Posted by
PG Hereford on Sunday, June 22, 2008 12:00:00 AM
As we approach the convention season and the general election, those of us on the right have much more to be optimistic about than we did even a short week ago. John McCain's decision to support offshore drilling on the outer continental shelf and to reconsider his stance on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is the one issue, besides the war, that really demonstrates a difference between the two candidates.
Few people seem to remember several years ago when Al Gore expressed his wish for high gas prices, fewer still note that Obama seems content with fuel prices in the neighborhood they are in when he suggested the problem with the prices is he would like a more gradual rise.
The energy crisis is not merely a crisis of energy but it is a crisis of food as well. As ethanol production gets first priority of the feed corn crop, animal feed has skyrocketed, driving up the prices of the products of animals who feed on corn. Not just pork, beef and chicken, but eggs, milk and cheese prices are forced into the stratosphere. Corn for human consumption has been grown less to use the land for the more lucrative corn used for ethanol. This has not only increased the cost of corn here domestically, but made it nearly impossible to export the grain as we have in the past, not only to foreign markets, but in assistance to starving peoples.
Obama seems to misunderstand even the most basic, elementary school civics lessons about economics, specifically the law of supply and demand. Put simply, the less availability there is of a product in demand, the higher the price will be. Newt Gingrich is absolutely correct "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less.
When I started driving nearly 35 years ago, gas was around 30 cents per gallon. When the first embargo hit under president Nixon it hovered somewhere around 50 cents. It was only after Carter destroyed our relationship with Iran, that we saw the price of gas head north of $1.00 a gallon and indeed approached $1.75. A large part of this was due to Jimmuh's ill conceived windfall profits tax, which the oil companies dutifully passed on in their pump prices as a business expense to be recouped. It wasn't until Reagan deregulated the Oil industry that a more rational price of gasoline was obtained. Now Obama wants to add another windfall profits tax to the oil industry. What was that saying about someone who does the same thing expecting different results?
Obama is quick to accuse John McCain of running for GWB's third term. That's much more preferable to Obama running for Jimmy Carter's second. Obama has already exhibited the same naive arrogance in his evaluation of foreign affairs, the failed Carter energy policy would be worse than the lack of energy policy that we have now.
hen