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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Snowshoe who wrote (255193)	6/21/2008 1:14:22 PM
From: KLP	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793801

Part of the reason that Americans have such bad credit is that many of the "younger than 50 crowd" think that $40-50k isn't as much money...These same people just think in terms of "how much does it cost a month" to buy? We used to buy cars on credit for no longer than 3 years....Now it looks like the payments are over 4-5 years, so people don't think how much they really are paying. IF they pay cash, they will realize how much money $40-50 is, and then, they aren't buying a luxury car. We will know Detroit is serious about making energy efficient new cars when the prices are between $20k and $30K..... Chevy Volt in the range of $40K-$50K

To: Snowshoe who wrote (255193)	6/21/2008 2:53:05 PM
From: KLP	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793801

What Do The Democrats Take Us For? By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY \| Posted Friday, June 20, 2008 4:20 PM PT ibdeditorials.com Energy: The public wants more oil, but Democrats keep offering the same solutions, not one of which includes drilling and all of which are asinine. Do they think the American people are fools? ________________________________________ IBD Series: Breaking The Back Of High Oil ________________________________________ An online petition circulated by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's American Solutions group and urging Congress to "Drill Here, Drill Now" so consumers can "Pay Less" has reached 1 million signatures. Meanwhile, a new Reuters/Zogby poll found that 60% of the public is in favor of increased drilling and refining, while two-thirds responding to a Rasmussen poll — including 46% of those who call themselves liberal — think drilling should be allowed offshore. Not to be outdone, a Gallup poll discovered that 57% are in favor of a new wave of drilling "in U.S. coastal and wilderness areas now off limits." It seems Americans are well aware that members of Congress, not the oil executives they've demonized for decades, are to blame for the punitive prices we are having to pay at the gas pump. They want lawmakers to do something about it. But as long as Democrats remain in the congressional majority, it's unlikely that prices will fall even modestly. The solutions the party is offering are, at best, useless. Actually, we're being overly generous, because the Democrats' answers to the oil issue are childish responses that would do more harm than good. Begin with the fantasy that a "windfall profits" tax would bring down energy prices. Are drained-at-the-pump Americans to believe that insufficient taxes on Big Oil are the cause of high prices? Do Democrats think the public is gullible enough to buy that? Then there's this nonsense about additional offshore drilling bringing the price of oil down by only a few cents a barrel after five years that Sen. Barack Obama is peddling. Or Sen. Charles Schumer's claim that drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would "reduce the price of oil by a penny" and only after 10 years of waiting. These men can't possibly know to such a fine point what drilling will do to prices. What we can know is that opening ANWR and the Outer Continental Shelf will put much more oil on the world market as well as send a signal to traders who are buying futures as if the world was running out. If Democrats want to shackle speculators as they have threatened, then more drilling is the way to do it. But then that would let the market work, rather than the tyranny of government, and — something else we know — the Democrats don't want that. They'd rather sue OPEC or grandstand as Sen. Russ Feingold did last month at a Judiciary Committee hearing when he asked oil executives to explain why they are developing only "12 (million) of the 42 million acres of federal lands that they are leasing" and developing only "8 (million) of the 38 million acres of offshore leased areas." Short answer: Not every acre under lease holds reserves that can be recovered now. Many have none. But the leases were necessary for exploration purposes. At some point, Democrats are going to have to understand that their prospects for retaining their congressional majority and gaining the White House are directly tied to easing the energy burden on American families. Their current positions, however, are directly at odds with the public they think is so easily fooled.