Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Re: Gas Prices and The Election: A Lot of Gas

I wonder if Little Kiethie is really as stupid as he sounds here, or
if he has alzheimers.

The Bush administration and its illegal wars holds the blame in the
surging energy costs. Yes, it does.

On Mar 27, 8:27 am, Keith In Tampa <keithinta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I wonder if Elizabeth Kolbert is really as stupid as she sounds here, or if
> this is just a "puff piece/feel good rhetoric" for far left extremist
> Moonbats?
>
> Of course the Obama Administration , holds blame in the surging energy costs
> and there is no question that this has been by design.  If President Obama
> wanted to end the skyrocketing prices of oil, he could do so tomorrow, by
> announcing that we are going to start drilling in the Gulf, or anywhere,
> and approve the Canadian pipeline.  This would cause the speculators to
> immediately drive the costs down probably several dollars a barrel, and by
> the end of the week, we would be twenty to thirty dollars a barrel cheaper
> than we are today.
>
> No, the Obama Administration has said publicly it wants higher energy
> costs.....Where was Liz?   Probably smoking the ganja as she tried to teach
> the world to sing......
>
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 27, 2012 at 9:02 AM, Tommy News <tommysn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > A Lot of Gas
> > by Elizabeth Kolbert
> > April 2, 2012 inShare9 Print E-Mail Single Page Related Links
> > Ask the Author: Join a live chat with Elizabeth Kolbert about gas
> > prices on Monday, March 26th, at 3 P.M. E.T. Keywords
>
> > Gas Prices; Oil; Energy; (Pres.) Barack Obama; Mitt Romney; 2012
> > Election; Election Campaigns
>
> > Last week, Mitt Romney, who, it now seems, is going to become the
> > Republican nominee whether anybody likes it or not, called on
> > President Barack Obama to fire three of his Cabinet members: the
> > Energy Secretary, Steven Chu; the Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar; and
> > the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson.
> > According to Romney, the three have spent the past few years carrying
> > out a not-so-secret plan to raise the price of gasoline at the pump.
> > Only by firing the "gas-tax trio," Romney told Fox News, can the
> > President demonstrate that he did not approve of this plan. "Time for
> > them to go," Romney said.
>
> > Romney's remarks came just days after Louisiana's governor, Bobby
> > Jindal, also on Fox, accused the Administration of driving up the cost
> > of gas in the service of its "radical" agenda. "The reality is,
> > gasoline prices have doubled under this President—highest prices for
> > oil and gasoline in a hundred and fifty years," Jindal said. "People
> > used to think it was because of incompetence from the Obama
> > Administration on energy. I think it's because of ideology." (As far
> > as "reality" goes, Jindal's characterization of gas prices is
> > inaccurate; they were higher in 2008, under President George W. Bush.)
> > Romney and Jindal, meanwhile, were echoing comments made by Newt
> > Gingrich, who accused the President of adhering to a "radical
> > ideology, which wants to artificially raise the cost of energy." And
> > Gingrich was following Rick Santorum, who, back in February, declared
> > that Obama's energy policies are based on a "phony theology" that
> > "elevates the earth above man."
>
> > Like almost anything that the Republican candidates can manage to
> > agree on, the Obama Administration gas-price-hike conspiracy theory is
> > nearly a hundred-per-cent hokum. The fakery begins with the theory's
> > premise: that the President could, if he wanted to, reduce the price
> > of oil. Oil, as it is well known, is a global commodity traded on a
> > global market. Gasoline prices have risen—they are up roughly fifteen
> > per cent since the start of the year—mostly because demand is climbing
> > in countries like China and because instability in the Middle East has
> > prompted worries about supply. (Since sabre rattling on Iran tends to
> > increase those worries, candidates like Santorum, who calls the
> > Administration's policies toward Iran "appeasement," are almost
> > certainly aggravating the very situation they decry.)
>
> > But an idea doesn't have to be true, or even especially convincing, to
> > be politically effective, and nowadays it's the most rational policy
> > options that seem to have the hardest time getting heard. When it
> > comes to gas prices, it's been clear for, well, let's just say forever
> > that the cost of gasoline in America is actually too low. Cheap gas
> > generates sprawl and traffic. It discourages the use of mass transit
> > and the development of alternative fuels. It contributes to regional
> > smog and to global climate change. The easiest and most obvious
> > solution has long been to raise the federal gasoline tax, which now
> > stands at only 18.4 cents a gallon. Among economists, there's
> > widespread support for this idea, including from Greg Mankiw, a
> > Harvard professor who happens to be a top adviser to Romney. Writing
> > in the Times earlier this year, Mankiw observed, "Economists who have
> > added up all the externalities associated with driving conclude that a
> > tax exceeding $2 a gallon makes sense." He went on, "By taxing bad
> > things more, we could tax good things less."
>
> > from the issuecartoon banke-mail thisLast week, as the Republicans
> > continued to hammer away at the President on gas prices, he set off on
> > an energy-themed cross-country tour. (House Speaker John Boehner
> > dubbed it a "tour de farce.") The tour, which coincided with a
> > freakish March heat wave, included visits to a solar plant in Boulder
> > City, Nevada; an oil field in Maljamar, New Mexico; and the site of a
> > proposed pipeline in Cushing, Oklahoma. At each of these stops, Obama
> > touted what he has taken to calling his "all-of-the-above energy
> > strategy." He said that he favored more domestic oil production and
> > more solar-power installations, a cleaner environment and a stronger
> > economy. He made much of the fact that, under his watch, domestic
> > energy production has steadily increased and that enough new oil and
> > gas pipeline had been laid to "encircle the earth and then some."
>
> > "Since I took office, our dependence on foreign oil has gone down
> > every single year," the President said in Cushing. "Last year, we
> > imported one million fewer barrels per day than the year before."
> > Obama sounded, as he generally does, thoughtful and reasonable, and
> > the figures that he cited were, for the most part, accurate. Indeed,
> > as the Times reported last week, dependency on foreign oil has fallen
> > dramatically in recent years. But, in terms of what matters most, the
> > President's energy tour was a dispiriting affair. In the course of two
> > days, he made four speeches. The number of times he mentioned the
> > major impact of America's energy use—global warming—was zero. In
> > Oklahoma, he announced that he was expediting the construction of the
> > southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline. The announcement made no
> > sense—except, perhaps, as political theatre. A few months ago, the
> > Administration refused to allow construction of the pipeline's
> > northern leg, precisely on the ground that Republicans were trying to
> > rush the permitting process. The whole point of the Keystone pipeline
> > is to transport more dirty oil from Canada's tar sands, which goes to
> > show that you can't be in favor of more pipelines and in favor of a
> > cleaner environment at the same time. A smorgasbord energy strategy
> > is, as Joe Romm observed recently on the blog Climate Progress, hardly
> > any strategy at all: "Just a year ago, 'all-of-the-above' was actually
> > a standard Republican talking point, so much so that Democrats
> > routinely mocked it."
>
> > What the country needs—and has always needed—is an energy policy that,
> > instead of pandering to Americans' sense of entitlement, would compel
> > us finally to change our ways. In addition to a phased-in increase in
> > the gas tax, it would include a comprehensive, economy-wide tax on
> > carbon, or, alternatively, a cap-and-trade system. As it turns out,
> > Mankiw isn't the only senior person in a Republican campaign to see
> > the importance of a new policy. When Romney was governor of
> > Massachusetts, he presided over the introduction of one of the
> > country's first cap-and-trade programs, for the six largest power
> > plants in the state. And in his book "No Apology" he wrote that
> > "higher energy prices would encourage energy efficiency." Perhaps,
> > once he secures the nomination, he can Etch A Sketch his way back to
> > reality, and challenge Obama to do the same. ♦
>
> > Read more
> >http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2012/04/02/120402taco_talk_kolb...
>
> > --
> > Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
> > Have a great day,
> > Tommy
>
> > --
> > Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
> > Have a great day,
> > Tommy
>
> > --
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> - Show quoted text -

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