Saturday, May 10, 2008

The Drama provides nothing but pain in the gas.

Democrat Barack “the Drama” Obama loves to talk about the cost of a gallon of gas. Yes, thanks to the Democrats’ thirty year war on the middle class, the United States now produces about half the oil and gas we did in 1985. During the same time our consumption has increased by over thirty percent.

What is the Democrat solution? Hillary has at least offered to abate the federal gas tax. Obama complained about even that minimal attempt to reduce gas prices.



According to the Drama, the pain at the pump will survive his Administration. So, if you’re voting on gas prices don’t think the Drama has any intention of doing anything to resolve your issue or lower prices.

Part of the Obama fairy tale is his "bipartisan leadership". While there is little evidence in general for such a historical view of the earlier, off Broadway runs of the Drama, there is none whatsoever in energy policy. Barack's last venture into energy policy was S.115.

S.115 was a broad based attack on domestic oil production. So broad based that even Democrat oil magnates like Jay Rockefeller and Teddy Kennedy as well as all 48 other Democrats refused to cosponsor it. Yes, those were the events of January 4, 2007-only one month from the day on which the fairy tale began.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

The is a new major us Reserve that was discovered in SD, ND an MT. It is being explored but could provide the size of reserve comparable to Saudia Arabia and is being tapped by marathon oil hopefully more oil companies will start drilling there.

Anonymous said...

Sporer,

This a good segway to give kudos to your favorite president, Jimmy Carter. Had we followed through on his initiatives and focused policy & cash on energy efficiency and alternatives, we would be in much better shape now. One of the biggest strategic blunders we have made.

Efficiency gains are by far the most effective way we can ease the pain at the gas pump. Obama is willing to speak the truth on this and not pander like Hillary and McCain. Obama must be getting good advice on this topic. But efficiency is not fast & immediate. Neither is new oil exploration. And when you add to this the reality of a carbon-constrained future (reality, no matter if you believe in climate change or not; the rest of the world is going with it), it is even more obvious that efficiency and alternative fuels are the way to go. Not more oil.

If we go with the idiotic gas tax holiday, what will the politicians say when they have taken billions from highway moneys and the next bridge collapses?

The Deplorable Old Bulldog said...

rf, goddamnit, when you're half right you're half right.

the reality is we need to do both, and should have been doing so since the 70s.

since oil based fuels will power our economy for at least the next quarter century we'd better be drilling in kind of desolate places like ANWR and, if we are to be luckily blessed again by history, in the potential new find in the Dakota's, Wyoming and Montana.

However, all that oil needs to go into cars and planes and trains and industrial (mostly plastic) use.

Our goal should be to have no oil based electricty production. Coal where it can be cleanly burned and other sources, including nukes everywhere else.

We can also substantially increase clean use by eliminating things like plastic bottles (what the hell is wrong with cheaply produced glass anyway?) for pop, beer, etc...

We should be creating tax incentives for American auto makerks to transitino to hydrogen and electrical cars and consumers to buy them.

I could go on for hours. Talk about a desperate need to come together and think outside the box. The problem is Rs, while much more realistic than Ds on energy, think far too conventionally (except for Cheney who is an energy genius that gets no f***ing credit) and Dems are too paranoid, conspiratorial and hysterical on environmental issues to accept the reality that carbon tech isn't what it was 30 years ago and that we simply need a lot more domestically pumped and refined oil.

Anonymous said...

Ted: "We can also substantially increase clean use by eliminating things like plastic bottles (what the hell is wrong with cheaply produced glass anyway?) for pop, beer, etc..."

Does that include a substantial deposit law to encourage the environmentally irresponsible but fiscally tightfisted to do the right thing and recycle?

Anonymous said...

Holy Shit!! this is not republican talk!!! Republicans are suppose to drive big huge suvs just to consume more gas and when anyone talks about conservation, clean air, recycling or any that may be contrived as enviromentally friendly we should put them up on a stake and burn them!!!

isn't that why you republicans don't like McCain? because he actually cares about the enviroment!

The Deplorable Old Bulldog said...

"Does that include a substantial deposit law to encourage the environmentally irresponsible but fiscally tightfisted to do the right thing and recycle?"

No but it would include recycling as a part of trash pick ups and every county would have to devise a way to make it profitable to do curb side recycling.

Anonymous said...

Sporer: "every county would have to devise a way to make it profitable to do curb side recycling."

Yeah, that might work where you live, in the state's biggest metro. It won't work in 95% of Iowa. -----Spotlight

The Deplorable Old Bulldog said...

Spotlight, for God's sake man, how do you think the rural counties already collect trash?

Anonymous said...

Sporer,

Re: bottle deposit and curbside recycling, please make yourself familiar with statistics regarding recycling rates of containers in states with and without bottle deposit laws. A huge difference. For energy reasons alone, we should certainly not abandon the bottle bill. It should be expanded, unless you are keen on buying some more oil from our friends in the Middle East to make more containers for us.

The Deplorable Old Bulldog said...

rf

Of course raising deposits increase recycling. i don't dispute that.

However, the minimial, in the case of energy savings almost unnoticeably small, gained by the incremental increase in recycling, does not justify the increase financial pressure on people at a time when budgets are tightening and the hassle on an already stressed and angry population don't justify the savings. this is particularly true because bottle recycling doesn't do anything for the other 98% of all household plastic that isn't consumed in plastic bottles.

What needs to be done is what i like to call "thinking outside the box". why is the only solution you are willing to entertain based on coercion and financial pressure?

Make the counties develop a program, don't let them spend any more tax money on it (so they are forced to shift county money elsewhere) and you will have far less coercive and expensive program.

Here's an easy one. Provide greater profit to the existing trash collectors to collect more recyclables; create more numerous collection centers; and, most importantly, property tax credits for recycling pounds. The actuaries could figure it out.

It can be done, and the hard part would be making the libs surrender something else county governments do in exchage for far greater levels of recycling.

Anonymous said...

Sporer,

What increased financial pressure are you talking about re: the bottle bill? What part of the deposit concept don't you understand? The consumer gets his/her money back. Assuming one consumes two containers with deposit per day, you are talking about floating 70 cents in a week. Most people shop once a week, so if you take your cans back every week, it ends up being a wash after that first week of floating 70 cents. I'm surprised you as an R see this as a great burden, as your party so often sees tax credits as an incentive for stuff (say health care). There you are asking people to float thousands of dollars over a very long time period.

Also surprised why you are not a fan of a law (bottle bill) that creates minimal government involvement and is highly efficient in delivering results. All your "outside the box" ideas involve much more government than the current bill. And they won't be as effective. Plus, don't you remember that the bill was passed under an R administration. You would think the bottle bill is an R's dream. You are sounding more like your own stereotypical D, going for heavier government involvement. Or are you opposed to the bill just because our current D guv came in favor of it?

BTW, I'm not in favor of increasing the deposit. Just make it applicable to more containers and increase the handling fee.

Anonymous said...

Since we are on environmental stuff, I should give kudos to one of your fellow R's. On the IUB coal plant, the only "no" vote was the only R of the board Darrell Hanson. Both D's voting "yes" was very disappointing for me. Just goes to show that a good R is better than a bad D.

Darrell Hanson for Governor!

Anonymous said...

I don't think you've been outside the metro in quite awhile Ted. A lot of rural people don't even have garbage picked up - they burn most of it in the back yard - plastic milk jugs and all. (Which makes me think they should slap a 25 cent deposit on milk jugs)

The Deplorable Old Bulldog said...

I am pretty sure that every area of Iowa is covered by a rural waste authority organization. They are supposed to curb side pick up.

However, I just can't fight with rf about the deposit law anymore. my level of opposition to it is pretty minimal-of all the silly wasteful and economically harmful shit the Ds did to the state this year, increased recycling is pretty trivial.

So how about ANWR drilling? Much more important. I case you missed my monthly mention of it, remember those halcyon days when Bubba vetoed ANWR drilling and said it would be ten years (yes TEN YEARS) before we got those million barrels a day from ANWR. Well, we'd be getting them now and that would reduce oil prices-which are the one thing that can really hurt the US economy. (I used to think a terror attack, as a form of major exogenous shock, could do it but hell, we were booming within 2 years of 9.11-and we were coming out of a recession and entering the clean up of hte 90s era corporate scandals at the same time-so I was wrong about that one.)

This isn't to say we should begin some major transitioning into a post oil industrial economy but we need to do both, as the $50 I sent the Saudis today reminds me.

Finally, and whew I am winded, I gotta completely agree on the coal plant. This is Iowa. Why?

Seriously, I'd rather have a freakin' nuke plant, than coal. At least once the plant is built you don't have to transport it fuel.

The Deplorable Old Bulldog said...

"should not"

Anonymous said...

isn't that why you republicans don't like McCain? because he actually cares about the enviroment!

No. I hate McCain because:

He collaborates with RATS;
McCain/Feingold;
McCain/Kennedy;
He has bought into the "global warming" hoax;
McCain/Lieberman;
he stabs conservatives and libertarians in the back every chance he gets.

This election is hell for me. The only politician that I despise more than Hillary Clinton is John McCain.

Anonymous said...

I agree, there are bigger policy fish to fry than the bottle bill. No need to continue debating it. The reason I like to needle you on it is the fact that you are either ignorant of the facts or you choose to ignore the facts, and it makes me wonder about your motivation for disliking it. It is a piece of legislation that is something R’s usually dream of: minimal government involvement & taxation while being highly effective. And to top it all, your out-of-the-box proposals are all bigger government ideas – something you claim we D’s always dream of.

Just a perfect little thing to pester you with. But, we can move on.

Labels