The simple talking point — gas has risen about two bucks per gallon since Barack Obama’s inauguration — is starting to sting. So Team Obama swings into action to do what they do best. No, they’re not lifting the drilling permitorium or announcing a big new oil exploration initiative, you know, things that would actually impact the supply of crude. They’re not even pulling a Trump and invading Libya to take their oil. Team Obama is distributing new talking points. Try to remember them next time you spend a small fortune filling up the gas can for your mower.
Sure, the talking points are mostly useless abstractions like this:
* Our economy has started to recover, with 1.8 million private sector jobs created during the past 13 months, but too many Americans are still looking for a job or struggling to make ends meet.
And that does what for you, when you have to take out a new line of credit to get to work? Oh, right. Absolutely nothing. Thanks!
The talking points also provide information on oil subsidies, like this:
One thing we can do is eliminate unnecessary tax breaks for the oil and gas industry and instead invest that money into clean energy, so that we can cut our dependence on foreign oil.
Fine. Go ahead. It won’t do anything for the pump price, but it might shave a few billion off the budget. So go ahead. But I dare you to touch ethanol subsidies, which are driving up the price of food, while you’re at it.
The talking points also tell us that this administration still wants to turn America into Spain, via green energy subsidies.
We should all be able to agree that rather than continuing to subsidize 20th century energy sources, we need to invest in 21st century energy sources. Instead of cutting funding for clean energy by 70 percent, as some in Congress have suggested, we need to make smart investments in a 21st century clean energy economy that will keep us competitive, support job creation, and help us to win the future.
Hm. In governmentspeak, investment=subsidies, and green goo gets a 12 to 1 subsidy over big, nasty oil. So, there went the $4 billion we saved on oil subsidies. Whoops!
All in all, a pretty crummy bunch of talking points. As a comms director, I’d have been embarrassed to put them out, but then again, I’d have been even more embarrassed to try running on the Obama record. These talking points will do nothing when Americans are at the pump, watching the numbers twirl. But I guess they beat nothing.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member