Wake Up America !!

The energy crisis that now exists has been a long time coming. This is the fault of several administrations going all the way back to the Carter years as stated by Senator Obama in a speech he gave on Tuesday, June 24th, 2008 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The problem here is that the President does not make policy, the President merely suggest policy, and only has the authority to either sign the bill into law or veto the bill and send it back to the House and Senate.

The real fault lies with members of Congress and the Senators who have faced many forms of legislation on energy and have failed to see the future. A future where the U.S. has become so dependant on foreign oil it can only be compared to the addiction of a drug addict. That future is NOW !!!!

In this same speech Senator Obama goes on to blast Senator McCain for being “Against a 2005 energy bill that represented the largest ever investment in renewable sources of energy”. However, he also states, “That bill certainly wasn't perfect - it contained irresponsible tax breaks for oil companies that I consistently opposed, and that I will repeal as President”.
Just so I understand, in Mr. Obama’s view, Senator McCain should vote for an energy bill, which contains runaway tax breaks for the Big Oil Companies He further stated this, “But the tax credits in that bill contributed to wind power growing 45% last year, the sharpest rise in decades”.

This of course is very admirable, but the truth is Mr. Obama, the president can only propose a policy change, not make it happen. Therefore, as the cliché goes, nothing is more permanent than something temporary, meaning that I doubt any president would be able to repeal the Tax Credit portion of the 2005 energy bill. Too many Senators and House Representatives get re-elected by money coming from the Oil Companies.

The U.S. is a Representative type Government and over the past three decades or more our Representatives have let the American People DOWN!!. We have seen the last eight years where NOTHING has been accomplished. Neither by the Republicans, who where in the majority for six years and especially the Democrats for the past two years.

Both candidates have proposed plans to give the American People some relief at the gas pump.
Again from the speech by Mr. Obama, “Senator McCain wants a gas tax holiday that will save you - at most - thirty cents a day for three months. And that's only if the oil companies don't just jack up the price and pocket the savings themselves, which is exactly what they did when we tried to do the same thing in Illinois.”

Apparently this is not a Senator McCain idea. It came from Senator Obama’s home state. No wonder Mr. Obama was against the proposal, he has already tried it and it failed. Senator Obama on the other hand has a different thought, “What I can do - and what I will do - is push for a second stimulus package that will send out another round of rebate checks to the American people. What I will do as President is tax the record profits of oil companies and use the money to help struggling families pay their energy bills. I will provide a $1,000 tax cut that will go to 95% of all workers and their families in this country”.

I see two problems with this proposal: 1)the Oil Companies will simply raise the price to protect their profits, 2)there is no guarantee that the American People will put the money into a special bank account marked - FOR GAS ONLY.

Energy must come in all forms, from biofuls, wind, solar, nuclear reactors and yes, oil. President Bush has repealed his executive order banning offshore drilling. The House, lead by Speaker Pelosi refuses to even bring the offshore drilling ban up for a vote. Instead the Democrats are playing with America’s future by holding hearings on former employees of the Bush Administration and spent an entire day talking about impeachment. This is a complete waste of time and serves absolutely no purpose.

The American people need and should demand that their Senators’ and Representative do the job that they were voted in to do, Represent the People. Americans are hurting and watching their Representatives waste time grilling former White House employees over the firings of nine federal judges should not be tolerated. Over 400,000 people have recently lost their jobs, perhaps Congress should grill their former bosses, just to be sure that their layoff was legit.