Let's Solve This Problem By Making it Bigger

Remember the story about the boy who kills his parents and then throws himself on the mercy of the court because he's an orphan? That's how Democrats work. First they create a problem, then they deny any responsibility for the problem, and then they make the problem bigger by offering their own bogus solutions. Let's talk about oil. Unlike the media and the politicians, let's deal with the facts, not with hysterical emotion. Sheesh, Bill O'Reilly has gone off the deep end on this one. We all pay 18 cents per gallon to the federal government and anywhere from eight to 45 cents per gallon to state governments in taxes. And oil companies pay some of the country's heaviest corporate taxes on top of that. The Democrats want us to RAISE taxes on the oil companies. That's just idiotic. How will raising the price of a commodity make it cheaper? Not a single politician has proposed cutting taxes to cut the cost of fuel. They want an investigation of the oil companies' "windfall profits." How about an investigation of the government's windfall profits? We have a federal government that is taxing us to death. The government thinks it can do absolutely anything -- constitutional or not -- because it has an unlimited source of funds -- We, the People. Democrats want to investigate the oil companies. They should be investigating the government. Where are all those trillions of dollars going?? And why does the government have trillions of dollars in the first place? Since when did politicians get the idea they can tax every human activity under the sun? And since when did taxpayers get the idea they're powerless to stop them? We've become sheep, and we would be an abomination in the eyes of the Founding Fathers. Nearly 22 percent of the price of a gallon of gas goes to refining costs. The solution to that is to simply build more refineries. But who is blocking that? The Democrats. They are blocking the construction of refineries, they are blocking the construction of nuclear plants, they are blocking oil drilling where we know oil exists, they are blocking any attempt at a long-term energy policy, they are doing everything in their power to make the situation worse. If you think the Democrats can solve this problem, just think back to Jimmy Carter. The states are also contributing to the cost of refining because they all have different pollution standards. There are 17 different blends of gas. Not only do they vary from state to state, the have to be changed from summer to winter. Standardize gas blends and the cost of refining will be cut. The oil companies make nine cents to the gallon of gas. At current prices, that's about three cents on the dollar. Could you run a business on that slim a profit margin? Adjusting for inflation, the price of a barrel of oil is $12 cheaper than it was in 1981. Where are these windfall profits we keep hearing about? Oil companies are making more money because they are selling more gas. We are buying more gas because people are buying bigger cars and not changing their driving habits. They have that right. But they shouldn't expect oil prices to fall if they are increasing demand. The supply of oil is at an eight-year high, but demand, not only from Americans but from emerging countries like China and India, is also increasing. There is NOTHING the Bush administration can do about that and anyone who infers the high cost of oil is the President's fault is just flat-out lying. Corporations are people. They are not evil people, they're just people. Corporations have a DUTY to their shareholders to produce a profit. The people who own a piece of the corporation depend on those profits to advance them on their journey through life and to make them secure in their retirement. That's capitalism. That's why liberals hate corporations. Bill O'Reilly and others are having hissy fits at the amount of the retirement package of the chairman of Exxon/Mobile. It's none of their business. It's nobody's business what anybody else makes. If you could engineer a $400-million retirement package, wouldn't you do it? It is the business of only the shareholders and the board of directors how the profits of that corporation are spent. Once again, that's capitalism. That's why liberals hate capitalism. That's why they are trying to incite a class civil war. The less people profit from capitalism, the more dependent they are on the government. And Democrats just LOVE dependency. That's socialism. And finally, it is simply untrue that nobody is researching alternative sources of power. Why isn't everyone walking around with their iPod hooked up to four D batteries? We are making energy advances all the time. Why don't we have a cure for cancer? It isn't because nobody is working on a cure. You can't come up with fusion or anti-matter generators just because it would be neat to have them. We don't have cheaper alternate sources of energy for the same reason the Founding Fathers didn't have HD TV. The technology is currently beyond us. But we're working on it. As long as oil remains the cheapest means of power, that is what we will use. It would make no sense to switch to a more expensive source of power to preserve something we don't want to use in the first place. When it becomes more expensive to power a vehicle with gas than with solar, we will switch. Once again, that's capitalism. You think our gas prices are high? Look at the prices in a socialist country.

Keep your eye on this issue. Like immigration, this is an issue where EVERYONE is either ignorant or deceitful. 'Cept me.