FuelClub Discount

Earlier in the presidential campaign, when John McCain and Hillary Rodham Clinton called for a summer holiday on the 18.4-cent-per-gallon federal gasoline tax, Barack Obama dismissed the tax-vacation as an election-year gimmick that offered financially-squeezed families “just pennies.” I wrote that, unlike Clinton and McCain, Obama “stood tall in opposing the gas-tax holiday.”

Now we know why. Obama must have seen the gas-tax holiday as a chump-change in the wondrous store of campaign gimmicks. When Obama panders, he panders big-time. Witness his proposed “emergency energy rebate” that - on the heels of this year’s $600 per taxpayer stimulus package rebate sent to taxpayers this year - promises additional $500 checks for American workers or $1,000 per family “as soon as this fall.” (Is there an income cap for how Obama defines eligible “working families?” The campaign did not get back to me on that by my deadline.)

To hear Obama, the check is practically in the mail.

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Not long ago LA/Ontario International Airport was setting growth records. Airlines flocked to the Inland Empire airfield in what Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa hailed as the “great first steps” to regionalizing air travel in Southern California.

In a much publicized event last year, the mayor even helped welcome the start of an airline’s service at Ontario by donning a safety vest and directing an ExpressJet plane to its gate.

Come September, ExpressJet will no longer operate at Ontario, becoming one of the latest casualties of high fuel costs and a souring economy, which have grounded airline service across the country. Other domestic airlines, such as United, Delta, Southwest and JetBlue Airways, have slashed or eliminated service at Ontario as well.

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