“Drive small cars and wait for the wind.”
With the price of gasoline getting up over $4 a gallon, what has the Democratic Congress done to ease the pressure on the market? Well, they’ve decided not to vote on a major energy bill for fear that the Republican will let us drill for our own oil.
The Democrats’ policy, as given by a Congressional aide is, “Right now, our strategy on gas prices is ‘Drive small cars and wait for the wind’.” Running away like Brave Sir Robin also appears to be a fundamental part of their strategy, too.
In related news, Congress’ approval rating has dropped to a single digit for the first time in recorded history.
Nice job, Democrats. You’ve make Congress an even bigger national shame than a bunch of corrupt, glad-handing, feckless Republicans. You should feel incredibly proud.
(via memeorandum)
Other Posts of Interest:
- Pelosi Breaks More Promises, Ho Hum
- “Oh crap, maybe I shouldn’t have said we stretched the facts. Oh crap, maybe I shouldn’t have said they ate up our sweet, sweet lies. Oh crap….”
- Chris Dodd, Marxist Thief
Category: Featured, Our New Democratic Overlords, Thinking About Energy
That really is an amazing accomplishment. By the time you consider the 3% margin of error & then subtract for friends & family members who may have been polled, that basically means that no one in the country likes Pelosi's congress…LOL Not stupid people, not the elites, not southerners, blacks, illegals….no one! Truly amazing.
Interesting graph.
Let's try a "Clinton years" vs. "Bush years". I wonder what that might look like?
It'd be an interesting history project, but this is the here and now. The Dems in Congress are doing absolutely nothign to solve the problem. In fact, what they want to do most – take our money in the form of a windfall tax, punish entrepreneurs, keep our resources out of our hands – will make the problem even worse.
Right now I am more concerned about the price of gas, not what the Clinton years looked like as opposed to the Bush years. If you want to play that game I have one name for ya… Jimmie Carter.
Nice try, Jimmie. But trying to blame high oil prices on the Democrats really isn't going to work. When Bush was elected, I bought Exxon-Mobil stock (I also bough gold, but that's a different story). I did this because I knew that Bush would drive up the price of the stock. And I'm richer for it. There are several reasons for high oil prices, and the Democrats have little to do with it. Let's look at those reasons.
First, if you look at the price of oil relative to gold, you'll notice it hasn't really changed much. But relative to the US dollar it's changed quite a lot. The reason is that the dollar has dropped significantly in value. The weak dollar policy is Bush's policy, not Congress's Congress can only be blamed for going along with Bush and approving the nominations of Paulson and Bernanke. But Bush appointed them, so he gets the blame.
Then there is the security premium. Oil always goes up in price when there's a war in the Middle East. Bush started that war. Yes, Congress did approve of Bush's war, so they do deserve some blame. But once again, Bush is the primary culprit.
Then there's speculation. Bush can't be blamed for this one, but Phil Gramm can be blamed. He was the one who created the loophole that allows speculators to trade oil without any regulation (it was his gift to his wife and the rest of the Enron board). But he's not alone in the blame, Bill Clinton signed that bill and the rest of the Republican Congress went along with it. But most of the Democrats opposed it.
Then there is the demand side of the equation. Democrats have consistently pushed for higher fuel efficiency standards for cars and funding for alternative energy. The Republicans have always blocked their efforts. And that's a smart move by the Republicans. The oil industry gives a lot of money to them, so they won't do anything to hurt the oil industry. So Republicans do whatever they can to increase demand for oil.
Finally, there is the supply side. This is the only part of the equation the you might be able to pin on the Democrats. But the Democrats only oppose two things: drilling in the near coastal ares and in ANWR. In theory, drilling in those places might increase the world's oil supply by 2% ten years from now (a drop in the barrel). In reality, only ANWR's oil can brought on line that fast. This year, Brazil discovered some really nice offshore oil reserves off their coast and they want to drill right away. But they can't. There's a five year backlog for drilling ships right now. So that patch of oil will have to wait. And so will ours. In fact, 85% of our offshore reserves are already open to drilling and they're not being drilled because they are highly questionable reserves that won't be profitable until oil goes over $300 per barrel and the drilling ship backlog has been cleared. The remaining 15% of offshore reserves might contain some nice patches, but we won't know that until some more drilling ships can be built. The fact is that the Democrats have allowed oil to be drilled even faster than possible. When the oil industry creates the necessary infrastructure to actually get to the oil, then maybe we can talk about allowing them to do it. For now, it's really a moot point.
Um, I know you are going to protest because of course, only Americans can be evil….but I do believe 9/11, Al Qaeda & Saddam were the primary culprits.
The oil industry gives lots of money to all politicians. Which is sad really that they feel the need to buy off these devils & prevent them from destroying our economy the way the pols are wont to do.
And if we allow the blood-suckers in Congress to sponge all their profits, who is going to pay for such infrastructure upgrades?