Stop The Obama Economic Bullet Train Now! – Why?

Many people in perceived fairness say that President Obama is in office a little more than two months, so we  should give him a chance.  To these people I ask, how long do you give a new nanny who demonstrates poor child rearing skills, with your children?  For the ladies, how long do you allow a  new beautician who is clearly doing her own thing and not doing what is best for you to continue before you yell stop?  We are seeing so called fixes to our economic problems that are not economic problem fixes.  We are seeing major changes to our civic culture under the guise of fixing our economic problem.  We are seeing a serious threat to our constitution, by a man who openly does not like our constitution the way it was written. 

President Obama is a “big government” – government is intended to take care of people – kind of guy.  Just listen to his own words.  He is asking to spend hundreds of billions on energy, health care, and education – sounds noble, but he has no plan on how to spend this money.  No businessman in the world could borrow money without a business plan, yet he wants multiple billions without a plan – he wants you to buy into his wishes sight unseen – something like buying land (swampland) in Florida.  This massive spending on noble targets may sound great, but you need to lift the hood to see just what happens when the big government engine is turned on.  In the world of gross domestic product, government produces nothing – it is a drain.  It does not foster job growth.  It does not provide the necessesary economic energy to sustain growth and to keep on delivering.  Government simply takes from the producers and the only thing it gives back is a portion of what it has taken – the rest is government overhead.  Over time, the producers stop producing because there is no upside for them to produce.

Sure government can create jobs, government jobs, and this does two things that should make you run from government intrusion in your life.  First, any government job created takes away from the producers the ability to produce, grow, and create jobs with a multiplier effect.  It must continue to take from the producer to support the government created job.  Second, the government created job, as it takes away from private sector job growth, keeps you permanently chained to the government to keep your job.  Some may say – “what is wrong with a good job from the government?” – the answer is that the government job is not sustainable and that over time, the ecomony and quality of life shrink.  As the economy shrinks, the government must take more and more from the remaining producers to sustain those made up government jobs – remember, government jobs produce nothing and add nothing to the economy.  As more and more is taken, the producers produce less due to loss of economic motivation – this becomes a cycle of doom.  Countless countries have tried this and met the same result – failure.

Throughout history in Latin America, South America, Europe, and Asia (most of the globe), power hungry despots and some well meaning socialists have adopted the control afforded by socialism and the “government can do it all” approach, and failed miserably.  Our current President is an academic with a law degree.  He has never produced, never managed anything, and appears to have never studied history on the failure rate of big government socialism.  That is, unless he is not concerned with 100% failure rate or the success of the venture (we cannot call it an experiment since the experiment failed in a plethora of tests around the globe), and he is only seeking the control and power that comes to a few, not the masses, from the big government socialist venture.

The following is Barack Obama, when he was a state senator, in his own words describing why our constitution is flawed and in need of change.  If this does not send chills up your spine, then you have not been paying attention.  He feels that the constitution does not provide government with sufficient powers.  In this video Mr. Obama telegraphs just where he wants to take this country with the big government socialist approach.  The video was found on a blog Bob’s Bites. (Thank you Bob’s Bites).

This bullet train approach to CHANGE toward a big government socialist nation with an understanding that the constitution does not permit the kind of change being attempted, must be stopped.  Unfortunately, President Obama will be in office for four years and the current very left, very socialist Democratic Party controlled Congress will be intact for two years, making the stopping of this train very difficult, but not impossible.

We need to pressure the members of the U.S. Senate’s Democratic Party who hold the more moderate and conservative economic voting records in the Democratic Party Senate caucus and three Republican RINO’s (republicans in name only) to act as a buffer and to take steps to retard the hi-speed approach to socialist economic change.  We must pressure these Senators to slow the massive government spending for big government.  This government spending is not sustainable and simply cannot be repaid.  You see, right now, the government is a sub-prime borrower seeking an unsustainable mortgage – have you heard this before?  This is what got us into this mess and now we are attempting to spend our way to prosperity and borrow our way out of debt – show me one budget text book that portends a happy outcome when you spend more than you can produce for a sustained time.  One book does explain this unique economic plan – it is the bible – the new testament to be exact.  It is commonly known as the “Miracle of the Loaves and the Fishes”.  Unfortunately for us, while Barack Obama may think he can walk on water – he cannot and he cannot perform the “Miracle of the Loaves and the Fishes” or make wine from water!

Do what you can to stop this bullet train, before it is too late! Tell them (cut and paste the statement if you wish):

“Stop the over the top spending and borrowing now – don’t destroy our country!  Socialism does not work!”

The Democratic Senators in the Senate, with the most conservative economic voting records and the three Republicans (RINOs), who should be pressured are:

Baucus, Max – (D – MT)
511 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-2651
Web Form: baucus.senate.gov/contact/emailForm.cfm?subj=issue

 

Bayh, Evan – (D – IN)
131 RUSSELL SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-5623
Web Form: bayh.senate.gov/contact/email/

 

Byrd, Robert C. – (D – WV)
311 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-3954
Web Form: byrd.senate.gov/contacts/

 

Carper, Thomas R. – (D – DE)
513 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-2441
Web Form: carper.senate.gov/contact/

 

Conrad, Kent – (D – ND)
530 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-2043
Web Form: conrad.senate.gov/contact/webform.cfm

 

Dorgan, Byron L. – (D – ND)
322 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-2551
E-mail: senator@dorgan.senate.gov

 

Landrieu, Mary L. – (D – LA)
328 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-5824
Web Form: landrieu.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm

 

McCaskill, Claire – (D – MO)
717 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-6154
Web Form: mccaskill.senate.gov/contact/

 

Nelson, Ben – (D – NE)
720 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-6551
Web Form: bennelson.senate.gov/contact/email.cfm

 

Tester, Jon – (D – MT)
724 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-2644
Web Form: tester.senate.gov/Contact/index.cfm

 

Webb, Jim – (D – VA)
248 RUSSELL SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-4024
Web Form: webb.senate.gov/contact/

 

Wyden, Ron – (D – OR)
223 DIRKSEN SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-5244
Web Form: wyden.senate.gov/contact/

 

Collins, Susan M. – (R – ME)
413 DIRKSEN SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-2523
Web Form: collins.senate.gov/public/continue.cfm?FuseAction=Contact…

 

Snowe, Olympia J. – (R – ME)
154 RUSSELL SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-5344
Web Form: snowe.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactSenat…

 

Specter, Arlen – (R – PA)
711 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-4254
Web Form: specter.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.Co…

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Off Shore Oil is History!

Ken Salazar, Secretary of the Interior, does not want to drill for oil off our coasts and will reverse the Bush Administration’s position on off shore drilling.  He prefers wind and solar.  I also prefer wind and solar, but I understand that effectively creating a new national energy infrastructure with additional and rebuilt power grids is tentative at best in the next ten years.  Why do we need to gamble on getting it right with a massive shift on source energy and delivery, when we can have that domestic off shore oil as a security blanket?  If we were to displace off shore oil with domestic wind and solar, we could become an oil exporter and actually change the balance of trade deficit to a trade surplus. 

Watch Salazar’s statement on Bloomberg.   Read Bloomberg’s article here.

Regardless of what he says, no matter the excuses he makes, the public interest calls for domestic offshore drilling now – it is clearly in our national security interest.

If we drilled for and sold our off shore oil on the open market, we could blunt the sale of oil by nations like Iran, Russia, and Venezuela.  We could actually use oil as a foreign policy tool.  We need all the edge we can get.  Yes, right now the price of oil is down, but where will it be in five years?  The Democrats put us in a bind over the recent oil price hike, with decisions that made it difficult for us to have more domestic oil on hand when we needed it.  It has been the war against off shore drilling by democrats that has left us defenseless against foreign oil.  The balance of power in the world will be in our favor if we have our own oil to use and possibly sell.  If we are successful in switching to renewable power generation, other nations may not switch as successfully.  Other nations will still need oil – it is better that they get it from us than from nations hostile to us.  In any event, wind and solar source energy will be a fifty year national change over. 

The Obama administration is so intent on shifting to green energy to save the world, that they are gambling our near term ten year future on an untried and unproven massive change on source energy and source energy delivery to power our entire nation.  Why not drill just in case?  Keep in mind that both wind and solar are harvested where the energy grid is not.  We need to build out our energy grid to deliver the wind and solar source energy through the existing grid for delivery to businesses and homes.  This necessary grid project alone is massive and wrought with a not in my backyard mentality (NIMBY).  Shutting out the mining for and drilling for domestic oil resources located off shore is foolish and myopic.  Gambling on adequately replacing our foreign oil with solar and wind in the next ten years is not only foolish, but arrogantly foolhardy.  It is national security negligence.

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The Hidden Agenda Against Drilling For Oil

Listening to the arguments and intentional misinformation spewing forth for and against drilling, it has become clear that this struggle is not between today’s low gas prices and high gas prices, but rather a struggle of ideologies. It is about forcing a change in the way we want to live or finding a way to continue to accommodate the way we want to live.

The Democratic Party’s defense of the status quo about not drilling for oil on shore and off shore is that the price at the pump will not come down tomorrow; drilling will not help for ten years – this was said by the same Party ten years ago; oil companies have 68 million acres not as yet drilled; ANWR, a frozen tundra covered in snow and ice so far north in the Arctic that no one will visit it for its scenic beauty, is too pristine to drill in a minuscule portion of that preserve; and on and on for the excuse of the day.

If you carefully examine the quotes on the topic of domestic drilling and pump price from Obama and other Party notables, a different motivation surfaces. These folks look to the high gas prices as a blessing. They seem to believe that high gas prices will finally force the SUV driving, air conditioning loving, home heating, energy wasting public to conserve. This is a “global warming trumps all other positions” manifesto. The elite of the Democratic Party are looking to and hoping for the pain at the pump to last indefinitely, and to use it as medicine to bring the energy loving fools in line. We have heard from Obama about how we must be more like Europe and conserve. Bottom line is that the Democratic Party elites simply do not want us burning oil. There is no attention paid to the ravages our economy has and will suffer at the hands of the foreign oil gods. There is no attention paid to how we have stripped our independence and defense bare as we have become dependent on these foreign oil gods.

The demographics of the Democratic Party have changed from the 50’s and the 60’s, when it was easy to spot a Democrat – he or she was a middle class working person who wanted protection from big business. Today’s Democrat can come from a variety of socio-economic positions. The Party ranges from the 1) secular progressives, usually affluent people who feel there is no moral right or wrong; 2) blue collar workers left over in the Party from the prior positions of the Party – these are the folks Obama referred to as “bitter”; 3) immigrants, both illegal and legal who are looking for a perceived better life; and 4) highly educated individuals who tend to be academics and who are pursuing the “I know what is best for you” agenda – these people truly believe that they are much smarter than the rest of us, therefore they need to tell us how to live our lives.

The Democratic Party hierarchy is filled with the “I know what is best for you folks” crowd, now led by Barack Obama, and this group, many who are also secular progressive, have decided that what is best for its party members and the independents, Republicans, and other assorted groups is to conserve and to go global. They want us to embrace the European lifestyle, have no confrontation with other nations – just let them be and all will be well, eat less, and ride our bicycles instead of driving. They have embraced the as yet unproved theorem that man is causing global warming, and yet they want us to make saving the planet our highest priority and that we must pay any price to accomplish this. Now just for a minute, let’s look at how this position affects the other Democratic Party members and the non-enlightened members of other parties and independents.

The blue collar crowd and immigrants, both legal and illegal, are being pounded by gas prices, food prices, health, and education expenses. To combat the perception that the Party does not care about these groups in its quest for European equalization, the Party has adopted a very socialistic view – let’s “villanize” corporations, especially big oil, the military, and any group that has the audacity to believe in any other policy than they do. The Democratic Party has embraced, even more than its historical positions, the take from the rich and give to the poor approach. Of course, they have to keep redefining the rich to accomplish this. If they do not take this position, then the elites in the Party will find that they will have lost the rank and file due to the policies of the Party – remember the pain of the expense of oil, food, etc. due to the march to save the planet from global warming. Also remember that taking from the rich and giving to the poor deprives this economy of the initiative to succeed and is self defeating in the long run.

This energy struggle is really about using today’s high cost of oil and the future high cost of oil to move this country off oil and toward incredibly expensive renewable energy before it is ready. While the drilling for oil today and tomorrow; and becoming self sufficient for energy will not immediately lower prices, it will mitigate the cost of energy, all types, in the years ahead as the world increases energy demand to 146%, of what it is today, by 2030 – EIA is the source. They do not want the U.S. to drill now and drill here because it interferes with their view of the future. They are not concerned about the impact of immediately moving to expensive renewable energy, before it is ready, done by restricting access to domestic oil and gas. They are not concerned that this method will negatively impact this nation by undermining our economy before we reach the utopia of 100% renewable energy. This premature move will make us dangerously vulnerable to foreign powers; and will make these foreign powers even richer and more powerful than then they have become today due to oil.

This Democratic Party Hidden Energy policy does not take into consideration that hybrid vehicles, and solar arrays are out of the price reach of many of their rank and file, as well as many other Americans due to the pain at the pump and other forces squeezing their wallets. It does not consider that hydrogen vehicles and electric cars are still experimental and when ready will also be priced out of reach for these people. They do not consider that the SUV and pickup owners along with the home heating oil consumers in this country cannot easily exchange their vehicles for the hybrids, or their equipment for solar heating because it is too expensive to do so.

Let’s remember that the Republican Party has offered no real energy solutions or any plan for energy either. The Republicans are not as smarmy as the Democratic elites about energy. If fact, they are pretty transparent about not addressing this problem either. They are just more straight forward about their incompetence.

This country needs a comprehensive energy policy now. It should cover how we transition from fossil fuel to renewable energy. It should cover how drilling here and drilling now will strengthen our economy. It should cover how drilling here and drilling now will add good paying jobs to the economy. It should cover how we develop and initiate renewable energy in an energy matrix that includes all other forms of energy. Unless we choose to become a second tier society, as Europe has chosen, saving our economy does trump the attention paid to global warming. We can do both, but a blended plan is required.

Energy independence early on from oil and natural gas and transitioning through 2030 to mostly renewable energy will keep us from sending more than $500,000,000,000 – yes Five Hundred Billion – to other nations annually to acquire replacement oil for the oil we are currently sitting on. Sending this much money to foreign powers each year has undermined and is undermining our economy, our standard of living, and our security in the world. If Norway, a “clean” nation, can drill off shore for energy independence, and France and Sweden can use nuclear power for their version of energy independence, we can have our own march toward energy independence starting with drilling everywhere and finishing with renewable energy to burn so to speak. If the Democrats and the Republicans representing you in Congress do not want to build a comprehensive national security saving, economy saving, and environment saving energy plan covering the energy transition of this nation through 2030, then you are represented by the wrong person. Think about that in November.

Added June 22, 2008 9:33 PM MST- Arizona

The following is information from the American Petroleum Institute that refutes the claims by most Democratic politicians and Democratic strategists that the oil companies have 68 million leased acres to drill on and that they should drill on these leases first. This refrain from the left to make arguments against drilling falls into the hidden agenda. Here are questions and answers to the leases about why drilling takes place or not. The API makes a lot more sense then these reckless individuals who will spout just about anything to prevent drilling.

The facts about non-producing federal leases:

CLAIM: Oil and natural gas companies are given leases by the government and purposely don’t produce from them to increase prices.

FACT: Companies pay billions of dollars for the right to explore on federal lands. If the company does not produce within the lease term, it must give the lease back to the government, and the company does not recover the billions of dollars it may have invested.

CLAIM: Companies let many of their leases sit idle and don’t produce them

FACT: Companies actively develop their leases – but not every lease contains oil or natural gas in commercial quantities. In many cases, the so-called “idle leases” are not idle at all; they are under geologic evaluation or in development and could be an important source of domestic supply. However, this does not mean all leases have the potential to produce. Companies can evaluate leases for several years only to determine that they do not contain oil or natural gas in commercial quantities. The road to bring the oil and natural gas to market — obtaining the lease, evaluation, exploration and production — is a long and complicated one.

CLAIM: If the lease doesn’t contain oil or natural gas, then the company shouldn’t have bought it.

FACT: There are tremendous risks and challenges involved in finding and producing oil and natural gas. There is no guarantee that a lease will even contain hydrocarbons. It is not unusual for a company to spend in excess of $100 million only to drill a dry hole. A company usually has only has limited knowledge of resource potential when it buys a lease. Only after the lease is acquired, will the company be in the position to evaluate it, usually with a very costly seismic survey followed by an exploration well.

CLAIM: There’s absolutely no reason for a company not to produce if it finds oil or gas on the lease.

FACT: If the company finds resources in commercial quantities, it will produce the lease. But there can sometimes be delays – often as long as seven to 10 years – for environmental and engineering studies, to acquire permits, install production facilities (or platforms for offshore leases) and build the necessary infrastructure to bring the resources to market. Litigation, landowner disputes and regulatory hurdles can also delay the process.

CLAIM: The vast majority of federal and gas resources are already available for development.

FACT: In the Lower 48 states, about 85 percent of the Outer Continental Shelf and 67 percent of onshore federal lands are off-limits or facing significant restrictions to development. There is no way, at this stage, to determine exactly the extent of the resources off-limits because many of these areas have not been subject to inventory studies in decades.

CLAIM: Non-producing leases could provide a major source of new supplies.

FACT: Many of these leases will provide a major source of new domestic supply once they are developed. Companies are actively developing the leases, and in addition to paying for the lease, they must also pay rent to the government while they conduct development and exploration efforts. But this process takes time. Reducing the time companies have to develop a lease or increasing the costs imposed by government will not increase supply for American consumers. Nor will denying access to areas of oil and natural gas potential like the Atlantic and Pacific OCS.

CLAIM: Increased domestic drilling activity has not led to lower gasoline prices, and more leases and drilling won’t help either.

FACT: Our nation needs more supplies of all forms of energy, including domestic oil and natural gas, to meet its growing energy demand. Increased drilling has helped the United States offset the natural declines in domestic oil and natural gas production from older fields. Greater drilling activity tends to produce more supply. Fundamental economics suggest that additional supplies put downward pressure on prices.

CLAIM: Companies should be penalized for not producing from their leases.

FACT: Oil and gas companies take all the risk with federal leases. Not only do they pay billions to obtain leases, they pay to hold them while they are spending even more capital to determine if these leases contain resources. Penalties on leaseholders on top of those fees would only discourage U.S. exploration and production, at a time when the United States needs all the energy it can get.

Added June 24, 2008:

You will hear that it takes 10 years to bring oil to the gas pump – the answer according to the American Petroleum Institute is 7 to 10 years depending on location and infrastructure. Now the rhetoric has been heightened by the left . Tom Daschle on Fox News Sunday, June 22, 2008, stated that oil from new drilling would not be available until 2030. As this is outright intentional misinformation, it supports the argument that the left has a hidden agenda.

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Why We Must Drill Now and Drill Here!

Today this country consumes about 20,000,000 barrels of oil daily or 7.3 billion barrels of oil annually. We import about half that – 9.9 million barrels per day or 3.6 billion barrels annually. A Bureau of Land Management Study, incorporating data from the Energy Information Administration, The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the Minerals Management Service, The Study , indicates that this country has undiscovered oil resources of 139 billion barrels of which 86 billion barrels are offshore under the outer continental shelf.

Today this country consumes 22 trillion cubic feet of natural gas of which 19 trillion cubic feet is produced domestically and 3 trillion cubic feet is imported. This Nation’s onshore and offshore undiscovered natural gas resources total 1,056 trillion cubic feet. The study states that the United States has a 49 year supply of natural gas. (Yes I know that the math indicates 48 years – must be rounding.)

If Congress stopped listening to the special interests including the environmentalists, this country could be self sustaining for oil for 19 years after pumps are pumping and for natural gas for 49 years at present rates of consumption, longer for both as we phase in renewable energy. This equates to a trade balance savings of $9.2 trillion at today’s prices and consumption sent to foreign powers, in oil alone. Just think how this change in our trade balance would improve our economy and our standard of living.

If you are still not convinced, then consider that an extrapolated world energy consumption is 478.9 quadrillion BTU’s in 2008. The projected world energy consumption in 2030 is 701.6 quadrillion BTU’s. In 22 years the world’s annual energy consumption will be 146.5% of what it is today.  What will that do to energy prices?

Planned correctly, we can sustain our energy needs for that period, move to natural gas over oil, and develop the much needed renewable energy production capabilities for the second half of the 21st century. Could these worldwide supply and demand numbers be driving up the cost of oil in speculation markets? Yes! Just how dumb are we? We will not drill in all Federal lands and off the California and Florida shores. The Middle Atlantic coast alone has vast natural gas resources, these can be tapped as well.

As late as last week, Congress was scrambling to declare more land to be off limits to protect the scenic beauty of this nation, while we are in an energy struggle with the world. We do not have a national security based energy plan and have not had one, period. Our Presidents and our Congresses have not seen fit to ensure that the lifeblood of this nation’s production capability and our survival is planned and secure. President Bush wants a legacy, well how about leaving us with a sound comprehensive national security based energy plan. We have Congresspersons and Senators, who refuse to open up drilling and recklessly are spouting how we will power this nation with wind and solar, and they do not have a clue, otherwise, they would be preparing this energy plan and utilizing our existing natural resources to protect our economy.

The following charts are from the Energy Information Administration and they project the source of energy used by this nation till 2030. This chart assumes that the Florida and California continental shelves remain off limits as is drilling on much Federal land, such as ANWR. Note the size of the contribution of renewable energy to the matrix.

The second chart indicates what our shortfall of consumption will be, if we do not move to full utilization of our domestic energy reserves – that is a 40 quadrillion shortfall.

It is amazing what can be found at the Energy Information Administration, the Bureau of Land Management, the USGS, and the Minerals Management Service web sites. Opening up all the currently off limits land and continental shelves is the only smart thing to do, if we are to remain a power and possess the standard of living to which we have become accustomed. A sound energy plan is one of The Two Most Important Issues Facing America Today. Assuming that renewable energy will be sufficient to fully drive this nation during the next 20 years is a pipe dream. If your representative in Congress is still on the renewable energy bandwagon at the expense of drilling for oil and natural gas today, you may want to set them straight.

Wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, are all necessary sources of energy for this nation and must be pursued now. These renewable energy sources will power our nation in the second half of the 21st century. I did not mention ethanol and other biofuels, because corn based ethanol is just plain dumb – we need the land to feed the world, other ethanol based sources are not nearly ready, and some of the more exotic plants used for biofuels are a late 21st century source of energy. If you follow the global warming people to the promised land of corn ethanol, you will find that the corn crop and other biofuels crops are subject to all the weather interruptions they claim global warming will cause. Can we grow our way to energy independence if the weather is a factor in both food supplies and energy supplies? Not smart!

A true energy plan will help us securely transition from fossil fuel to new forms of energy. We must transition and not make a wild jump before the new fuels are fully ready. If you do not want this country thrust into energy chaos, both financially and physically, tell your Representatives to get smart, drill, plan, and do it now.

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