Gas and Circuses
I have to say that both John McCain and Barack Obama are full of it when it comes to high gas prices.
Both men have to know that there isn’t much the government can do to drive gas prices down quickly, but because Americans want their gas cheap and fast, both are trying to pander as fast as they can with some very silly plans.
Drill Now? Okay, we should see that oil hit the market in about 10-20 years.
Windfall Profits Tax? Of course, because it worked so well in the 70s and 80s.
Rick Newman of US News and World Report, cuts through all the rhetoric and gives us all the real deal when it comes to high gas prices. It’s a good read, especially the last point he makes:
U.S. energy policy up till now has mainly been to keep gas prices low and consumers content. Artificially reducing gas prices would reverse trends that are actually helping to break our dependence on foreign oil. For the first time in years, for instance, Americans are driving less, not more. Gas consumption is going down. People are fleeing big sedans and SUVs in favor of right-size vehicles that get better mileage. More people are using mass transit. Those developments are direct responses to rising gas prices. If prices fall, Americans will go back to old habits, just as they did the last time gas prices skyrocketed and then fell after the oil shocks of the 1970s.
As the old saying goes, “necessity is the mother of invention.” Obama and McCain both talk about the need for conservation and alternative fuels and efficient cars and that’s well and good. People have been talking about that for years, but when gas was at a buck ten years ago, no one was paying attention. Detroit was building SUVs right and left and we drove as if there was no tomorrow. It’s only when gas prices started to get towards $4/gallon that all of the sudden people were ditching their SUVs and people were being put on waiting lists for fuel-sipping cars like the Smart Four Two and the Toyota Prius. If the presidential candidates want to bring gas prices down, fine, but then don’t talk about fuel efficiency or breaking our independence from foreign oil: because cheap oil will only make us fat, lazy and even more beholden to foreign oil.
Maybe Jimmy Carter was right after all. Kind of.
13 Responses to “Gas and Circuses”
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I agree with this. It's a shame the idea of offshore drilling is popular, because it's not a practical solution to high gas prices.
Republicans are great at politics, but terrible at policy
Maybe Jimmy Carter was right after all. Kind of.
Come on now. “Everyone” knows that Jimmy Carter was wrong about everything he ever said about anything because, well… anything less wouldn't fit the black/white meme. Everyone knows Reagan was The One. Not Carter. If Carter advocated more nukes that had to be wrong. If Carter advocated R&D for solar and wind that had to be wrong. And heaven forbid he should suggest bundling up as a way to save energy during the winter. Sure, he wasn't twisting our arm or anything but the mere mention of a sweater offends my superior sensibilities! We have to be adults here. [snark off]
The fact is, (a) there is a lot of BS being thrown around. And a good portion of it is because (b) we really don't all think or behave like adults. And (c) Carter was right about more things than most people give him credit for — including sweaters (the cardigan style was, of course, optional). What's wrong with sweaters? I'm rather fond of sweaters. And long johns. In the winter that is. Not in the summer. Somehow, sadly, I felt the need to add that last disclaimer.
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Drill Now? Okay, we should see that oil hit the market in about 10-20 years.
Ok. Let's assume you're correct on the timing. (You're not, at least not for all locations and instances, but let's play along.) Assuming that we can't get the country 100% independent and running on alternative renewable sources in one decade, what will you tell us ten years from now? “We still can't drill because it will take ten years to get the oil.“
If you don't start, you never finish. As soon as we can run everything on other sources and be independent, I'll lead the charge to go tear down every oil rig on the planet. Until you can provide enough energy to run the nation in other ways, you may not want to be so critical about providing our own oil as much as possible.
If the presidential candidates want to bring gas prices down, fine, but then don’t talk about fuel efficiency or breaking our independence from foreign oil: because cheap oil will only make us fat, lazy and even more beholden to foreign oil.
Nothing we can do will bring down the price of oil. Remember. The democrats are calling the drill first crowd liars.
So if DRILLING IS ALL A LIE then why are you saying we should be afraid of lower gas prices…………drilling wont work. Releasing oil from the spr will only work very short term. Windfall profits tax is the best way to go Tax the oil companies and give back to the poor.
Maybe nationalize the oil companies and then we will know that they are producing with so many fricken restrictions tied around their necks that its a wonder they have found any new oil in the last 20 years.
No the real fear is summed up in this post…………….We are afraid we might find oil, we might find a way to bring the prices down and we might not do anything for the next 10 years because its cheaper not too.
I in a small way agree to that but this time READ MY LIPS:
Both sides, both parties have the other over a barrel. There is no time better then today……..right now for Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and George W. Bush to get the gang back together and reach a truly bipartisan package of proposals that makes all sides realize that their wishes have been met.
Greenis get all kinds of incentives to go green. Whatever you want…………done.
Oil companies get restrictions lifted and gasoline manufacturers get the ability to remodel their plants and build some new ones. Then lets find out whose right.
The fear is that drilling will work by the greenies and honestly the fear by those in favor of the status quo is the immense amount of pressure it will put on them to change their entire business plan to accomplish a switch from carbon to green.
Now is the time for both sides to win.
OR LOSE.
Dennis Sanders, you are correct in general but incorrect about “drill now.” This may well have a prompt effect (just as tensions in the Gulf with Iran drive the prices in the other direction). More importantly, though, ending the no-drilling lunacy is the smart as well as correct thing to do as a matter of principle.
Now,
“because Americans want their gas cheap and fast, both are trying to pander as fast as they can with some very silly plans”
Yes, but there's an additional angle to something McCain proposed earlier this year, the thing that really was a gimmick (opening our oil and gas fields to full development is sound, not a gimmick). Keep that in mind when comparing the two candidates' gimmicks and worse.
Obama is just bizarre. A Demogrant-style gift (for heating this winter, como Chavez) is sheer vote-buying as well as use of the Strategic Reserve the way Gore and Clinton did this in 2000 — Obama disparages “addiction” but demands we be given a Quick Fix. Hypocritical. Windfall profits taxes are insane, of course. Someone needs to tell the extremists on Obama's campaign to shut up and quit making dumb suggestions. The silly conservation-minded nanny-state Advice to Us about what we already know, maintaining tire pressure and tuning up our vehicles, is just silly. Obama is the real loser here. Good luck to him and a needed recovery from these blunders.
The gimmick of McCain's, of course, was the gasoline tax holiday. (Actually, to make most sense with this gimmick, all fuels should have their taxes suspended.) But even this gives us food for thought, because it may not be an energy policy issue by McCain, necessarily (though this is the likely explanation), but if McCain is being clever or insidious, it's actually an economic policy gimmick. What is a fuel tax holiday? Why, it is a broad-based (affecting us all) tax reduction or Tax Cut, of course. Get 'em hooked and used to this, could be what a more clever McCain campaign (it, clever?) might have in mind.
“right now for Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and George W. Bush to get the gang back together”
As when the Dems did nothing to save Social Security and were deliberately obstructionist and nonsensical (and dishonest in some of their statements)?
Keep it up with “no drilling” and they continue to deserve to boost McCain by default.
“because cheap oil will only make us fat, lazy and even more beholden to foreign oil”
It frees discretionary income, that Obama can tax and redirect to other “beneficial” purposes. This made me think of something in that 1942 book about financing a huge government fraction of GDP that I've been reading. While giving aid to people and claiming a poor economy (“the worst in the USA since the Great Depression,” etc., same as we heard in 1981-2 and in 1991-2) and buying votes, Obama can raise taxes on the wealthy, with progressive rates not only claimed as supporting “fairness” (a Big Lie liberal economic writers frequently use; morally, progressivity is based on envy and ill will and deliberately unfair treatment of some incomes versus others), but more importantly, the raised taxes can be claimed to be implemented by Obama in order to meet the economically wise goal of preventing inflation, by (overlapping an old phrase with emotive liberal and radical class envy) “mopping up excess purchasing power” (of the targeted group).
“cheap oil”
is “artificially low,” or “too low,” in normal left-speak, and “should” be subject to vast new taxes to discourage “excessive” use and make this nation more “normal,” as defined as being like more collectivist, interventionist Europe.
If fuels got cheap, taxes on them would be more tempting than anything short of progressive income taxes or maybe a wealth tax.
From Ezra Klein:
The point of the liberal position on energy is that fossil fuel dependency is the problem. The point of drilling is that we make more fossil fuels available. That's why most folks oppose the deal: Because it moves us in the wrong direction. If it's instead part of a compromise that reduces total use of fossil fuels but slightly shuffles where it is that we pump the necessary crude, most liberals would consider that a win.
Obama talks about dependency while insisting on a quick fix at the same time to buy votes this year.
And what's his solution in its place, using Bush Fuzzy Math?
“Whip Under-Inflation Now.”
Har. Is he appealing to the people without idiot tire pressure lights in their recent vehicles, or to many of those people, too?
Back to the policy drawing board, Obama. You just lowered yourself and elevated McCain.
CORRECTION TO KLEIN: Most peple _support_ increased drilling and only the neurotic-to-psychotic fringe are 100% opposed.
Obama screwed up. (See blip on first graph below, more substantial than the reaction to Michelle Obama's “pride” comment.) Why the most childish react so badly is sad. Get some patience and maturity and wait for Obama's damage control.
http://iemweb.biz.uiowa.edu/graphs/graph_Pres08…
http://iemweb.biz.uiowa.edu/graphs/graph_Pres08…
CORRECTION TO KLEIN: Most peple _support_ increased drilling and only the neurotic-to-psychotic fringe are 100% opposed. ~ DLS
Of course that sentiment is simply idiotic. The people who take seriously the fact that oil is a finite resource, is one that causes enormous political headaches, and is going to be causing enormous logistical headaches, and who are serious about advocating alternatives other than more of the same… they are the ones who are being rational here, not the drivers of the status quo. This is simple logic, independent of ideology. What is “childish” is the assumption by so many folks that we in the US can continue our current level of oil addiction indefinitely. That said, I know some folks would rather do almost anything than take the long view.