In an article by Townhall columnist Walter Williams, he asks the question if Congress is just dumb or ill-informed regarding energy policy.
My answer is simple, they are dumb, uninformed, and out of touch with reality and the American people. Recently Congress, mainly those of the American Left paraded the CEO's from the largest oil companies and gouged them on the amount of money they make, the profits the company makes, and the alleged ill practices that they have engaged in to make these profits. Yet time and again nothing is found. Why do they keep doing this then?
The answer is simple, they want to be a hero to millions of Americans. They want the appearance that they are doing something without looking into their own voting record to see the problem. The problem I point to is government over regulation.
As Williams points out the Cubans are allowing China to drill closer to the US coast than US oil companies can. 85% of the coastal oil fields are inaccessible because of government regulation. If all the oil reserves in the United States would be accessible the US would jump "from 11th place to fourth among the countries with proven oil reserves, " according to Sterling Burnett a writer for the Houston Chronicle in an article on May 21, 2008 titled "We don't have to take $4 gas--we can drill.
We have heard a number of different plans to reduce oil prices. One idea has been to remove the federal gas tax and then force the oil companies to pay a windfall profits tax. This was supported by none-other than ex-presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. She claimed it would help reduce the cost at the pump. Maybe she forgets the 1980's windfall profit taxes which reduced domestic output of oil by 3-6% and increased our dependency on oil between 8-16%. If Hillary is not ill-informed than she is just plain dumb.
Then of course we have the potential environmental impact. As Walter Williams points out again the caribou are thriving and have increased their population in the Prudhoe Bay area. We have the technology to drill in pristine areas with only a minimal footprint in these areas. Environmentalists have crippled us in getting oil due to overblown fears and lies like global warming alarmist Al Gore, make of An Inconvenient Truth.
So what is the answer? Are politician dumb or ill-informed?
I would say they are dumb for buying into environmentalists propaganda, ill-informed for suggesting higher taxes on energy, out of touch with the hurt most Americans are feeling, and are plain arrogant. If these Congressmen were really in touch with Americans and not tied to special interests they would open up drilling, open up for the building of new refineries, allow the building of nuclear plants, and would simply step out of the way.
Politicians are always after more power. This is the other answer. By making energy harder to come by, politicians get more power and make you more dependent on them. This is the goal of the American left who wants to remove the freedom of choice from your lives on economic issues. By increasing dependence they will increase their chance of getting elected.
This point was noted in Alexander Tytler's, The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic.
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until voters discover...they can vote themselves [generous benefits] from the public treasury. From that moment, the majority always votes for candidates promising them the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
Get Informed and Make Your DeclarationCheck out my article on how the federal government is a
"government of special interests, by special interests, and for special interests."Let the government know you are tired of this. Sign the petition to
Dill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less to stop the devastating Warner-Lieberman bill. This bill will drive up gas prices $.41 to $1 a gallon, decrease domestic production, create job loss on the order of up to 4 million jobs, and increase the cost of all forms of traditional energy production for the benefit of special interests and lobbyists in Washington D.C. Then take a moment to
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Sources
(1) "
Dumb or Ill-Informed," by Walter Williams, Townhall, 4 June 2008.
