, which would cover catastrophic illness but would discourage people from seeing a doctor for routine ailments.

The US spends about twice as much for health care as the average among industrialized nations, said Dr. Steffi Woolhandler, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School. But those other developed countries provide comprehensive coverage for their entire populations, while the US leaves more than 47 million uninsured and millions more inadequately covered. The US performs poorly on major health indicators such as life expectancy, infant mortality and immunization rates, in comparison.

The verdict from the first two states in the Democratic nominating process is in: Barack Obama is for real; Hillary Clinton is not inevitable but won't give up; and John Edwards is the progressive populist in the race.

Now that the Democratic presidential race has practically narrowed to those three candidates, Edwards remains the progressive populist choice for change. Many progressive voters would be proud to vote for a black candidate or a female candidate with a solid chance to occupy the Oval Office, but while Obama and Clinton have been occupying the middle of the road, Edwards, a former North Carolina senator who comes from a working-class background and made his bones as a trial lawyer challenging reckless and abusive corporations, has been challenging the status quo. Although he has been derided by some for his wealth, he made his fortune by winning verdicts for his working-class clients who were injured by those corporations that are unregulated by the Republicans and lightly regulated by the D.C. Dems.

With the announcement of Tom DeLay's pending resignation from Congress, it is worth considering what might happen if the US Supreme Court overturns all or part of the 2003 Republican gerrymandering that turned the Texas congressional delegation from 17-15 Democratic after the 2002 election to 21-11 Republican currently.
    Renea Hicks, a prominent Austin attorney on redistricting matters who represents the city of Austin, Travis County and former Austin mayor Gus Garcia, argued the case before the Supreme Court on March 1 and expects a decision by June. At a briefing for Austin Democrats on March 8, he said if the court finds the Texas Legislature engaged in an unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering of one or more congressional districts, it could order a new open primary to be held on the general election day, and a runoff in December, as it did in 1996.
    DeLay is charged in Travis County (Austin) state district court with illegally funneling corporate money to state House races in 2002 to clear the way for his partisan gerrymandering plan in 2003, which resulted in the loss of six Democratic seats.