On Politics. I know why gas prices are so high, why the deficient is out of control, and why congress’s approval ratings are at all time lows--it's the congress. I subscribed to Senator Jeff Bingaman’s (D-NM) monthly newsletter www.bingaman.senate.gov The June issue had the most astoundingly self-serving, misinformed or dare I say, plain stupid remarks I have read about the current crisis. I taught senior economics for ten years, and my degree is in political science, so I have some knowledge on these matters. He’s cracked. And if this is the leadership we have in Washington, we are indeed doomed. This is the line that really set me off: “Our national economic policies have been out of touch with reality for most of the last eight years – focused on delivering large tax cuts to a few Americans, paid for with money borrowed overseas.” The money borrowed from overseas is the money that funds deficient spending by Congress and the economic stimulus package that was an expensive boondoggle, eaten up at the gas pump and bloated by the cost of simply getting the checks out. Tax cuts add to the federal coffers. Tax revenues soared after Bush’s tax cuts. They always have that effect and they do it even when Democrats cut taxes, like when JFK did it back in the sixty’s. He understood that if you let people keep their money, they will spend it in ways that make more money for themselves resulting in more federal revenue. I agree with the Senator when he blames the weak dollar for the current gas prices. Oil is purchased in dollars and the dollar has been on a long slow slide. But the tax cuts are not the reason; the reason is the federal debt and the low interest rates set by the Federal Reserve.
Senator Bingaman goes on to say that the new fuel economy standards passed by Congress will save us a million barrels of oil a day...by 2020 when the new requirements take effect. I think the free market is already taking care of that as people dump or park their gas guzzlers in favor of more fuel efficient vehicles. All you have to do is watch a little TV to figure this out. Or take a ride on you local bike path. Count how many people aren’t wearing helmets and it will give you an idea of how many people are new converts to cycling as opposed to the old converts who are lefty crackpots and yell at you for exercising your right to NOT wear a helmet.
His other wonderful suggestion (I’m slipping into cynicism here) is to drill on all the land oil companies have under lease but are not drilling on. Now these oil companies are not stupid. With oil at record prices and profits as high as they have been for the last several years and with demand out stripping supply, I think if there was oil out there, they would be drilling for it. So my guess is that since if they don’t drill within so many years they loose the land, there isn’t any oil there or not enough to drill for cheaply enough even at these prices. On the other hand, there is oil in places where there are no leases and some could be up and producing, according to some experts, in as little as two years or less. We know this because off the coast of California it seeps out of the ground. It would actually be more environmentally sound to drill than to let the natural seepage occur. How crazy is that.
In the spirit of fairness, he does say one thing I can agree with at least on the face of it because you never really know what a politician means by a statement like this, but he said that he would work to make “sure Federal agencies [had] the resources necessary to expedite the approval of responsible new production.” This would be a good thing since it takes 25 years or more to get the permits to build a nuclear power plant. (something, by the way, he does not mention as part of the solution)
This was an interesting insight in to how and what our politicians think. We should all be subscribing to our senator’s and representative's newsletters or be reading their web sites. And write back to them. If they don’t know how we feel and feel threatened by it, they continue doing what ever they please at our expense. Literally.