Nancy Pelosi continues to amaze though I shouldn't be amazed by her any longer. She is really a proven quantity by this time. She has made up her mind that we'll simply not have any more oil because it is not good for us and she knows best what is and isn't good for you and me. She maintains that more drilling will do nothing to lower the price of gasoline, jet fuel and diesel fuel, but she derides President Bush for not having already agreed to release some of our strategic oil reserves that would be a mere tiny blip on the radar scope of fuel prices and would do nothing to cause a decrease in futures prices.
She has led, and continues to lead, the effort in the House of Representatives to castigate the greedy oil companies, to threaten to take away their leases on the 68 million acres that have already been searched and determined to hold little that could be drilled economically, and to apply tax surcharges just to teach them a lesson.
Every action such as these does nothing but exacerbate the real problem and cost us money; it costs us more and more tax dollars and it costs us more and more as companies push their tax bills down to the consumer where all tax bills go to be paid.
More than two-thirds of the people in the United States (across all racial and political and economic strata) have told Congress to open up drilling and reduce taxes, but they won't do it because they know better. We miserable Neanderthals called voters just need to pay whenever and whatever asked (told in reality) and trust that Congress will take care of us.
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Al Gore delivered yet another pronouncement to the politicos, the press and the masses yesterday, as well. Jay Weber made, I thought, an excellent point on today's show on WISN 1130AM when he said that so much of Gore's emphasis on reducing our need for oil seems to hinge on electric power...none of which is generated by the use of oil. Some is generated using gas to fire the gas turbine generators, some is generated by solar and some by wind power. But, the vast majority is generated using coal-fired plants.
The idea that we should spend $3 trillion dollars in the next decade, scrap all the electric generating facilities we have now, string the power transmission lines necessary to get solar and wind-generated power to the point of use from the middle of nowhere, etc. simply defies imagination. He maintains that we need to 'green' the world through our efforts and through our example. China told us again within the past few days that it is not going to play that game. China is going to continue its economic development as is India. Yet the United States is expected to go 'green' at the expense of its own economic well-being when that will have no significant lasting impact on the global environment. The $3 trillion doesn't begin to address the debt-service we're still going to be paying on all the facilities that we've ceased to use.
So, we are being told that we need to bankrupt our economy while we're abdicating our position of power in the world community...and we're to take Al Gore's word for it that this is the way of the future. Reminds me of the old tune with the lines: Don't Worry, Be Happy.
Out of touch & out of control!
