This is priceless!

The Senate Republican plan to mail $100 checks to voters to ease the burden of high gasoline prices is eliciting more scorn than gratitude from the very people it was intended to help.

Aides for several Republican senators reported a surge of calls and e-mail messages from constituents ridiculing the rebate as a paltry and transparent effort to pander to voters before the midterm elections in November.

“The conservatives think it is socialist bunk, and the liberals think it is conservative trickery,” said Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, pointing out that the criticism was coming from across the ideological spectrum.

Angry constituents have asked, “Do you think we are prostitutes? Do you think you can buy us?” said another Republican senator’s aide, who was granted anonymity to openly discuss the feedback because the senator had supported the plan.

I mean, really: $100?  That’s laughable.

[D]isapproval started flowing in almost as soon as the idea surfaced, said aides in several Republican offices. One senior aide to a Southern lawmaker said the calls were surprisingly harsh. Some complained that the rebate would amount to only two fill-ups at the gas station.

Even though some voters have been outspoken in their opposition to the $100 rebate, Democrats still want credit for being the first to think of putting money back in taxpayers’ pockets. A few days before the Republicans went public with their plan, Senator Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan, proposed a $500 rebate plan, a figure that she said was more commensurate with how much the higher gas prices will cost Americans this year.

The Democrats have also recommended suspending gas taxes for at least 60 days (that would be a savings of 18.4 cents per gallon).  Because Republicans control Congress, however, they tossed that idea out the window and went with their own suggestion: try to buy off the American public with a paltry $100 check, money being sent even to those who do not own cars.

Oh, and something else the Republicans did was to attach to the refund plan oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska.  Essentially, if they approve and enact this whorish buy-off of the American public, it comes at the price of an ecological refuge that will be plundered and ruined by big oil (remember, they’re already causing extinctions and disasters the world over).

Ms. Stabenow also criticized Republicans for linking the rebate to oil drilling in the arctic refuge.

Republicans know that drilling in the refuge “is highly controversial and not going to happen,” Ms. Stabenow said. “I question their sincerity in putting this forward.”

What a mess, and what an insult.  Still, I’m thrilled that so many citizens have taken action by contacting their representatives in Congress to let them know this is laughably inadequate and insolent.