Oil hit a 30-month high today. Unlike most gas price spikes, the current one is directly traceable to President Obama’s actual policies. The “Arab spring” is certainly the biggest factor in the current spike, but according to the Heritage Foundation it’s far from the only factor.
Yesterday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar testified before the House Natural Resources Committee on the Department of the Interior’s Fiscal Year 2012 Budget proposal. When pressed by Rep. John Fleming (R-LA) about the de facto offshore drilling moratorium the Obama Administration has inflicted on his district, Sec. Salazar responded: “When you look at the production within the Gulf of Mexico, even in the midst of the national crisis of the Deepwater Horizon, the production has remained at an all-time high.” This is an audaciously out of touch statement. According to the Energy Information Administration, the Obama offshore drilling moratorium will cause a 13-percent fall in domestic offshore oil production this year, which translates to a loss of about 220,000 barrels of oil a day. That means lower GDP growth for the nation, higher gas prices for all Americans, lower tax revenues for the federal government, and most importantly, fewer jobs for Americans living in the Gulf region.
It’s not that Secretary Salazar is out of touch. The evidence suggests he’s defending a shady policy by dishonest means. That policy is to allow energy prices to skyrocket in order to manipulate Americans into changing how we use energy. The exact kind of manipulation Tom Friedman extolled not too long ago, and the exact kind of manipulation Obama promised to pursue when he was a candidate for the presidency:
In that video, Obama speaks about “mobilizing a citizenry” to demand changes from their representatives, and he uses his cap and trade plan as an example of making energy prices “skyrocket” in order to create the mobilization to force the changes he wants. Cap and trade is a means to an end, spiking energy prices are part of the overall plan. I’m not putting words in his mouth — that’s what he said in the video.
Cap and trade as such is dead — Obama couldn’t even get that through the Democratic Congress. But has Obama ever disavowed using similar strategies on oil? Not that I’m aware of. And it’s clear in the video that cap and trade is just an example of the overall energy strategy he wants to pursue, not its outer limit, nor something Obama has publicly reconsidered since. And, the decrease we’re seeing in domestic oil production now is a direct result of Obama’s lawless permitorium on offshore drilling. He didn’t let the Gulf oil spill crisis go to waste.
I may be getting out on the edge a bit with this, but is it really a conspiracy theory when the conspirator voluntarily spells out the conspiracy?
con·spir·a·cy (kn-spîr-s)
n. pl. con·spir·a·cies
1. An agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act.
Unfortunately it’s legal, but it qualifies as both wrongful and subversive. Yup, it’s a conspiracy.
Just one more nail in the building that is impeachment.Will someone/anyone get the ball rolling?
Wait. I was told that high gasoline prices were the work of the diabolical Dick Cheney, in collusion with the eeeeeevil oil companies. I was told that Senate and House hearings were necessary to blow the entire dastardly scheme to kingdom come. I was told that supply and demand had nothing whatsoever to do with high gasoline prices- that it was all a plan by rich Republicans to enrich Republicans.
What has changed?
To the Obama-bashers:
What short memories we have. Let us all be reminded that the U.S. economic crisis was caused by the hyper deficit spending of Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II. Clinton recovered the U.S. budget to a surplus (in real, inflation-adjusted dollars).
Yes, Obama is also a deficit spender, but doing so is necessary to stimulate the economy OUT of recession. This was not the case for the massive deficit spending of Reagan and Bush II on military build up. Although deficit spending was somewhat necessary for Bush I, after the S&L collapse in 1987.
Finally, recall that Reagan’s economic policy was “trickle down”. That is, if he gives huge tax breaks and military contracts to private corporations, then the economic prosperity will make its way down to the middle class. The hindsight of history shows this to be a LIE. What actually happened was that the richest 2% of Americans benefited from the public going into debt, and middle class wages declined over time, when adjusted for inflation.
But don’t worry, keep blaming Obama for everything, that’s much better than facing facts.
I wonder if it would do any good to prove to you that trickle down was NOT a lie? The statistics bear this out in every single case. Absolute fact. Minorities benefited more than anyone.
How abot this? Every single budget Reagan offered Congress was balanced, but it was a Democratic Congress, and CONGRESS controls the budget, not the President!
Reagan and Bush I had Dems in Congress. Thus, more debt. Clinton’s first 2 years did not have those wonderful surpluses. Only when Conservatives took over Congress, did we get 4 straight balanced budgets> That was Gingrich’s doing, not Clinton. He tried to prevent it. He shutdown the government and blamed the Pubs. Just so you know, only the President can shut it down, not Congress.
Whence came those balanced budgets? Peace dividend. The USSR fell… because of that reviled military buildup. So, we got real vale for that expenditure, and then reaped the peace dividend, essentially getting our money back. Pretty good deal, I think.
Obama’s spending? What are we getting for it? Stimulating us out of recession? Really? I don’t know if you have noticed, but it is still here. But, but, but… employment is down to 8.9%! Dude, that qualifies as a recession!
Yes, the numbers are down just a bit, but all of that decline has happened since the November elections. You know, the elections when Obama got “shellacked” and business had hopes of prospering again?
Yep, keep NOT blaming Obama and keep ignoring the facts.
Troll.
They say that if you are falling in a dream and you hit bottom: slam into the concrete, whatever.. then you are dead. Meaning, you’re not going to wake up ever again.
The price of gold is rising..
The price of oil is rising..
And America…
America under Obama is falling..
Faster and faster and faster and…
WHAM..!!
B.O. purposefully practices using “the big lie” so often just BECAUSE he and his gang know that when people question it, it’s easy to laugh it off as a “conspiracy.”
Obama purposefully driving energy costs up? Sounds too ridiculous to be true, right? Ha ha. That’s how he’s gotten away with hiding all his records — by lauging at anyone who brought them up.
Consevatives should have done the same whenever he and his followers accused us of being racist. We should have laughed from the beginning and made up a name for them like “Racers.” You know, like how they’d sneer “Birthers!” at anyone who asked for the certificate? We could have sneered “Racers!” with contempt toward anyone who used race as a reason for opposing Obama.
Too late now, I suppose. The Republicans can be so dumb about this — earnestly explaining that no, the Tea Party is NOT racist, instead of just ridiculing the idea and refusing to take it seriously.