Posted by
Furious on Thursday, June 19, 2008 11:21:28 AM
And I’m sure many of you will, but can anyone out there tell me what strategy our congress has for dealing with a problem that any fool could have seen coming years ago. I can only assume that our congress is not just anybody’s fool. They are fools unto themselves.
We still are a country that runs on the given that we have an affordable supply of energy. Chief among the architects of our country’s economic health is the availability of affordable oil recourses. Oil lubricates our economy today as much as it has for the past hundred years. We presently have no affordable alternative. So how can our elected representatives tell us with a straight face that we are addicted to oil? We are to blame, I guess because we dare drive our mini-vans and SUV’s contrary to our friends in Manhattan who can jump on a train and get to work.
We common folk are to blame because once or twice a year we would like to board a plane to visit our grandchildren or spend a Christmas with an aging parent or rekindle childhood memories with a far-away friend. They say we are to blame for the four (and soon to be 5) dollar gasoline. We are greedy. We are energy hogs, so Mr. Obama says, After all, we are but 5% of the world yet we consume 25% of its energy! He says the world will not tolerate it.
Well, I’m about to be intolerant of Mr.Obama, of the majority in Congress, of my state’s congressional delegation and even of Mr. Bush and his friend, Mr. McCain.
All I want to do is live as well as I can and be as prosperous as I can. And for that I am at fault? I am at the bottom of the pyramid. People like me are least able to weather this storm, but, need I remind the people in power, we make up the majority of their constituency. And we vote.
It is the people in power who have created this mess. They somehow think they can arbitrarily mandate a mileage figure and magically it will happen. The think they can reject all attempts at domestic oil production and then send the President, hat in hand, to Saudi Arabia to beg for a few more barrels of oil. They think that by punishing the producers-by endless congressional show trials-and by threats of raising taxes, that somehow this will produce more oil or reduce demand. It’s insane. Excessive taxes will depress exploration and depress production. They always have!
Price controls fail, as well. It’s been tried. Jimmy Carter tried it. Richard Nixon tried it. Price controls and wage controls do nothing but put a lid on a pressure cooker. Unless the heat is removed, it will blow up-again.
I simply ask my Governor, my Senators, (and thank my Congressman Bilarikis for his understanding) and the Democrat majority in both houses to reconsider their ban on in-state offshore drilling, ANWAR development and accelerating the work on the Bakkan deposits out west. Excessive oil pricing hurts us all, but especially the people who are the worker bees of our country.
We can drill responsibly and safely. So drill here, drill now, build more refineries and more nuclear plants and give incentives to those who would create alternative sources. Incentives always work…punishment never works.
Until we have viable alternate energy sources that can compete with oil, we need to at least utilize our domestic supplies. It is astounding that Washington can create the shortage and then have the gall to blame us for having the gall to live.