(a reprint of a classic diary. I couldn't resist, given the news.)
Here's Rep. Paul Ryan stumping for Mitt Romney:
“Anybody fill up gas lately?” Ryan asked. “I mean, I filled up my truck last night and I couldn’t even get it to full because it cut me off at $100 — the credit card wouldn’t even let me buy any more gas. It’s ridiculous.”
$100 at $4 a gallon is certainly a mighty big tank to fill up. What vehicle is Paul Ryan talking about? Because Forbes magazine recently did a profile of the
Most Expensive Fill-Ups, and the only trucks on this list got at best 11 MPG. In other words, if he's putting up $100 to not even fill his tank all the way up, Ryan is driving one of the biggest gas hogs available out there -- even the H3 Hummers get better mileage.
Maybe he borrowed one of Anne Romney's couple of Cadillac Escalades, with a 31-gallon tank (and remember, the bigger the tank, the worse the mileage, because a pint's a pound the world around and heavier = less efficient); the model Mr. and Mrs. Romney drive gets 12 MPG combined highway and city driving.
Some more questions for Rep. Ryan below the squiggle thingy.
Do you do your household budgeting as well as you do your Federal government budgeting? Because that's probably why you were surprised when you couldn't fill up your tank. I mean, I hear you Republicans often comparing Government budgeting to household budgeting, and it seems you're not very good at the simpler of these two tasks.
Do you happen to remember 2008, under a Republican White House AND Congress, when it actually cost MORE to fill up your Silverado or whatever it is you drive? Or did you breathe in so many gas fumes you've forgotten? Did you ever even know that the highest cost for gasoline, inflation adjusted, was during the middle of the first Reagan administration?
Did you ever hear of this thing called "energy independence"? Why is it you choose to drive a truck that gets 11 MPG when you can buy an American-made electric-hybrid vehicle that gets 96 miles per gallon and costs less to buy than your Denali or whatever it is you drive?
Speaking of which, since you're among the hawks calling for war against Iran (we know you think you know better than Generals about war, after all), have you even considered the effect of all your sabre-rattling on the price of gas, which even your nutjob Republican friends admit is culpable? Or that war with Iran could bring us $7 a gallon gas awfully fast?
Maybe you should get back behind the wheel of the Wienermobile, and out from behind the wheel of the Whinermobile.