Senate Fails To Raise Gas Prices

Yesterday, the Senate failed to pass a bill that would raise gas prices. That's not a typo, I said raise. Why would the Senate want to introduce a bill that would raise gas prices above their already ludicrous levels? Well they didn't want to, they has good intentions and thought they were helping. Unfortunately the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Senate Democrats put forth an energy bill with a key component being a windfall tax on oil company profits that were not reinvested in alternative energy sources. The thinking behind this is that it would help wean us off of our dependency on foreign oil. Unfortunately, that's not what would have happened.

Oil companies are responsible to their shareholders. The shareholders want profits. A windfall tax means an extra cost to the company. In order to offset the cost, the company must either cut costs somewhere else (i.e. layoffs) or raise prices. So the effect of this bill would have been greater gas prices or greater unemployment.

Now I see the scowls on some faces out there. You're thinking, "Why should I care if the shareholders make money? That's not helping me any." Well it probably is. If you have a pension, you're one of their shareholders. Most pension funds, from private mutual funds to city, state, and federal retirement plans are all heavily invested in oil companies.

Do you have kids? Their teachers' benefits are paid for by investments in oil companies. If you think it's hard to find good teachers now, imagine what it would be like if they had no benefits. Police, fire, ambulance, all these municipal workers have benefits paid for by investments in oil companies. Would you like to make it harder to attract good people for those positions?

Now I'm not saying that oil companies alone are paying for all this, they're just a large part of it. I'm also not saying I like high gas prices. I am saying that we need a feasible, economically-sound energy policy. If the senate (and congress) really wants to do something about the high prices, they need to take steps that will actually amount to lower prices. What can they do? Open more lands for oil drilling, allow more nuclear plants to be built, focus on strengthening the dollar. Each of these will lower the price of oil. None of them is a magic bullet, and none of them will work overnight, but unlike the tax plan, they will help.

What Did You Do To Win The Iraq War?

A group called Freedom's Watch is starting an ad campaign to convince wavering politicians not to "cut and run." The campaign has inflamed anti-war activists who claim the war is lost, we need to pull out. If the anti-war activists really want us out of Iraq, what are they doing about it, other than complaining? The simplest way to get our troops home is to win the war, so what are activists doing to win the war.

The biggest complaint seems to be "this is a war for oil." If this were true, and the point is simply to feed America's need for oil, activists should be fighting to use less oil. How much oil was do you think was wasted by Cindy Sheehan's movement. Every car that drove a supporter, every plastic cup that a protester drank from, every bottle of water used, all came from oil. If you believe we're there for oil, stop using so much of it.

If you believe that the war is not effective as a means of stopping terrorists, you should be working to secure our borders. How can we protect ourselves if we don't know who is crossing our borders?

In World War II, every American fought the war. Food and energy were rationed. Since then, American citizens have looked at wars as something that just the military fights. That simply isn't the case. If you want to stop a war, then do something to win it. Don't just whine.