This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Economy

  • Obama’s shallow politics

    Barack Obama is still caught up on the race thing (h/t Ace and Hot Air) – you know that thing we’re not supposed to notice unless he tells it’s OK to notice. The CNN Political Ticker recounts his talk with voters in Missouri;

    “He’s spending an awful lot of time talking about me. You notice that?” Obama asked a crowd of just over one thousand seated in a university gym. “I haven’t seen an ad yet where he talks about what he’s going to do. And the reason is because those folks know they don’t have any good answers, they know they’ve had their turn over the last eight years and made a mess of things.”

    “They know that you’re not real happy with them and so the only way they figure they’re going to win this election is if they make you scared of me,” Obama continued, repeating an attack from earlier in the day. “What they’re saying is ‘Well, we know we’re not very good but you can’t risk electing Obama. You know, he’s new, he doesn’t look like the other presidents on the currency, he’s a got a funny name.’”

    Yeah, McCain doesn’t have any ideas…other than NOT doing what Democrats have done for decades that have gotten us in this mess. He wants to drill here and now while Obama’s ad with his solutions are cleaving to the old ideas of raising CAFE standards and throwing money at alternative fuels. He calls it “fast tracking new technologies” But how do you “fast track” something that doesn’t exist? This ad could have been written in the 80s;

    [youtube iT-lxXsrgaE nolink]

    Obama does have a funny name but there’s nothing funny about his politics. He’s using the same tactics that worked against Hillary (to a small degree) but I honestly don’t think the voters who are not Democrats will fall for it. Americans have heard the same tired rhetoric for decades and they’ve rejected it almost every time. I guess the Obama campaign thinks they can hand the voters a gilded turd and no one will notice it’s still a turd.

  • Obama’s “social justice”

    barack_obama_che_guevara_2.jpg

    In an excellent (as aways) editorial in the Investors’ Business Daily, the editorial board lays out Obama’s socialist agenda;

    (more…)

  • Drive 55? Again?

    I first heard this while going to Mom’s for the 4th of July, but Time Magazine is reporting this week that John Warner, Virginia Senator thinks he has a brain storm way of conserving gasoline. Bring back the 55 miles-per-hour speed limit;

    Warner told TIME his concern is for “the many millions and millions [of Americans] of limited means, sitting around their kitchen table trying to figure out how to make ends meet.” Unlike long-term alternative energy sources, Warner says, a speed limit would work to bring down gas prices immediately. “Maybe some guy’s got a better idea,” he says. “But I haven’t seen it.”

    Yeah, the 55-mile-an-hour speed limit worked so well to bring down prices in 1973 when prices went from 35 cents to 66 cents and again in 1979 when it went from 60 cents to a dollar. If people want to make the choice to drive slower to save fuel, well it’s up to them, isn’t it? We don’t need government regulation to tell us to save fuel. Warner should focus his energies and charms on the Democrats and convince them to drill rather than impose further restrictions on the citizens he’s supposed to help.

    According to fueleconomy.gov, a website run by the Department of Energy, “each 5 mph you drive over 60 mph is like paying an additional $0.30 per gallon for gas.” Warner approvingly cites a congressional study showing that “the law resulted in reduced consumption of 167,000 barrels of petroleum a day.” With millions of more cars on the road now than there were in 1974, the volume saved could be even greater.

    No one obeyed the 55 mile-an-hour speed limit then and they won’t do it now – unless they want to drive the new limit. Congress should concentrate on increase the supply instead of maniputing the market to decrease demand – their job is to help people not rule over people.

    I ride a bike and the subway, so I’m fighting for the rest of you.

  • Democrat Avoidance

    America is coming around to the conclusion many of us reached years ago as an answer to the energy shortage in this country – drill here, drill now. So what will the people’s representatives in Congress do to meet America’s realization? Since Congress is run by Democrats, it’ll avoid it’s responsibilities to the American people according to the Wall Street Journal‘s editorial board;

     Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and other liberal leaders on Capitol Hill are gripped by cold-sweat terror. If they permit a vote on offshore drilling, they know they will lose when Blue Dogs and oil-patch Democrats defect to the GOP position of increasing domestic energy production. So the last failsafe is to shut down Congress.

    Majority Leader Reid has decided that deliberation is too taxing for “the world’s greatest deliberative body.” This week he cut off serious energy amendments to his antispeculation bill. Then Senate Appropriations baron Robert Byrd abruptly canceled a bill markup planned for today where Republicans intended to press the issue. Mr. Byrd’s counterpart in the House, David Obey, is enforcing a similar lockdown. Speaker Pelosi says she won’t allow even a debate before Congress’s August recess begins in eight days.

    When Democrats have an chance to actually help to solve a real problem, they’d rather Americans just suffer for cheap political gains.

    If Barack Obama were truly concerned about jobs and the working man, he’d lay aside his political allegiances and call for a new energy policy that takes us away from the last thirty years of failed politics and policy and lead America in a new direction…towards prosperity and away from pure political rhetoric. But, I’m not holding my breath.

  • The Quotable Blinky Pelosi

    In today’s Wall Street Journal’s “Notable and Quotable” section the WSJ reproduces a conversation between Wolf Blitzer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi;

    BLITZER: John Boehner, who’s the Republican leader in the House, he says you have to let this come up for a vote. He says that you’re walking your blue dogs, who are the moderate and conservative Democrats, and other vulnerable Democrats off a cliff by not allowing this to come up for a vote, the offshore oil drilling legislation.

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  • Congress’ answer to high gas prices? Raise taxes.

    With gas prices rising, McCain and Clinton recommended we get a gas tax holiday. Well, Congress decided against drivers keeping their own money(CNN);

    Despite calls from the presidential campaign trail for a Memorial Day-to-Labor Day tax freeze, lawmakers quickly concluded — with a prod from the construction industry — that having $9 billion less to spend on highways could create a pre-election specter of thousands of lost jobs.

    Now, lawmakers quietly are talking about raising fuel taxes by a dime from the current 18.4 cents a gallon on gasoline and 24.3 cents on diesel fuel.

    […]

    “We’ll put all things on the table,” Oberstar said, but the gas tax “is the cornerstone. Nothing else will work without the underpinning of the higher user fee gas tax.”

    At the very least, the gas tax should be indexed to construction cost inflation, DeFazio said.

    So there’s your answer to higher gas prices from Congress, America. No new drilling and extraction, no new refineries, and higher taxes, raising the price even further. From the working man’s Party.

  • Democrats and hoaxes

    Monday, Nancy Pelosi called President Bush’s lifting of the Executive Order banning off-shore drilling a “hoax”. She said that it would do nothing to lower the price of gasoline today. Instead, she said we should he should release the oil in our strategic reserve – gasoline for about 34 days consumption (we use about 20,687,000 barrels/day and there are 700,000,000 barrels in the strategic reserve). Yeah, that’ll help.

    So let’s look at Obama’s plan. He must have a plan that lowers our needs today, since that’s Nancy Pelosi’s biggest concern;

    Obama’s plan will reduce oil consumption by at least 35 percent, or 10 million barrels per day, by 2030. This will more than offset the equivalent of the oil we would import from OPEC nations in 2030.

    […]

    Obama will double fuel economy standards within 18 years.

    […]

    He’ll also establish a national goal of improving new building efficiency by 50 percent and existing building efficiency by 25 percent over the next decade to help us meet the 2030 goal.

    […]

    Obama will require 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels to be included in the fuel supply by 2022 and will increase that to at least 60 billion gallons of advanced biofuels like cellulosic ethanol by 2030.

    Yup, all of that will help Americans today, I’m sure. We’ll all feel so good about ourselves that our general collective vibe will just drive the price of gasoline to new lows. Now that’s change we can believe in.

  • EO oil ban lifted

    The President lifted the off-shore oil drilling his father put in place in 1990 according to Reuters;

    President George W. Bush on Monday lifted a White House ban on offshore drilling to try to drive down soaring energy prices, a largely symbolic bid unlikely to have any short-term impact on high gasoline costs.

    Yeah, largely symbolic…because the Democrats wouldn’t throw the American people any real relief from the high cost of gasoline if their lives depended on it.

    High gasoline prices and soaring food prices have irked American consumers in a presidential election year, when Bush’s Republicans are trying to keep the White House and wrest control of Congress back from Democrats.

    “Today, I’ve taken every step within my power to allow offshore exploration,” Bush told reporters. “This means the only thing standing between the American people and these vast oil resources is action from the U.S. Congress.”

    The President tried to act seven years ago, but between the quaking RINOs and the Democrats, Congress couldn’t find the guts to make a decision besides throw money at that still undiscovered magic alternate energy source that doesn’t send enviro-whackos into hyperspace. Three years ago, the President also allowed oil development companies to do some exploration in ANWR. He’s done all he can do. It’s up to those weak-kneed politicians in Congress.

    House Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Bush’s plan a “hoax,” joining a chorus of condemnations from environmental groups. The business-friendly U.S. Chamber of Commerce hailed the move as a step toward alleviating high gasoline prices.

    A “hoax” is what the Democrats have foisted on the American public for the last thirty years calling for an energy policy and doing nothing.

    Democratic White House hopeful Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign also criticized Bush’s move. “It would merely prolong the failed energy policies we have seen from Washington for 30 years,” spokesman Bill Burton said.

    The failed energy policies of the last thirty years – ya mean that we haven’t developed any new sources or built any refineries for thirty years? Is that the failed policy you’re talking about, doofus?

    Yeah, ya’all go ahead and sit out the next election, or vote for someone who’ll never get near the White House to make your stupid point and we’ll get more ignorant crap like this inflicted on us. I’ve lived in third world countries before…it’s not much fun, trust me.

    More and better commentary from Baldilocks.