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Restoring Stability To Gas Prices -
By F. James Sensenbrenner
Like most Wisconsinites, I have certainly noticed the startling
prices at the pump and understand that such prices are digging
deep into our pocketbooks. Ironically, this phenomenon is also
affecting gas station owners, as evidenced by media reports of
two Shell stations in the Fifth District that turned their pumps
off because of the high cost of purchasing gas. Gas prices in
Wisconsin averaging $3.50 (that's averaging, meaning most of us
probably pay more) per gallon, have many believing that a
leisurely Sunday drive or weekend road trip may be more of a
luxury than once thought. Solutions to gas price volatility are
long overdue.
See complete article
HERE.
Yes, Jim,
and here's an idea....
Politicians should protect the
public with new Oil-USA option
By Jack E. Lohman
U.S. Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner's
Refinery Streamlined Permitting Act is too little too late.
While I don't expect him to support this idea because he owns
several hundred thousand dollars of Exxon-Mobile stock, I'd hope
that he would put that aside and do what's right for the
country. However, he just voted against the House bill that
would allow the President to declare an energy emergency and
make the sale of gasoline at "unconscionably excessive" prices a
federal offense, so this may land on deaf ears?
Congress should implement what I'll call Oil-USA. That's a
publicly-owned company that our politicians would establish --
or simply expand the Army Corp of Engineers -- to drill new oil
wells in the Gulf and build new refineries to compete with the
exorbitant oil prices commanded by foreign suppliers.
If
our politicians want to stabilize oil prices so our economy
doesn't crash and we don't send any more money to known
terrorist countries, this is the way to do it.
Our current suppliers -- the OPEC countries in the oil cartel,
like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran -- don't like free-trade
agreements so they established their own conspiracy. They call
it "managed trade" and we call it price-fixing.
They partner with American petroleum companies and CEOs that no
longer even pretend they aren't gouging the public. They lay the
high-price blame on overutilization -- on SUVs and people who
can still afford to drive -- rather than on the refineries
they've strategically closed to create shortages and drive
prices higher.
Our conceptual Oil-USA is a taxpayer-owned company, like our VA
hospitals are today. But instead of just veterans, it would
benefit all drivers and fliers and truckers and those who heat
their homes with oil. It's not there to destroy the oil market,
just to keep it within reason. When the refineries reduce output
to jack up prices, or China and India demand more oil, Oil-USA
would step in to level the oil tanks. When a private refinery
closes we'd buy it up and put our unemployed to work.
So
U.S. taxpayers would be competing with the foreign conspiracy
that is eating American families alive, and keeping our money at
home. Oil-USA would benefit us all, much like when politicians
stepped in to provide health care for veterans and seniors
through Medicare. They did the right thing then and, I'd hope,
they surely want to do the right thing now.
But there are roadblocks. Why would they go against an industry
that helps fund their elections? Or that they have a major
investment in?
I'd like to say for the very same reason they'd protect our
citizenry from supply-side health care insurers who are gouging
us, but that hasn't happened yet.
Unfortunately, our politicians are bought-and-paid for by the
petroleum industry -- and the insurance and pharmaceutical
industry, and the banking and credit card industries. Actually,
it'd be easier to list the industries they are not in the pocket
of, and that would be none.
Why do we voters continue to tolerate our corrupt political
system?
Because we are lazy. We listen to the rhetoric and don't look at
the politician's actual voting records -- and why they voted as
they did, which is usually because cash dollars from special
interests bought their votes.
Our problem is not petroleum or health care or pharmaceutical
costs. It is political corruption. And when a real political
challenger finally comes along we vote for the comfortable old
shoe.
But those shoes are wearing thin. Jim Sensenbrenner is wearing
thin.
Too many incumbents are totally conflicted and costing us
dearly. We need new blood in both our state and federal
capitals, and it doesn't matter whether it's red blood or blue
blood. Preferably it's independent blood, but it's got to be new
blood.
Virtually all incumbents, save a few that are trying to fix the
system before it consumes America, must be replaced with
newcomers that commit to cleaning up political corruption. That
is the only issue that really matters today.
And if the newbys fail too, they must be replaced in the
following election. We'll get our term limits, but they'll be
voter initiated.
Think about it. If you were giving away your employer's assets
for cash bribes on the side, how long would you still have a
job? Or be out of jail? Why do our politicians that give away
taxpayer assets for cash continue to be employed?
Because their employers, we voters, have our heads in the sand.
We are afraid of change even when it is our only savior. We must
be smarter than that.
-- Lohman is a
retired business owner from Colgate WI and operates for
www.ThrowTheRascalOut.org. He authored "Politicians - Owned
and Operated by Corporate America" and can be reached at
jelohman@gmail.com.
And think about it. The oil industry is not only sending our
nation's wealth to unfriendly countries, it is driving up
the costs of every vital commodity that needs
transportation. And the wealth they are reaping from us is
being used to buy up our own U.S. land and corporations so,
before long, we will all be working for foreign companies.
And all this because our politicians are on the take.
Congress should allow the US Corps of Engineering to drill
and refine in competition with the gouging OPEC countries,
and when refineries here shut down to drive up prices, we'd
just increase production to level the market. This is too
vital a commodity to let OPEC countries hold us hostage. Can
you imagine if we were being gouged on the water we drink or
air we breathe?
We taxpayers could also combat the gouging that goes on in
the pharmaceutical industry by taking the money that we now
use to subsidize drug R&D (which is 1/3 of all drug R&D), and
spend it instead on funding taxpayer-developed drugs.
Scientists seeking financial support could receive funding from the
taxpayers directly, and after successful development and FDA
approval, we'd contract with three private manufactures to make
and market the drugs competitively. The taxpayers would then
own the patents, not the pharmaceutical industry.
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