The cap and trade system that President Obama is proposing has been estimated to cost anywhere from $700 Billion to over $2 Trillion over ten years. Let's take a look at the goals of the program, and see if the benefits outweigh the costs.
When we consider our current energy issues, there are two ideologies at conflict today. The Liberal position is to punish carbon producing businesses to force them to change their ways. By his own admissions, President Obama's plan would place such high cap and trade costs in place that building any new coal plants would prove economically impossible, and the price of existing coal-produced electricity would skyrocket. The Conservative position is to make the alternative green technology so attractive that people want to switch. There is a small but important distinction between the two: one is a negative approach that punishes industry and consumers, and the other is a positive approach that inspires change by rewarding idustry and consumers. And ironically, it isn't President Obama who is inspiring change.
Here would be my solution:
Open up drilling off the coast of California.
Open up drilling in the Gulf coast.
Open up drilling in Alaska.
Open up mining oil shale in Colorado and Wyoming.
And double our oil refining capabilities.
Here are the benefits to this solution:
1. It doesn't cost the American Taxpayer a dime. With oil companies experiencing record profits, that income can be directed to expand their business rather than just sit in their coffers.
2. It would create tens of thousands of jobs. People need to build and work the new drilling platforms and refineries. With more oil being moved around, more truck drivers will be required, as will more train operators.
3. It would generate new taxable income, at both the corporate and private level. In California this would be especially beneficial.
4. It would relieve the American people of their dependence on foreign oil. Strategically that makes us about 100% safer, as we would now provide for our own energy consumption.
5. It would kill the price of gasoline. That would be the equivalent of another Stimulus package, only this one wouldn't be financed by our children. And the lower price allows us to do one very important thing: raise taxes on every gallon of gas sold. Nothing lavish, say 20 cents per gallon. That money could be directed toward building new wind mills, financing electric/solar cars, rebuilding our power grid, or even water desalination of ocean water for the coast.
The point is this: the President's goal is the same as my goal, to move us off an industry that produces carbon, to create jobs (and thus new taxable income), and to make the U.S. safer. The difference is that while the President's plan raises taxes on us and our employers, spending all our kid's money, and hoping to force our move to 'greener' pastures by punishing our way of life, my solution creates jobs, creates new taxes, creates wealth, saves consumers money, and achieves the same end. His solution is all about the negative, mine is about the positive. His is consumed by destroying wealth, mine creates wealth.
The reality is we need money to move to new technologies. Money that cannot be created by taking it from the very companies we need to make the change, or the very consumers we want to buy the new and more expensive cars. My solution would create that wealth we need to make the move, and all with LESS government involvement.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Economic Recovery: "A Modest Proposal"
With Reverance to Jonathan Swift:
Today President Obama lifted the restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. The Bush administration had restricted federal funding to only those stem cells that weren't harvested from human embryos. The President's decision should be celebrated. Leadership requires bold initiative from time to time, and this particular initiative couldn't come at a better time.
The United States is in quite a predicament. Economically, we're blindly passing stimulus packages with little faith in their ability to bring us back from the brink of insolvency, let alone into genuine prosperity. Our workers are being laid off in numbers not seen in thirty years. Politically we are as divided as ever. Our medical system cannot provide for people in need of transplants, blood transfusions, limb replacement, or any other costly measure to fix our bodies because of high insurance costs. Our troops come back from Iraq and Afghanistan maimed, as our battlefield medicine has advanced enough to keep even the most horribly injured alive. We are a society based on consumption, and are much more wasteful than we should be. Some would argue we're destroying the Earth as we know it.
Our restrictions on sciences such as embryonic stem cell research are choking our ability to solve our own problems. As President Obama said this morning, "Some of our best scientists leave for other countries that will sponsor their work. And those countries may surge ahead of ours in the advances that transform our lives." These problems can only be solved if we take immediate and bold action, and thankfully President Obama is beginning to do just that.
However, a society facing such diverse problems as the United States would be wise to consider taking further action. Ideally, a solution could be proposed that could begin to solve our health, environmental, and economic problems all at the same time. President Obama has begun to tackle those issues, but I believe further work needs to be done.
The first step would be the creation of the Bureau of Applied Bureaucratic & Individual Economic Solutions and its sister program, the Save A Life Effort. The second step would be to fund them through the next stimulus package.
There are around 4,000 abortions in the United States every single day, which amounts to 1.4 million every year. The majority of those abortions are performed for lifestyle choices, not for life/death reasons. As such, the U.S. government needs to step in and stop this cycle of waste. With every abortion, a perfectly good heart, liver, kidneys, brain, blood, and various other body parts are wasted. These organs could certainly be harvested for the benefit of others.
The Bureau of Applied Bureaucratic and Individual Economic Solutions, or B.A.B.I.E.S, would be a federally funded program whose sole purpose is sponsoring women to carry their baby to term. The their hospital of choice would capture the donor body, store it, and harvest the organs when needed. The President's plan to harvest stem cells from human embryos is a good first step, but this proposed program would enable us to stop wasting all the tissue from aborted fetuses.
At a time when the public is divided politically, this would be a positive move to resolution on debate over abortion. Pro-Choice proponents would be satisfied, because no longer is a woman forced to carry an unwanted baby to term. As our President has said, no one should be punished with a child if they do not want it. However, if she signs up for the Save A Life Effort, or S.A.L.E., B.A.B.I.E.S. will sponsor her to the tune of $100,000, enabling her to donate her child to those who really need the help: our wounded soldiers, those in need of blood transfusions, transplants, and the like.
The Pro-Life crowd would also be quieted. Life would no longer be casually discarded but would be treated with value and respect. As things currently stand, the perfectly good stem cells and organs of the aborted fetus go to waste when we could be helping millions of people who suffer from paralysis, Parkinson's, heart failure, and various other medical problems. Pro-Lifers would celebrate the selfless giving of the donor fetus' life. We would no longer discard perfectly good material, all the while keeping the fetus unhurt. Since the donor fetus is not yet capable of conscious thought, the doctor would remove the donor via C-section weeks before the woman's due date and place it in a medically induced coma; thereby removing any questions of inhumane treatment. The body would then be transported to the donor wing of the hospital and grown until the organs, blood, and epidermis are ready for transplant.
Painful skin grafts would be a thing of the past, as ready-for-transplant skin tissue would be ready at every hospital. We would be able to remove the need for blood donors, as donor bodies would constantly donate blood as quickly as it could be replenished. Recycling in this manner would not only provide us with new transplant-ready organs and blood ready for transfusion, it would be good for the environment at large.
In today's world we need to conserve all we can. Medical facilities would no longer have to throw out plastic bags filled with fetus remains; saving on millions of year’s worth of decomposition. S.A.L.E. would also reduce our population growth and environmental footprint on the natural landscape, as a stored donor body requires less storage space and less resources than a living child. Especially when considered over the course of its lifespan.
The economic benefits would be of particular interest in today's economy. Women who were previously unemployed could be employed to culture donors instead of build roads. This would be ethically preferable, as it wouldn't force someone to work in the hot sun and ruin their quality of life in a job they didn't aspire to. Five million women could be taken off the streets and given $100,000, and we'd still save $300 billion over the current stimulus which could only create 3.5 million jobs. Those women in the program would be permitted to take additional work as well; doubling their economic productivity. We could literally expect the economy to skyrocket within months.
In addition, the President could rescind his decision to fund abortions internationally and stop pursuit of the Freedom of Choice Act. With the S.A.L.E. program, those politically charged issues would become unnecessary federal expenditures. We could also cease legally requiring insurance providers to pay for abortions, as abortion would no longer be necessary. Health care costs would plummet, leaving Americans with more discretionary spending power.
In order to create a situation of equality, and in support of the President's policies of spreading the wealth and economic fairness, we'd limit applications to the S.A.L.E program to those currently earning under $100,000/couple. It wouldn't be fair to give federal money to someone who doesn't really need it, no matter how strong their ability to culture donors.
The poor would especially appreciate this program. Never before in the history of the world would a government so benevolently provide funding for the education and economic betterment of the poor. With only one donation to the S.A.L.E. program, a woman and her husband could pay for their education without accruing additional debt. To avoid discriminating against those who are no longer fertile, one could always donate those children who are currently too burdensome on their parents, up to a certain age. Poverty could literally be a thing of the past.
An additional benefit of this program would be the progressing of medical science well beyond its current rate, something our current president was particularly concerned with. We don't want to limit the resources our scientists have to pursue new discovery. Those who lose a limb to accident or war could have a new one waiting for them at the hospital, no matter how destroyed their original was. This further helps reduce discrimination since S.A.L.E. would require donors of all races and both sexes in order to ensure matching skin tone from donor to recipient. Imagine placing a white donor hand on a black child. We don't want to be cruel or unfair to the one receiving the new limb, so we'd have to maintain a properly diverse donor base.
This could also be the key to increasing our average lifespan. As our bodies break down with age, a useful replacement would be easily available. Cosmetic benefits would include softer, more youthful skin not just for the rich but for the maimed and disfigured. Since the donor would be kept in ideal conditions, the limb/blood/organ being transplanted would be softer, healthier, stronger and generally more preferable than the one being replaced. Gone would be the need for Botox. Why inject poison into your forehead when you can exchange your entire face for a more youthful one without additional procedures? If smoking for 30 years has given you lung cancer, there would be a new set of healthy, young lungs available to you.
B.A.B.I.E.S funding would also act retroactively. Someone struggling economically shouldn't be discriminated against and removed from eligibility into the program because their donor is of a certain age. The guardians of the poor, mentally handicapped, and generally depressed should be eligible for admittance to S.A.L.E. well into their teens, if not twenties. Just because your donor was born before this law was enacted shouldn't remove you from program eligibility. That wouldn't be fair to those who are economically oppressed but in possession of older, qualifying donors and would prohibit the government from taking advantage of all available donors. In this case, the only restriction on donation would be that the donors not have all cognitive abilities or a developed consciousness, determined by B.A.B.I.E.S personnel.
The federal government's obligations to orphans would be drastically reduced. Donating orphans to the S.A.L.E. program is the ethically preferable way to help abandoned children. As a society we need to take pity on these kids who have no quality of life. Raising them in foster care is not respecting the quality of life of the individual. Donating them early would remove the financial obligations of the taxpayer and free up funding for infrastructure programs. After all, our infrastructure is falling way behind even the Chinese. We would also avoid having to pay for their eventual future in our welfare programs. Those savings could be redirected to Social Security, enabling an even better quality of life for our retired citizens. However, the elderly would remain ineligible for donation to the S.A.L.E. program, because they have established consciousness and to deprive them of that would be cruel and unusual.
At the end of its usefulness, the excess body tissue of the donor would be ground up and recycled back into nature. Each donor body would have an expiration date, as after a certain age the donated organs cease to be upgrades to the one receiving them. The recycled tissue could be used as fertilizer or even animal feed. This would further reduce our impact on the environment.
CONCLUSION
How moral is a society that doesn't provide for their ailing comrades, while simultaneously forcing children on those who don't want them? Is it ethical to watch someone die of disease, but not take pity on those with a bad quality of life by donating them to aid those who are dying? Is it right to consume our way through life and selfishly discard of perfectly good genetic material?
With the visionary creation of the Bureau of Applied Bureaucratic & Individual Economic Solutions, our President could diffuse the political differences that tear us apart, jolt us into economic recovery, help the ailing, the elderly, and war-injured, and move us towards a Green Economy. No other single government authority would do more to help humans live more ethically on this earth than B.A.B.I.E.S. for S.A.L.E.
I have no personal interest in seeing this policy adopted. I love my child dearly, and wouldn't place her up for sale for anything. My proposal is made only out of concern for my countrymen and countrywomen. I cannot bear to watch those whose lives are ruined with a child they do not want. Nor am I comfortable watching those who die from lack of medical care, or whose quality of life is reduced because they lost a limb. Truly I only have their best interests at heart, as our clear moral duty dictates us to provide for those in need.
As our President so eloquently put it today, "Medical miracles do not happen simply by accident. They result from painstaking and costly research." It is time we follow his lead.
Please note: this piece is satire. Please don't write hate mail, or leave hate messages on my phone.
Today President Obama lifted the restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. The Bush administration had restricted federal funding to only those stem cells that weren't harvested from human embryos. The President's decision should be celebrated. Leadership requires bold initiative from time to time, and this particular initiative couldn't come at a better time.
The United States is in quite a predicament. Economically, we're blindly passing stimulus packages with little faith in their ability to bring us back from the brink of insolvency, let alone into genuine prosperity. Our workers are being laid off in numbers not seen in thirty years. Politically we are as divided as ever. Our medical system cannot provide for people in need of transplants, blood transfusions, limb replacement, or any other costly measure to fix our bodies because of high insurance costs. Our troops come back from Iraq and Afghanistan maimed, as our battlefield medicine has advanced enough to keep even the most horribly injured alive. We are a society based on consumption, and are much more wasteful than we should be. Some would argue we're destroying the Earth as we know it.
Our restrictions on sciences such as embryonic stem cell research are choking our ability to solve our own problems. As President Obama said this morning, "Some of our best scientists leave for other countries that will sponsor their work. And those countries may surge ahead of ours in the advances that transform our lives." These problems can only be solved if we take immediate and bold action, and thankfully President Obama is beginning to do just that.
However, a society facing such diverse problems as the United States would be wise to consider taking further action. Ideally, a solution could be proposed that could begin to solve our health, environmental, and economic problems all at the same time. President Obama has begun to tackle those issues, but I believe further work needs to be done.
The first step would be the creation of the Bureau of Applied Bureaucratic & Individual Economic Solutions and its sister program, the Save A Life Effort. The second step would be to fund them through the next stimulus package.
There are around 4,000 abortions in the United States every single day, which amounts to 1.4 million every year. The majority of those abortions are performed for lifestyle choices, not for life/death reasons. As such, the U.S. government needs to step in and stop this cycle of waste. With every abortion, a perfectly good heart, liver, kidneys, brain, blood, and various other body parts are wasted. These organs could certainly be harvested for the benefit of others.
The Bureau of Applied Bureaucratic and Individual Economic Solutions, or B.A.B.I.E.S, would be a federally funded program whose sole purpose is sponsoring women to carry their baby to term. The their hospital of choice would capture the donor body, store it, and harvest the organs when needed. The President's plan to harvest stem cells from human embryos is a good first step, but this proposed program would enable us to stop wasting all the tissue from aborted fetuses.
At a time when the public is divided politically, this would be a positive move to resolution on debate over abortion. Pro-Choice proponents would be satisfied, because no longer is a woman forced to carry an unwanted baby to term. As our President has said, no one should be punished with a child if they do not want it. However, if she signs up for the Save A Life Effort, or S.A.L.E., B.A.B.I.E.S. will sponsor her to the tune of $100,000, enabling her to donate her child to those who really need the help: our wounded soldiers, those in need of blood transfusions, transplants, and the like.
The Pro-Life crowd would also be quieted. Life would no longer be casually discarded but would be treated with value and respect. As things currently stand, the perfectly good stem cells and organs of the aborted fetus go to waste when we could be helping millions of people who suffer from paralysis, Parkinson's, heart failure, and various other medical problems. Pro-Lifers would celebrate the selfless giving of the donor fetus' life. We would no longer discard perfectly good material, all the while keeping the fetus unhurt. Since the donor fetus is not yet capable of conscious thought, the doctor would remove the donor via C-section weeks before the woman's due date and place it in a medically induced coma; thereby removing any questions of inhumane treatment. The body would then be transported to the donor wing of the hospital and grown until the organs, blood, and epidermis are ready for transplant.
Painful skin grafts would be a thing of the past, as ready-for-transplant skin tissue would be ready at every hospital. We would be able to remove the need for blood donors, as donor bodies would constantly donate blood as quickly as it could be replenished. Recycling in this manner would not only provide us with new transplant-ready organs and blood ready for transfusion, it would be good for the environment at large.
In today's world we need to conserve all we can. Medical facilities would no longer have to throw out plastic bags filled with fetus remains; saving on millions of year’s worth of decomposition. S.A.L.E. would also reduce our population growth and environmental footprint on the natural landscape, as a stored donor body requires less storage space and less resources than a living child. Especially when considered over the course of its lifespan.
The economic benefits would be of particular interest in today's economy. Women who were previously unemployed could be employed to culture donors instead of build roads. This would be ethically preferable, as it wouldn't force someone to work in the hot sun and ruin their quality of life in a job they didn't aspire to. Five million women could be taken off the streets and given $100,000, and we'd still save $300 billion over the current stimulus which could only create 3.5 million jobs. Those women in the program would be permitted to take additional work as well; doubling their economic productivity. We could literally expect the economy to skyrocket within months.
In addition, the President could rescind his decision to fund abortions internationally and stop pursuit of the Freedom of Choice Act. With the S.A.L.E. program, those politically charged issues would become unnecessary federal expenditures. We could also cease legally requiring insurance providers to pay for abortions, as abortion would no longer be necessary. Health care costs would plummet, leaving Americans with more discretionary spending power.
In order to create a situation of equality, and in support of the President's policies of spreading the wealth and economic fairness, we'd limit applications to the S.A.L.E program to those currently earning under $100,000/couple. It wouldn't be fair to give federal money to someone who doesn't really need it, no matter how strong their ability to culture donors.
The poor would especially appreciate this program. Never before in the history of the world would a government so benevolently provide funding for the education and economic betterment of the poor. With only one donation to the S.A.L.E. program, a woman and her husband could pay for their education without accruing additional debt. To avoid discriminating against those who are no longer fertile, one could always donate those children who are currently too burdensome on their parents, up to a certain age. Poverty could literally be a thing of the past.
An additional benefit of this program would be the progressing of medical science well beyond its current rate, something our current president was particularly concerned with. We don't want to limit the resources our scientists have to pursue new discovery. Those who lose a limb to accident or war could have a new one waiting for them at the hospital, no matter how destroyed their original was. This further helps reduce discrimination since S.A.L.E. would require donors of all races and both sexes in order to ensure matching skin tone from donor to recipient. Imagine placing a white donor hand on a black child. We don't want to be cruel or unfair to the one receiving the new limb, so we'd have to maintain a properly diverse donor base.
This could also be the key to increasing our average lifespan. As our bodies break down with age, a useful replacement would be easily available. Cosmetic benefits would include softer, more youthful skin not just for the rich but for the maimed and disfigured. Since the donor would be kept in ideal conditions, the limb/blood/organ being transplanted would be softer, healthier, stronger and generally more preferable than the one being replaced. Gone would be the need for Botox. Why inject poison into your forehead when you can exchange your entire face for a more youthful one without additional procedures? If smoking for 30 years has given you lung cancer, there would be a new set of healthy, young lungs available to you.
B.A.B.I.E.S funding would also act retroactively. Someone struggling economically shouldn't be discriminated against and removed from eligibility into the program because their donor is of a certain age. The guardians of the poor, mentally handicapped, and generally depressed should be eligible for admittance to S.A.L.E. well into their teens, if not twenties. Just because your donor was born before this law was enacted shouldn't remove you from program eligibility. That wouldn't be fair to those who are economically oppressed but in possession of older, qualifying donors and would prohibit the government from taking advantage of all available donors. In this case, the only restriction on donation would be that the donors not have all cognitive abilities or a developed consciousness, determined by B.A.B.I.E.S personnel.
The federal government's obligations to orphans would be drastically reduced. Donating orphans to the S.A.L.E. program is the ethically preferable way to help abandoned children. As a society we need to take pity on these kids who have no quality of life. Raising them in foster care is not respecting the quality of life of the individual. Donating them early would remove the financial obligations of the taxpayer and free up funding for infrastructure programs. After all, our infrastructure is falling way behind even the Chinese. We would also avoid having to pay for their eventual future in our welfare programs. Those savings could be redirected to Social Security, enabling an even better quality of life for our retired citizens. However, the elderly would remain ineligible for donation to the S.A.L.E. program, because they have established consciousness and to deprive them of that would be cruel and unusual.
At the end of its usefulness, the excess body tissue of the donor would be ground up and recycled back into nature. Each donor body would have an expiration date, as after a certain age the donated organs cease to be upgrades to the one receiving them. The recycled tissue could be used as fertilizer or even animal feed. This would further reduce our impact on the environment.
CONCLUSION
How moral is a society that doesn't provide for their ailing comrades, while simultaneously forcing children on those who don't want them? Is it ethical to watch someone die of disease, but not take pity on those with a bad quality of life by donating them to aid those who are dying? Is it right to consume our way through life and selfishly discard of perfectly good genetic material?
With the visionary creation of the Bureau of Applied Bureaucratic & Individual Economic Solutions, our President could diffuse the political differences that tear us apart, jolt us into economic recovery, help the ailing, the elderly, and war-injured, and move us towards a Green Economy. No other single government authority would do more to help humans live more ethically on this earth than B.A.B.I.E.S. for S.A.L.E.
I have no personal interest in seeing this policy adopted. I love my child dearly, and wouldn't place her up for sale for anything. My proposal is made only out of concern for my countrymen and countrywomen. I cannot bear to watch those whose lives are ruined with a child they do not want. Nor am I comfortable watching those who die from lack of medical care, or whose quality of life is reduced because they lost a limb. Truly I only have their best interests at heart, as our clear moral duty dictates us to provide for those in need.
As our President so eloquently put it today, "Medical miracles do not happen simply by accident. They result from painstaking and costly research." It is time we follow his lead.
Please note: this piece is satire. Please don't write hate mail, or leave hate messages on my phone.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Some Observations...
-There is a very fine line between trying to assign blame in order to ascertain the cause of a problem, and assigning blame to play partisan politics. Generally when the massive spending passing through Washington these days is discussed, someone will defend that spending by saying, "What did President Bush and the Republicans do for 8 years?" That isn't trying to figure out truth of the matter, that's playing politics. Democrats do it, Republicans do it, we all do it, and it's lame, lame, lame.
-In case any of us were tempted to think that Democrats were the sole problem in Washington, the Republicans swept in last week to remind us that they too are capable of mindless spending. Republican earmarks account for 40 percent of the 9,000 earmarks in Congress' new budget.
-President Obama says he is trying to return the country to what made it so great. If that is true, why is he embarking on programs that are so opposite of what every U.S. President did before him? How is changing our financial systems and expanding entitlement programs returning us to our original promise? Is it naive to assume that if our Founders wanted the banks nationalized, our taxes to go higher, our health care to be nationalized.....that they would have done so from the beginning?
-The worst thing about politicians is their odd tendency to believe that nothing was really working until THEY were elected. Where does this desire to 'shake things up' come from? Is it taught at 'politician school'? What makes them so comfortable saying "You know the Founders did an OK job, as did the subsequent Presidents, but it is up to me to really get this country rolling."? Was the U.S. not the most prosperous nation in our history before our current politicians took office? And for the love of everything good, why does the taxpayer fall for this line every time?
-What's with the President constantly reminding us that he "inherited this economy."? With all due respect Mr. President, your mother did not die and leave this job to you in her will. You actively sought it out. You campaigned for it. Your right to complain about the current state of things expired when you won the election. I don't remember President Bush complaining that September 11 happened because of President Clinton, I don't recall reading Lincoln complaining that the previous Presidents left him a country in chaos, and I nor anyone else should have to listen to you complain about this situation either.
-Gas being cheaper than it was last summer is saving Americans hundreds of billions of dollars annually. It seems to me that a great shot in the arm for the economy would be to further develop our own oil reserves. Taking this action would simultaneously make the transition to alternative energy smoother, lessen our exposure to foreign oil cartels, create thousands of jobs, and keep gas cheap. The government should love the additional taxes. And best of all, with our oil companies enjoying record profits, this expansion would require no additional federal funds, unlike the pursuit of alternative energy in the current stimulus package.
-In case any of us were tempted to think that Democrats were the sole problem in Washington, the Republicans swept in last week to remind us that they too are capable of mindless spending. Republican earmarks account for 40 percent of the 9,000 earmarks in Congress' new budget.
-President Obama says he is trying to return the country to what made it so great. If that is true, why is he embarking on programs that are so opposite of what every U.S. President did before him? How is changing our financial systems and expanding entitlement programs returning us to our original promise? Is it naive to assume that if our Founders wanted the banks nationalized, our taxes to go higher, our health care to be nationalized.....that they would have done so from the beginning?
-The worst thing about politicians is their odd tendency to believe that nothing was really working until THEY were elected. Where does this desire to 'shake things up' come from? Is it taught at 'politician school'? What makes them so comfortable saying "You know the Founders did an OK job, as did the subsequent Presidents, but it is up to me to really get this country rolling."? Was the U.S. not the most prosperous nation in our history before our current politicians took office? And for the love of everything good, why does the taxpayer fall for this line every time?
-What's with the President constantly reminding us that he "inherited this economy."? With all due respect Mr. President, your mother did not die and leave this job to you in her will. You actively sought it out. You campaigned for it. Your right to complain about the current state of things expired when you won the election. I don't remember President Bush complaining that September 11 happened because of President Clinton, I don't recall reading Lincoln complaining that the previous Presidents left him a country in chaos, and I nor anyone else should have to listen to you complain about this situation either.
-Gas being cheaper than it was last summer is saving Americans hundreds of billions of dollars annually. It seems to me that a great shot in the arm for the economy would be to further develop our own oil reserves. Taking this action would simultaneously make the transition to alternative energy smoother, lessen our exposure to foreign oil cartels, create thousands of jobs, and keep gas cheap. The government should love the additional taxes. And best of all, with our oil companies enjoying record profits, this expansion would require no additional federal funds, unlike the pursuit of alternative energy in the current stimulus package.
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