Other Columns by Doug Patton
Doug Patton Bio

Printer-Friendly Version

If a $100 rebate from the federal treasury is the most creative public policy proposal Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist can envision to deal with three-dollar-plus gasoline, the gentleman from Tennessee should explore employment opportunities other than seeking the White House in two years.

What gives a representative of my federal government the idea he has the authority to rebate a pittance of my own money back to me in order to pay for a few gallons of gasoline? In what twisted, inside-the-beltway, revisionist version of the U.S. Constitution does a member of the United States Senate find such a goofy idea enumerated?

Is the honorable majority leader so out of touch he doesn't realize that $100 is only enough for about two-and-a-half tanks of gas at current prices? How about eliminating about two thirds of the bloated federal budget so you can cut my taxes, senator? Then I can decide whether to put that money in my tank or invest it in a mutual fund.

Then there is the weak response from the White House.

How am I supposed to respond to a president who, in time of war, announces that he is tapping into the nation's strategic oil reserve for the sole purpose of dropping the cost of gasoline a few cents at the pump? And what am I to think about the fact that he has just called for "more oil exploration" after five years of capitulation to environmental extremists and left-wing Democrats, who, despite the fact that they are in the minority, still mysteriously manage to forbid drilling in a tiny section of the vast wilderness known as the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve in Alaska, off the coast of California or off the Florida Gulf Coast? More oil exploration? Explore where, Mr. President?

Is this really the best the party in power in Washington can do?

Of course, the ideas coming from the minority party are even sillier. Demagoguery being what it is during an election year, the hyperbole is already flowing like molten lava from the campaign spin machines of Democrats like Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Nebr., who has just called for an investigation into "price gouging." A popular position, perhaps, but look for Nelson's GOP opponent to point out to voters that his posturing can't hide the fact that he has consistently voted against drilling in ANWR.

There are those who believe that "big oil" should be giving discounts to Americans, as though we somehow deserve cheap oil while the rest of the world pays though the nose for it. Ironically, with more than a third of the world's population residing in the developing economies of China and India, the emergence of these nations from the stereotypical squalor that has plagued their people for centuries is now exacerbating the problem, especially when combined with the restrictions on exploration. In a global economy, increased demand naturally dictates the cost of crude oil.

>> Continued -- Page 1 2