Thursday, June 05, 2008

Looking the Enemy in the Face on Oil Prices

Americans frustrated by ever increasing prices of gas are complaining about "big oil," but George Will rightly points out that they might better apportion blame while looking in a mirror. Americans are getting the kind of oil prices that we vote for -- through our congressional representatives that we put into office. Mr. Will concludes his discussion of the refusal of the United States to make use of untapped domestic oil resources:

America says to foreign producers: We prefer not to pump our oil, so please pump more of yours, thereby lowering its value, for our benefit. Let it not be said that America has no energy policy.

The energy policy of the United States is to refuse to increase domestic oil production. That makes it consistent with the agricultural policy of the United States, which is to divert food production to energy and to pay farmers to keep land idle as food prices rise. That is consistent with the entitlement program policies currently promoted by both Democratic and Republican candidates, which involve responding to the certain future insolvency of current entitlement programs by proposing them to expand them.

It hardly seems an exaggeration to say that the American people have not been more poorly served on domestic policy by those they have voted into office in 150 years. One supposes that we should be thankful that these failures, while potentially disastrous, will not lead to another civil war.

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