Very effective ad against Obama

• For the past 31 years, Congress repeatedly prevented us from building any new oil refineries that we now badly need.

• More recently, congressional Democrats defeated and discouraged any bill that would let us drill in the deep sea 100 miles out. However, it’s somehow OK for China to drill there.

• As a further indictment of our Congress, since the 1980s it has continually stopped all building of nuclear power plants while France, Germany and, yes, Japan, plus 12 other major nations, did build plants and now get 20% to 80% of their energy from their wise and safe nuclear plant investments.

• From 1990 to 2000, U.S. crude oil demand rapidly accelerated by 7.41 quadrillion BTUs, according to Department of Energy data. And our rate of foreign oil dependency dramatically increased while our domestic oil production steadily declined.

Under the eight Clinton years alone, U.S. oil production declined 1,349,000 barrels per day, or 19%, while our foreign imports increased 3,574,000 barrels per day, or 45%.

During this time, President Clinton vetoed ANWR drilling bills that would have clearly made Alaska our No. 1 state in the production of our own vitally needed oil supply, not only for all Americans but also for national defense emergencies.

dawg, first of all, no one here is saying that "McSame" is the answer-not by a long shot.

Secondly, you are the one who has a selective memory. You accuse us of the very same thing you are guilty of.

I doubt history will judge Bush as severely as you have done.

Umm.. Last I checked, NONE of the candidates have executive experience. (Heck, they're all from the exact same section of the same branch, for that matter.) So there, its a wash.

Not that our previous candidate's executive experience was all that helpful. And we've had a pretty good amount of non-executive branch presidents.

Sorry about posting the extra "L" in your name. My wife uses two L's.

Carter has honor like my stepson's wife has brains--none.

"• For the past 31 years, Congress repeatedly prevented us from building any new oil refineries that we now badly need."

So why weren't there any refineries built between 1994 and 2006? Did the Republican-controlled congress prevent them all? I can see Bill Clinton perhaps being against that, but why wouldn't George W. Bush sign off on another one?

Didn't a bunch of oil company executives just testify before congress a couple of weeks ago saying that they didn't even want to build additional refineries?

Every Republican should be out there saying that Obama is four more years of Carter without the executive experience. That's a frightening thought!

...for anyone old enough to remember.

well, i will certainly stick up for michele on that point. but if only truth would come from the horse's mouth...

"Nothing like a selective memory to serve the ends of a bunch of people who have absolutely NOTHING to show for themselves and their party but a tanking economy, a disastrous war, the loss of America's moral authority, a whole new generation of Islamic extremists, fear-mongering, rancor and division.

It's time for a change, and we sure aren't going to get it with McSame."

But, yellow dog, why would we compare him to Clinton? Does he sound anything like Clinton? Of course not! The reason we're saying that he's another Jimmy Carter is because he sounds just like Carter. Um...it's not too hard to figure out when you see all the comparisons. Both are moralists, both are socialists, both are naive, both ran for office lacking any foreign policy experience which made their naiveté all the more dangerous.

"Anybody with an entire brain knows that this is only partly true; the ability to pass a tax on to the consumers depends on the elasticity of demand. Only in a case of absolute inelasticity can the entire amount of a tax be passed on to the consumer."

Um...have you noticed the subject matter? We're talking oil here. They'll be able to pass the tax on, don't you think?

Of course I noticed the subject matter. But you didn't qualify your blanket statement--you stated it as a general principle. Which is the same as many tax cutters do when they say nonsense like, "Cutting the capital gains tax increases revenues." That can be true sometimes, just like your statement about passing on taxes to consumers. But many in the public hear these blanket statements without getting the unspoken qualifiers, and take them as gospel truth. So you need to decide if you want to be one of the misleaders and de-educators, like Charlie Gibson, or would you rather see an economically educated populace.

All that said, yes--demand for oil/gas is highly inelastic, and the majority of the tax would be passed on. I agree with you.

I guess I'm a bit anal for precise language when it comes to economic discussions. I'm a bit defensive in this election cycle that had one of the two Democrats dismiss my entire profession as elitist while promoting populist nonsense like a gas tax holiday (which fails for much the same reason, operating in reverse, as the other Democrat's windfall profits tax).

The fact is, whatever did it.. luck, nature, divine providence.. but we have no big huge bubbling pool of crude anywhere within our own borders. Indeed, most of it is in areas of the world that don't like us.

So, the answer is, reduce reliance on a single limited substance that is mostly controlled by those hostile to our interests and can use it to seriously harm us. We do that by both using it less, and by trying to find SOMETHING ELSE. Something we can produce.

No, the response is to /WORK FOR ALTERNATIVES/. And to realize that the people who have been in less than two years, and had most of their propositions vetoed might have less to do with this than the group who was in for the last 12.

I don't drive a car. I've been in houses that have used everything from fuel oil to natural gas to wood stoves and solar to heat them. We have two buses, one using cooking grease, the other uses hydrogen fuel cells to run them.

Much of the technology IS there. But I said 'WORK for alternatives'. Not 'use the alternatives that are already there waiting'. But using both 'it will take time' and 'it isn't there now' to not work on it doesn't make sense.

The 'oil that is there' is not only not very much, but will cost money to get to, and time. If you're wanting to help the poor now, this is hardly the way to do it. ANWR, alone, will take ten YEARS to get to. And as again noted, we don't have the refinery capacity anyway. (Nor have the oil companies sought it, as again noted.)

Saying 'If Clinton'.. If Clinton had, they'd be GONE now.

The fuel we have won't end our dependence because we can't refine 21 MILLION barrels a day. We can't pump 21 MILLION barrels a day. The people talking about opening those areas are talking like it will make us 'energy independent'. It won't. It can't. At best, even if those two issues change, it will make us able to supply at least some of our own needs for a decade or so. (And that is, as noted, based on an exceptionally generous estimate of the amount of oil available.)

The fact that they used such a useless and deceptive time frame shows that they likely know it too. Woo, we have enough oil to run 60 million cars for 60 years. Like we only use oil for cars, or that we only run 60 million cars a day, for that matter.

Again, I would agree on very stringent requirements. The oil IS only used for the US. (And oil, being interchangeable, that would require that the amount of oil pumped and refined from those locations is tallied, and that much oil reserved, no matter where it comes from. Once it gets in gas station tanks, you can't tell where its from.)

That the profits FROM that gas (note, allow for the expenses to be paid for) go DIRECTLY, and SOLELY for a real, legitimate, and monitored effort at developing alternative fuels.

Period.

And maybe, at the end of that decade (assuming our usage doesn't change. Whoops, went up a MILLION barrels a day just this year), or sooner, we will have something to work with.