LTE’s Sound Off
Mike Cloud used this LTE to voice his opinion on the drilling debate and the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate:
About two years ago, America decided we needed a change in Congress and elected a majority Democrat House and Senate, and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid took control of national legislation. Well, we got change all right: Gas was $2.49 per gallon when Democrats took over, the unemployment rate was 4.5 percent, and mutual funds were doing well for American families.
After two years of Nancy and Harry, we have $4 gas, 5.5 percent unemployment, and American households have seen $2.3 trillion evaporate in stock and mutual fund losses.
And, with gas prices America’s top priority, Pelosi chose to give Congress a five-week vacation instead of working on energy policy.
She refused to give an up-or-down vote on any of the Republican energy proposals that were brought to her desk before the break.
This would have to be the greatest example of congressional incompetence in recent history. This is an extremely partisan, do-nothing Congress that has been an embarrassment since Day One.
Sen. Barack Obama is also promising change if he gets elected. How much more “change” can we stand?
Mike Cloud
Lubbock
This LTE proves that Mr. Cloud isn’t the only one upset with Pelosi and majority Democrats:
When Nancy Pelosi took over the U.S. House of Representatives gas was $2.50 a gallon. She had been a very vocal critic of President Bush’s lack of an effective energy policy and declared an energy policy to be one of her top priorities.
Earlier this month, over Republican objections, she shut down the House of Representatives and went on a month-long book selling tour. The Democrats, under Ms. Pelosi’s leadership, have repeatedly blocked efforts to formulate an energy bill, and we can all attest to how much the price of gasoline has increased under her leadership.
Gas prices have reached record highs, while Congress’s popularity has plummeted to record lows. Congress’s approval rating is even lower than George W. Bush’s.
Apparently the pressure is getting to Pelosi, as she recently said she might “let” the House vote on a “comprehensive” energy bill. Normally “comprehensive” is a very good term, but we are wary of her use of it. To her, the word “comprehensive” will likely mean loading a so-called energy bill with lots of giveaways and unprecedented taxpayer burdens.
Mississippians would do themselves a great service to remember that Pelosi is one of the top leaders of the same political party as Ronnie Musgrove and Travis Childers, both of whom will be on the ballot this fall. Both of whom, no matter how they talk at home, will ultimately have to answer to the commands of the national Democratic party.
compare these LTE’s with this Boston Globe editorial straight from the Democrats’ talking points:
HOUSE SPEAKER Nancy Pelosi has joined presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama in a flip-flop on the issue of drilling for oil on the Outer Continental Shelf. Until recently, all three had supported Congress’s longtime moratorium on the drilling, lest it endanger marine wildlife in productive fishing areas like New England’s Georges Bank. But polls showing heavy popular support for exploiting the shelf in the face of rising fuel prices seem to have caused the politicians to reconsider.
The three would not have switched had they just weighed the merits of drilling. If the moratorium ended tomorrow, there would be no oil production from the shelf for a decade. The output then would be a drop in the bucket of global capacity, with little effect on the world price of oil.
Nothing from the Outer Continental Shelf is likely to change the basic math of US energy dependence: Americans use more than 20 percent of world oil production but have just 3 percent of global oil reserves. In the meantime, oil companies are sitting on leases for 64 million acres of public offshore and onshore sites that they have not bothered to explore.
Pelosi’s plan is to combine in one bill an end to the moratorium with other energy-related proposals, such as increased mass-transit subsidies and a requirement that utilities get more of their power from renewable sources. While these would be steps forward, another wrongheaded part of her package is a policy much favored by her fellow Democrats in Congress: release of supplies from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. But the reserve is meant to be tapped in genuine emergencies caused by war or natural disaster, not to bring down the price of gasoline in an election year.
Pelosi also wants to require energy companies to pay higher royalties for oil and gas production from leased federal land. This and similar proposals will cost her plan Republican support in the House and spur a guaranteed GOP filibuster if it makes it to the Senate. As far as Pelosi is concerned, that may be just as well - she would rather wait until after the election, in hopes of bigger Democratic majorities in Congress and a Democrat in the White House, before taking serious action on energy.
For Pelosi, giving ground on the drilling moratorium is a way to let her party’s members cast a vote in favor of a popular proposal. But her maneuver will only feed public cynicism about elected officials and give undeserved respectability to a so-called solution to the energy crisis, one that would likely worsen the global crisis in declining fish stocks.
The point of all this is that Democrats run the risk of siding with the major media outlets instead of siding with common sense Main Street citizens. Just in sheer numbers, there’s alot more people living in Main Street America than there are residing on the editorial boards of our nation’s major newspapers.
It’d be a mistake if Democrats chose to side with the major media outlets and K Street lobbyists on this issue. It’s also what I expect them to do in large numbers.
Technorati Tags: Editorials, Main Street, K Street, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Drilling, Do-Nothing Congress, OCS, ANWR, Moratoria, Election 2008
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog
August 19th, 2008 at 9:17 am
I think what you are documenting in the last peices Gary, between the LTE’s, Mark Udall, Obama’s “change of mind” and others are the tattle tale chinks in the armour.
We’ve heard everything from “Its too hard”, it’ll take 10 years, scare the poor little rein deer, to it would just ruin the planet forever, etc. Only problem is people aren’t buying it. Its crap and they know it.
August 19th, 2008 at 11:09 am
The Wall Street Journal Online has an excellent article on the do-nothing 110th Congress. While they have managed to pass numerous symbolic resolutions, they have passed fewest laws of any Congress (on second thought, maybe that’s a good thing), have passed no energy bill and no appropriations bills. But “it has used its powers to celebrate watermelons and to decree the origins of the word “baseball.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/
SB121910897089651793.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
August 19th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Truth be told, the less this Congress does, the safer I feel. Thanks to Mitch McConnell outmanuevering his dimbulb counterpart.
Pelosi, however, is even more clueless. She may be the most powerful woman in the world. Problem is its not her power, and not about her at all. Its the power of Union she is attempting to wield, and doing a piss poor job of it to boot.
August 19th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Leave it to (anti)USA Today to come up with a scare piece letting us know that the recent drop in gas (and diesel) prices is a foreboding, not a blessing. According to them, if the price of oil drops much more our country will lose its resolve to find alternative sources of energy.
Oh, my, I’m shaking in my boots! For crying out loud, those yoyos think that finding “an alternative source of energy” means that one day we’ll be using oil, the next we’ll be using hydrogen or nuclear or water or soap suds or whatever. They blow that smoke and the average soccer mom hears it so often she believes it, as do the “I’m in touch with my feminine side” daddies. They don’t even stop to think that, under ideal conditions, if an alternative to oil-based energy for transportation were discovered tomorrow it would be at least six years before it would have a significant impact on our use of oil, and probably closer to ten.
But, it’s always good to scare the brainless boobs who worship at the feet of the one of the second coming.
August 19th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
Well, its happened before. The party was supposed to be over in 1972 when we were only importing around 25% of our oil and gas jumped to 72 cents a gallon. But the orgy went on and on.
ABC was in hysterics tonight over the economy.