The failed policies of the past

Barack Obama is fond of comparing John McCain’s policies to those of President Bush labeling them the “failed policies of the past”, but actually, Obama’s policies are failed policies of a more distant past.

With gas over $4/gallon, Obama says we should continue to depend on some as yet undiscovered miracle to save us…the same thing Democrats have been saying for nearly forty years. of course, they claim the reason that there’s no new source of energy is because the government hasn’t thrown enough taxpayer dollars at the problem yet.

I remember too well the failed policies of the past – when we were straining under OPEC embargoes in the early 70s, Democrats stood against the building a pipeline in Alaska to transport our own oil to port. That’s why Jimmy Carter promised in 1979 that he’d build refineries and pipelines…two years later, the Democrat Congress forbade more drilling in the Guld of Mexico when a Republican was president.

Jimmy Carter never built a refinery, by the way, none have been built in this country since 1977. There are two sites currently approved for refineries, one in New Mexico and another in South Dakota – but they’ll spend years in court battling Luddite environmentalists before a spade of dirt is turned.

Carter founded the Energy Department in hopes it would slash through the red tape and respond to our domestic energy needs, but it’s just another whale beached in dowtown DC. Obama clings to the same delusions that Democrats have clung to for years.

AFP/Beitbart quotes Obama yesterday;

“Much like his gas tax gimmick that would leave consumers with pennies in savings, opening our coastlines to offshore drilling would take at least a decade to produce any oil at all, and the effect on gasoline prices would be negligible at best since America only has three percent of the world’s oil.

“It’s another example of short-term political posturing from Washington, not the long-term leadership we need to solve our dependence on oil.”

Obama is pushing for a “windfall tax” on oil companies’ record profits and for federal investment of 150 billion dollars over 10 years in renewable and green energies.

First of all, those are OUR pennies, Senator – why can’t we have them? You’re not doing anything useful with them. Secondly, how long is it going to take to invent a new energy source, get it and the vehicles that’ll use it to market? The Democrats have been promising us that for forty years and there’s nothing on the horizon. Oh, and how is a windfall profit tax helping? Are you going to redistribute that money to the people, since we’re the ones from whom oil companies are profiting? Or are you just going to cram in your pockets and then tell us how you know how to spend it better than us?

The Wall Street Journal writes today that Obama and the Democrats sound a little silly at $4/gallon gas;

Anticarbon Democrats are on the defensive for once. Their default position – doing nothing – doesn’t have the best resonance amid $4 gas. They’ve been reduced to arguing that more exploration would merely make a difference over the long term. The GOP plan, in other words, is too pragmatic.

Democrats also claim that land already leased is “sitting idle,” and should be used before any new exploration begins. As put by Maurice Hinchey, a senior member of the House Resources Committee, Big Oil is “trying to take control of as much land now during the oil-friendly Bush Administration years, but are holding off on drilling until the price of oil soars to $200 or $300 a barrel so they can make even greater profits.”

Conspiracy theories aside, it is true that only 0.46% of the Outer Continental Shelf is producing oil (though only 2.3% is under lease). But because of the exploration ban, oil companies go in more or less blind, not knowing the extent of the available resources. Millions of acres lack oil or gas, which is why it’s called “exploration.” Federal law stipulates that an oil company must sink a producing well within 10 years or lose the lease; it often takes nearly a decade to navigate the geography, not to mention the long process of environmental and regulatory review. Or coping with multiple lawsuits from the green lobby.

Yes, this campaign is about the failed policies of the past – the failed policies of the seventies and eighties as foisted on the American public by Democrats.

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Economy, Jimmy Carter, John McCain/Sarah Palin, Politics