Gas at $4 a Gallon? Here’s Why
When gas prices edged up fifty cents a gallon during the George Bush years, the mainstream media cried bloody murder trying to smear the Administration.
Yet under the Obama administration, gas prices have DOUBLED–with hardly a peep from those same news outlets.
Why?
Because it was never about prices. It was about bringing down a conservative president then, and propping up a liberal (socialist) one now.
The leftist media actually want gas prices to rise because they desire to take Americans out of their cars and into centrally-planned light rail systems the people don’t want to use. They want to promote wind, solar, and other renewable resources to “save the planet.”
It’s a huge “con” which is about nothing but control.
Controlling people. Limiting freedom.
America has plenty of energy resources to power everything we use–at far lower prices:
- We have vast oil reserves, including ANWAR, which if it had been developed ten years ago, would be making a significant contribution to lower fuel prices now.
- We have immense shale oil deposits that could be harvested.
- We possess the world’s greatest largest reserves of natural gas.
But there’s been a conspiracy in the past twenty years in this nation to place so-called environmental concerns over the future of powering America. Most of those”concerns” are just plain bunk.
It’s time we called the charade and demanded that American energy companies be allowed to do what’s necessary to bring down gasoline prices and provide complete energy independence from a chaotic Middle East.
The following article by the Heritage Foundation is right on the beam. Read it and let your voice by heard. RB.
“Obama’s Anti-Drilling Agenda Costs Jobs Across America”
President Obama’s hometown of Chicago is nearly 1,000 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. But like many other communities across the country, it is suffering the consequences of his Administration’s anti-drilling agenda.
Illinois accounted for $376.2 million in shallow-water drilling expenditures over the past three years, according to an analysis by 14 oil and gas companies that spend money on vendors and subcontractors. The bulk of that money—$242.2 million—was spent in the Chicago district represented by Representative Danny Davis (D–IL).
It’s fresh evidence that Obama’s anti-drilling agenda is having a ripple effect across America since last year’s oil spill, claiming jobs not just in Louisiana and Texas but also in communities far removed from the shipyards in the Gulf of Mexico.
The study from the Shallow Water Energy Security Coalition paints a picture of the nationwide economic ramifications. Obama can’t even be blamed for playing politics. Five of the states that benefit most from shallow-water drilling backed him as a candidate in 2008. And Democrats represent many of the congressional districts that stand to lose millions.
The cost in jobs is startling. A new analysis by Louisiana State University professor Joseph Mason projects national job losses at 19,000 from the drilling moratorium, with wage losses at $1.1 billion. About one-third of those jobs are located outside the Gulf region.
Nearly a year after imposing his anti-drilling agenda, it’s quite clear that Obama is carrying out misguided policies causing widespread harm.
And job losses aren’t the only consequence. The Obama Administration’s deliberate delay in issuing permits for both deepwater and shallow-water drilling has led to a sharp decline in oil production for the Gulf of Mexico this year. The U.S. Energy Information Administration puts the figure at 240,000 fewer barrels every day.
With gas prices hovering around $3.56 per gallon nationwide, now is not the time to lower production. The only way to reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil is to produce more of it here at home.
The recent approval of new drilling permits for the Gulf of Mexico is a welcome and long overdue move by the Administration, but it’s nothing to celebrate. The pace of permitting is far below the historical average, and there’s no indication that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) has any desire to return production to a pre-spill level.
Until that happens, expect more grim news like the unfortunate circumstances facing Seahawk Drilling, which was forced to declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy, a direct result of the bureaucratic delays at BOEMRE. Seahawk’s president and chief executive Randy Stilley, writing in The Washington Post, painted a dire picture:
The government’s drastic slowdown in the issuance of permits for shallow-water drilling operations—in which companies work in familiar geological formations, typically in less than 500 feet of water, mostly seeking to produce natural gas—has all but crippled the industry. The survivors (for now) like Hercules are staying afloat largely thanks to revenue from operations outside U.S. waters. Put another way, a once-proud industry born in the gulf during the Truman administration can no longer survive on operations in its own back yard.
Unless things change soon, Seahawk Drilling won’t be alone. Businesses located in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, California, and New York—top recipients of shallow-water drilling spending—will all face economic consequences as well.
It’s time for lawmakers to take notice. Representative John Sullivan (R–OK), who represents a district with $87.2 million in shallow-water expenditures over the past three years, recognizes the impact. He told us: “Continuing to keep American sources of energy under lock and key by failing to issue drilling permits only serves to place American jobs at risk, drives up costs at the pump and deepens our dependence on foreign oil.”
Things don’t have to be this way. The House of Representatives must continue to conduct rigorous oversight of the Obama Administration, challenging the Administration’s excuses and applying pressure when necessary. America’s energy future depends on it.
Balance the Budget! No More Excuses.
It’s been amazing to watch the budget debate on Capitol Hill over the past weeks. Republicans want to trim 61 billion dollars this year from the annual 1.5 trillion dollar US debt. The Democrats have been stopping them in the Senate, forcing an endless cycle of CR’s (Continuing Resolutions) that has lopped off six billion dollars here and there.
Unfortunately, the whole things is a farce. Sixty-billion dollars is not peanuts, but it is compared to 1.5 trillion. It doesn’t make a dent. Six billion in savings is simply the interest on the debt for a week.
So we’re playing games with America’s future–and the entire nation could crash if the games aren’t halted.
There’s only one answer for our tepid politicians: A Balanced Budget Amendment.
To see this need in the clearest terms, click here and watch a short video. It will put things in perspective for you.
There are some politicians that get it and have some guts. Newly elected Senator Mike Lee of Utah is one of them. Here’s a report from the Heritage Foundation on his efforts:
“Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) says he’s hopeful the ratification of a balanced budget amendment is realistic in today’s political climate — and touted the features of his proposal for such an amendment as well-suited to curb Congress’ spending addiction.”
“’It’s going to be an uphill battle,” Lee said on a Thursday conference call. “But public sentiment among voters makes this right for our time.’”
“The senator will need every ounce of that public support. The threshold to pass a constitutional amendment is high. Two-thirds of both houses of Congress must pass it, then three-quarters of states must ratify the amendment to make it law.”
“Lee has been working for weeks to generate support for his amendment among fellow Republicans. In the very near future, he’ll also reach across the aisle.”
“’At this point, I’m working almost entirely within the Republican caucus to garner support for this,” Lee said. “There will of course come a time when we will work aggressively to get bipartisan support. … That time will soon be coming.’”
“The debt ceiling debate might be that time. Senate Tea Party Caucus members — including Lee — have already said they’ll harness that debate to earn Democratic support for a balanced budget amendment, according to a Jan. 31 article on TheHill.com.”
“’The only scenario in which I can imagine not using the filibuster [during the debt ceiling debate] is if the leadership of both parties agree that as a condition of that they would first pass out a balanced budget amendment,’” Lee said in the article.
“As Lee sees it, a balanced budget amendment is the only way to lock the vault.”
“’I’ve come to believe it’s going to be difficult or impossible to get back to constitutional spending until we stop giving Congress unlimited money from which to draw,’ he said.”
“Lee’s amendment would require that Congress develop a budget each year in which outlays do not exceed revenues — and it would also restrict spending to 18 percent of gross domestic product. Congress could not circumvent the limitations of the amendment without the support of a two-thirds supermajority in both houses.”
We desperately need a balanced budget amendment to rescue us from ourselves. One blogger stated it very clearly.
It comes down to the biggest financial choice of our lifetime.
“Freedom is a choice. Often it is a tough choice and involves hardship. Americans have always been willing to make tough choices and endure hardships to live in freedom. Still living is the generation that made the tough choice to defeat tyranny in all its forms. That choice involved hardships, but America won World War II. We have a generation that paid with their treasure and blood in Korea and Vietnam, financed the victory in the Cold War, and the resultant fall of the Berlin wall. Those were tough choices and there were hardships.”
“But we made the tough choice and endured the hardships. We have a generation that is willing to finance America’s security in an age of uncertainty and terrorism and yes, pay the price in their blood. A tough choice, a choice that has already and will undoubtedly bring more hardships. But we are willing. Why? Read the history of this country, your country. Americans of all generations have always been willing to make tough choices and endure hardships to live in freedom. For the benefit of our children, the generations to come. You are the recipient of the blessings of the tough choices and hardships your parents and their parents made.”
“It is once again time to make the hard choice, and accept hardships. For freedom. For our children. It is time to support a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.”
“We now confront many crises: joblessness; healthcare; education; two wars; immigration; decaying infrastructure. The list goes on. All are important. The Federal government tells us it has the answers. Currently the Federal government takes in about 2 trillion dollars a year, but claims it is not enough. To solve the nation’s problems, it spends about 4 trillion dollars a year. But even that is not enough. Our nation is going broke. We are going into debt to foreign powers who want to see us diminished. Yet, the Federal government continues to borrow and spend with no control. We are told we have to allow the Federal government to borrow and spend even more. We are told we have to accept more foreign money and borrow more from our children. We know that if this continues, we are or will become bankrupt. A sense of inevitability spreads. We begin to feel we and our country are helpless.”
“We are not helpless. America is not helpless. It is time to support a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.”
Republicans have not been able to stop it. The Democrats have not been able to stop it. Both had the best intentions. In fact neither had the political power to stop it. The politics of spending is too powerful for one leader, even one political party to defeat alone. Only we, the people, have the required political power. In America, it is we the people who give our political leaders power. Our Constitution defines what power we have given to our leaders. Only our Constitution can give our political leaders the power they need to defeat the politics of borrowing and spending.”
“It’s time to give our leaders the power to defeat the politics of borrow and spend. It is time to support a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.”
“Leadership is not marked by championing every cause that is momentarily popular with no thought to its cost. Leadership is not displayed passing the buck to the next generation of politicians and citizens. When the government’s budget has to be balanced, our leaders will have to make tough choices about how to spend our resources. Not the resources we borrow from our foreign competitors, nor the resources of our children. Our resources. They will have to explain to us why one cause is more beneficial than another. They will have to explain why one crisis demands more resources than another. They will have to deliver a true accounting of their stewardship of our resources. But in so doing, they will become true leaders once again. “
“A Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution of the United States will give our political leaders the ability to stand against the interests that want a return to the politics of borrowing and spending, and force them to begin a true discussion, a true debate of what our national priorities should be. Our leaders, from both parties, will have to make tough choices and explain to us, the voters, what the benefits of their choices are and why the hardship of paying for it is worth enduring. In the act of giving leaders the power to stand against the politics of spending, we also are requiring a return to true leadership. We will require true leadership to exercise the power we have given.”
“It’s time to deserve and demand true leadership. It is time to support a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.”
“Let us not fool ourselves. There will be sacrifice. As a result of decades of deficit spending, we now face a 14 trillion dollar national debt. The enactment of a Balanced Budget Amendment will not, of itself, repay that debt. It is an enormous first step, but there will still be tough choices to make and there will be disagreement among us as to what those choices should be. Let us not be blind to our responsibility. In order to form intelligent opinions, we will have to examine the issues and choose which are truly important to our nation and ourselves. “
“Then, we will have to vote to elect leaders whose vision of America we agree with, place our trust in them, and accept the sacrifice that is likely to be required. Because, at some point, we are going to have to ask ourselves, “what is the alternative?” Do we apathetically accept the politics of borrow and spend? Do we allow a foreign government to dictate our future? Do we spend our children into bankruptcy?”
Choice. Are we are ready to make the hard choice for our freedom and for our children’s freedom?
Then do all in your power to support a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
No More Politeness on Obamacare
As a general rule, I try to be polite with people and their policies.
When Obamacare first came out, I was careful to not attribute bad motives or intentions to those who wanted to change our health care system. It’s true I didn’t share their view of greater government intrusion in the U.S. healthcare industry, but I wanted to be civil in my reactions and opinions.
But I learned something recently that caused me to change my mind. It’s time to take off the kid gloves and state the truth plainly.
Obamacare is a sinister disaster.
Here’s why…
Actually, we should have known this a long time ago. There were a number of ominous signs when the original bill was being passed:
Sign One – The way the bill was put together behind closed doors on a totally partisan basis. The Democratic Party allowed no Republican involvement and didn’t allow CSPAN or anybody else to broadcast hearings or the decision-making process. A cloak of darkness almost always means deception. We should have strongly protested this clandestine process.
Sign Two – Buying off a number of senatorsto get this bad bill to pass. Congress is always involved to some degree in horse-trading, but the “Louisiana Purchase” with Senator Mary Landrieu and the “Cornhusker Kickback” bribe made to Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson–and others–went way beyond the pail. The passing of this legislation was loaded with bribery and pay-offs. That’s bad policy in a democratic republic.
Sign Three: Three thousand pages in length. The Obamacare bill was a multi-thousand page bureaucratic monstrosity–worth of the former Soviet Union but not the United States of America. The important things in life and best writings are usually simple–think the Declaration of Independence and the Gettysburg Address. We should have shouted from the housetops that we would not stand for a bill that was so large that nobody had time to read it–that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said needed to be passed quickly so that afterwards “we could find out what was in it.” Three hundred million Americans should have shouted bloody murder over that perversion of the legislative process. Pass a bill that alters an industry and nation–and find out afterwards what it means? That’s not only idiotic–its an evil use of governmental power.
Sign Four – Exceptions, exceptions, exceptions. Obamacare was passed on the idea that it was better for American business and the public. We were told it would make health care more available and affordable, bring costs down, and decrease the deficit. Well, if it was so good for one and all, why did nearly 1000 groups line up to be excused from the program for a number of years? If something is good, you won’t want to be excluded. You will desire to be the first in line for the benefits.
That didn’t happen with Obamacare. If it’s bad for business now, it will be far worse in the future.
But the worst abuse of the Obamacare bill only came to light recently. That’s because it took all this time to carefully comb through the voluminous pages of this legislative nightmare and actually begin to understand what it was saying and doing.
Buried in the 3000 pages of federal healthcare takeover was a stealth appropriation of 105 billion dollars!
Let that sink in.
105 billion.
That’s the entire size of the US debt in 1980–a mere thirty-one years ago. To implement Obamacare over the coming years, the authors of the bill totally side-stepped the appropriations process of the US Congress. They didn’t want anyone ever changing their prize plum.
How’s that for democracy? Sounds more like tyranny or dictatorship to me.
Our hero for uncovering this fraud is Congressman Ernest Istook. Here’s how the Heritage Foundation reported this incredible find:
“Today former Congressman Ernest Istook testified before the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee about the $105 billion slush fund in advance appropriations liberals tucked inside Obamacare. The $105 billion bypasses the traditional yearly budgeting process and is spread throughout the 2,700 page legislation. It took the Congressional Research Service (CRS) seven months to identify all the disparate funds and it was not until February (11 months after the bill passed) that all of the funds could be totaled up.”
We also need to give Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) immense credit for beating the drum to raise awareness of this unprecedented level of hidden, advance spending. She calls it “Obamacare’s 105 Billion Dollar Power Grab.”
Here is her analysis:
“While Obamacare is rightly notorious as a fiscal nightmare, less well known is just how massively it transferred power from Congress to the executive branch. In fact, the full scope of Congress’s abdication is still unknown. What is now known, however, is that deeply buried within Obamacare was a $105 billion slush fund that assures its implementation into the future, no matter what future voters think or want.”
“This makes then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s comment to the Legislative Conference for National Association of Counties about Obamacare, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,” made a year ago tomorrow, ironically prescient. Just this past month, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) updated an October 2010 reporttitled “Appropriations and Fund Transfers in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).” The new report found that, unbeknownst to almost every Member of Congress, Obamacare contains $105 billion in direct implementation spending that bypasses Congress’s normal appropriations process.”
“A separate CRS report, titled New Entities Created Pursuant to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, concludes: “The precise number of new entities that will ultimately be created pursuant to [Obamacare] is currently unknowable, for the number of entities created by some sections is contingent upon other factors, and some new entities may satisfy more than one requirement in the legislation.” These new bureaucracies would have the power to reach into your life on a daily basis, including control over who is allowed to sell you health insurance and how they may do so, as well as what procedures Medicare will or will not pay for. Once Congress allows these new bureaucracies to be created, it will be next to impossible to get your health care freedom back.”
“But these merging entities do have a weak spot. CRS reports: “In practical terms, many of these entities will not be able to function until their members are appointed and funds are appropriated or made available for the entities to operate.” That is where the secret $105 billion stash comes in. Instead of leaving these fledgling bureaucracies vulnerable to the budgetary decisions of future Congresses, Obamacare appropriated billions in implementation spending over a 10-year period. Conservatives can still save the nation from Obamacare’s bureaucratic kudzu, but they must act proactively. They must go beyond simply not providing funds for the implementation of Obamacare. CRS explains: “Precedents require that the language be phrased in the negative, for example, that ‘none of the funds provided in this paragraph (typically an account) shall be used for’ a specified activity.”
“This is why our nation cannot afford to fund the federal government by continuing resolutions, which perpetuate the status quo—a status quo where Obamacare’s implementation is already funded. In order to truly defund Obamacare, conservatives must go through all 2,700 pages of the bill and cut spending for every program one by one. That is the mandate this Congress was elected on. Members need to do their jobs.”
“Last night, I shared important news with you about the fraudulent appropriation of $105 billion dollars to fund Obamacare, passed by Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats without a single hearing or even allowing Members of Congress time to read the bill. In the coming week, my colleagues and I will be doing everything we can to ensure that this funding is rescinded, and I hope you’ll sign my petition to call on the rest of Congress to do the same.”
I was concerned about Obamacare from the beginning. But I was polite in my analysis and gave the benefit of the doubt to the authors.
No more. No more politeness. Obamacare is the worst bill in the history of the United States. It was crafted in darkness, used massive bribery to win approval, is a bureaucratic monstrosity, and stealthily used a massive monetary power grab to insure its survival.
It needs to be repealed, defunded, publicly scorned and placed on the ask heap of history.
There will be no economic renewal–or renewal of government–without it.