Obama in Wayne, and on the attack
Campaigning in a region that will be critical in determining who carries Pennsylvania in November, presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama blasted his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, for proposing a gas-tax summer holiday that is “nothing but a Washington gimmick.”
Even if the idea were implemented "it would save you thirty cents a day for the next few months. That's a quarter and a nickel," Obama said during a town-hall meeting on economic issues at the Radnor Middle School in Wayne.
Since clinching the Democratic presidential nod June 3, Obama has embarked on a tour of swing states to highlight solutions to the economic miseries afflicting the middle-class – from high gas prices, to uncertain retirements and the rapidly rising cost of college.
Kelly Sweeney of Hatfield, a mother of three, introduced Obama, talking about how the price of gasoline and the rapidly increasing price of groceries has squeezed her family. Her husband, the sole bread winner, works as a commission-based financing manager at a car dealership, and his income has plummeted as people are putting off car purchases.
"The top two percent are getting richer, but in my neighborhood it's getting tougher and tougher every day," Sweeney said.
Obama blamed the problem on the stranglehold of special interests in Washington, using gas prices as his example.
"Now, it isn't an accident that gas prices are this high," Obama said. "It's because Washington failed to deal with the challenge of alternative energy when it had the chance. Instead we've had an energy policy that's been written by and for the big oil and gas companies. When George Bush asked Dick Cheney to come up with our energy policy, he met with the environmental groups once, he met with the renewable energy folks once, and he met with the oil and gas companies 40 times. That's an outrage."
He said that the problem goes back much further than the Bush administration – the nation has discussed energy prices since the gas lines of the 1970s – because oil and gas companies have used "campaign dollars and corporate lobbyists to block reform."
Contact staff writer Thomas Fitzgerald at 215-854-2718 or tfitzgerald@phillynews.com.
