Republicans Blame Democrats for 'A Nation of $4 Gasoline'

Originally posted by marg6043

They are playing monopoly with the lifehood of the people in this nation.

They aren't only affecting the price of oil in the U.S., but also the rest of the world!

Prices are high all around the globe due to our governments lapse of judgment in allowing unregulated trading in a commodity that people need!

People need electricity, so the government regulates the price that can be charged so people can afford it, people need insurance so the government regulates the industry so people can afford it, people NEED fuel/gas/oil, I just can't understand HOW they decided that it would be okay to allow oil to be unregulated!

[edit on 6/10/2008 by Keyhole]

reply to post by Keyhole


And that is my point all alone, lack of regulation because our own government and its corrupted politicians are up to their necks in the lobbyist butts and pocket books to ignore what is going on with their rest of the world and our nation.

Nobody cares as long as the wealthiest profit.

Funny how we can't get a straight answer from anyone as to why prices are so high. At first I thought it was some type of conspiracy or GOV corruption issue but prices are going up across the globe and not just in the USA.

reply to post by mybigunit


Great post!

How true it is that there is a bigger issue that we, the people, are missing. It's not the gas prices going up, it's the dollar going down.

reply to post by kelbtalfenek


It's the gas prices going up (due to the speculators!) AND the dollar going down that is causing the price of gas to skyrocket the way it is! They're both working to put a double whammy on us!

In 1999 the price of gas was around $1.40.

Well, now in 2008, with the dollar being worth half of what it was in 1999, would mean the cost in dollars for gas doubles, that would mean that, due to the failing dollar, gas would/should now be $2.80.

Well, we're at $4 p/g where I live right now.

Everything above $2.80 is what you can thank the speculators for!

(Hey, this was my 1000th post!)

[edit on 6/10/2008 by Keyhole]

reply to post by jsobecky


Who had a strangle hold on congress until 2006?

The Republicans and they had more than enough votes to block any moves by Democrats including filibusters.

Originally posted by grover
Who had a strangle hold on congress until 2006?

The Republicans and they had more than enough votes to block any moves by Democrats including filibusters.

Still, the Democrats took control of Congress with the promise of lowering gas prices and they really haven't done jack about it since. Typical of a politician to say anything to get into office.

Originally posted by grover
reply to post by jsobecky

 

Who had a strangle hold on congress until 2006?

The Republicans and they had more than enough votes to block any moves by Democrats including filibusters.

Actually no, they did not. Where did you get your information from? The Republicans never held more than 55 seats in the Senate since they took control in 1995. A cloture to break a fillibuster requires a 3/5ths majority vote, meaning they would have needed 60 votes. Since the Dems stuck to party lines where oil was concerned, there was no way the Republicans could have gotten one additional vote, let alone the 5 they would have needed to break the fillibuster. Thus, there was no stranglehold.

KNOW YOUR LEGAL HISTORY!

reply to post by jerico65

Originally posted by jerico65
Still, the Democrats took control of Congress with the promise of lowering gas prices and they really haven't done jack about it since. Typical of a politician to say anything to get into office.

Exactly. We're still waiting for Pelosi & Co. to deliver on their promises:

DEMOCRATS’ PROMISES: MAKING AMERICA ENERGY INDEPENDENT

DEMOCRATIC PROMISE #16: Lower Gasoline Prices

Promise: “Democrats have a plan to lower gas prices…join Democrats who are working to lower gas prices now.” – Then-Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Press Release, April 19, 2006

Broken Promise: “The average price of gasoline hit $3.218 a gallon Monday, up a stunning 11.5 cents the past week and just half a penny shy of the inflation-adjusted record, the government reported. The average is almost certain this week to pass the inflation-adjusted high of $3.223, recorded in May 1981 by the Energy Information Administration.” – “Average Gasoline Price Nears 1981 Average,” USA Today, May 22, 2007. Democrats have been in power for six months, and gas prices have gone up, not down.

DEMOCRATIC PROMISE #17: Make Energy Reform a Top Priority
Promise: “Democrats promise to hit the ground running on energy issues if they win control of the House or Senate. Responding to voters’ concerns about $3-a-gallon gasoline and the soaring cost of home-heating oil, Democratic leaders in both chambers have ranked energy as one of their top priorities for the next Congress.” – “Energy Reserving a Front Burner,” National Journal, September 9, 2006

Broken Promise: “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) issued a clear directive soon after Democrats took control of Congress this year, promising a comprehensive energy and climate change bill on the House floor by the Fourth of July. But with five legislative work weeks to go before that deadline, House Democrats are still left with the task of cobbling together a bill from as many as 11 committees…As for the deadline itself, a House Democratic aide close to the process said the package will not arrive on the House floor before the July Fourth recess.” – “Energy Policy Moving on Multiple Fronts,” Energy & Environment Daily, May 18, 2007. Six months after Democrats took power in Congress, no comprehensive energy reform has even been passed by the House, much less sent to the President.

republicanleader.house.gov...

reply to post by jsobecky


Just further proves my point they are all corrupt. They all make promises and instead do nothing but rack more and more in debt. The 2 party system needs to die and we need to elect people because of what they stand for and not because of a party. To many are inclined to back party first country second.

Oil prices have NOTHING to do with our current supply and demand. The price of a barrel of oil is speculative. It's the traders that say what that future price will be, not the government or the oil companies. They come up with those numbers by looking at our past usage and come up with our speculative production amounts and speculative demand amounts. Yes, the oil companies have have record breaking profits, but it's not the president of theses companies that are making millions of dollars in excess... it's the shareholders. It's every day people like you and me. My family is IN the oil business and they aren't making a #-ton of money... yes, the value of their stock has gone up, but it's not getting them that 5th house in the Hamptons. (Or a 1st house, for that matter.) Get real.

The speculative price is rising and will continue to rise until we, as a nation, start producing more energy than we use. 2008 has seen a huge increase in demand for alternative fuels, but most of them aren't going to be ready for consumers for a few years at least... the price of oil is going to go up until the trend of future demand is met.

Both the Dems and Reps are right... and wrong. We need to produce more oil. We need to build more refineries and drill (Which adds jobs and helps the economy). To get us thru until the alternative energy is ready and available. We need to do BOTH. As it is right now, WE are shooting ourselves in the foot.

I'm just as worried about the environment as the next guy, but I also have a different perspective. I live in Oklahoma. You can't drive 5 miles without seeing the presence of oil pumps. I'm really not sure how the 15 foot square fence is going to destroy our environment or a the grazing pattern of any animal. When Americans can't afford groceries to take care of their families, I think some elk can walk around a 15 foot fence.

reply to post by mybigunit

Originally posted by mybigunit
The 2 party system needs to die and we need to elect people because of what they stand for and not because of a party. To many are inclined to back party first country second.

That is so true and cannot be said enough times. The current attitude of party first, country second is bass-ackwards and needs to be eliminated immediately. Because the next sequence will be me first, party second, country third. "Me" being the politicians.

reply to post by JRoberts


Excellent post about the impact of speculators and balancing concern for the environment with the needs of the country. I agree that the elk can and will learn to walk around a fence if the grass is on the other side.

It is an agreagous assault on democrats to try to set blame on Nancy Pelosi for the rise in gas.
George Bush has been printing dollars way above the rate allowable by comparing the GNP growth to the dollars printed. He has taken our country into debt by giving tax breakes to the very rich and hugh multi-national corporations during a war that is costion $12,000,000,00t0 a month and is borrowing all the money from Saudi Arabia, Japan, and India.
This has combined to devaluate the dollar causing Gold, Copper, Oil, Food and anything valued in the dollar to go up in price. It is George Bush's economic policies that are responsible for all high prices.
Refer to (An open letter to George W. Bush ) on the net. Written by a hundred business professors in the US to him when he began these insane economic policies in 2003.

reply to post by burdman30ott6


The Dems have in fact blocked every attempt to allow more drilling off shore, in Nebraska, Montana, Colorado, and Alaska. As a matter of fact, if you add all of our KNOWN reserves that we can't get to as well as Oil Shale and Coal that can be turned to oil (as cleanly as oil can be refined), we can be completely independent and an exporter and actually have 3X MORE oil reserves than Saudi Arabia!

The founder of Greenpeace has chastised his own organization for protesting nuclear power. It takes 10 years to build one of those. If we'd have started 20 years ago when we wanted to, we'd have 30 more nuclear power plants.

Time to take the bull by the horn and stop making it a partisan issue though. INSIST that Congress allow us to get at our own reserves. Particularly when the Chinese are allowed to do it just 60 miles from our shores.

Please view the video "Zeitgeist" for the truth about the economy, etc. Google it. reply to post by mybigunit

Our refineries are presently functioning at about 80% capacity... if they were functioning at 100% capacity which they are certainly capable then there wouldn't be this crisis, there would be enough oil in the American market to keep pricesdown.

So now tell me are those refineries run by Democrats? No. So whose fault is it?

The obvious answer is the oil companies, that's who.

They are milking us for what they can get aka Enron.

Just wait... sooner or later some whistleblower will leak the facts about who is behind this... and it ain't the Democrats.

How can we lower the $4+ per gallon of gas we need for our cars, well, Chucky Schumer (D-NY) has the answer, hit the oil companies with a higher tax. That'll show 'em!! It's mindless idiots like this that got us into our present situation in the first place.

Who is really responsible for this fiasco?!? We are , all us voters are, for blindly voting in the smarmy Chucky Schumers and his kind, so sadly prevalent in both political parties. We've got to get them out of office!!

The governors of California and Florida are not letting us drill offshore to tap into huge amounts of oil reserves for fear we may cause some ecological or environmental disaster, resulting in a lot of hand-wringing by the tree-hugging, eco-whackos.

At this very moment, China is drawing up plans to drill for oil, our oil, no more than 60 miles off the coast of Florida. Does any logical thinking person feel that China's going to have any concern for spilled oil lapping up on our shores should a drilling accident occur. I think not!!

Election day is fast approaching! If you, the voter, are sick and tired of our elected officials showing no concern for us by not letting us drill for our own oil, show them how angry and frustrated we are by voting each and every one these useless, empty suits, out of office.

Both Democrats and Republicans are partially responsible for the increase in oil prices.

Democrats because they refuse to all drilling off Florida, more drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, drilling off the coast of California and of course never any drilling in the Alaskan frontier. What oil they do allow to be pumped from FEDERALLY OWNED lands, they allowed to be sold to Japan, instead of mandating that all American produced oil be sold only in the USA.

I lived in Santa Barbara for years, and worked at Devereux Point, which is where one of the worst ever oil spills happened. Guess what, three years later, no effects at all.

No, oil rigs are not pretty, but they are a damn sight prettier than minicars piled up on the freeways with bodies everywhere. They beat the hell out of $5-6 a gallon gasoline. And they would be far preferable to laying of tens of thousands of workers, because the price of oil is so high.


Republicans should be blamed because they allowed the dollar to go to pot, making it worth less against other world currencies. Since oil prices are based on the dollar, a weaker dollar means higher prices. And like it or not, the world demand for oil is increasing, just as the available supply is barely holding steady.

The bottom line though is the environmental fools. They have shut off all oil exploration; all refinery expansion and of course all nuclear power plants. They think anything done by man is evil, and everything done by nature is wonderful.

Well, nature sends cyclones into countries resulting in 10's of thousands of deaths. The one that just hit Burma killed more people than all of the nuclear power plant accidents and all of the people harmed by oil spills.

But of course, most environmentalists hate themselves, and everyon else, so all they can wish for is the extermination of the human race. They forget, man is also an animal, entitled to live his life as he pleases. They love a dam built by a beaver, for a beavers purposes.

They hate a dam built by men, for the purposes of mankind. Kind of silly reasoning, isn't it?

reply to post by Sublime620


Well, if one wants to blame Pelosi, I won't argue with that: She is the one that stated Impeachment was off the table.....

reply to post by grover


Excellent post, Grover. You've got it.

The oil companies are making record profits and they are using them to
buy pundits on TV like Glenn Beck, Hannity and O'Reilly.

There are too many ATS posters who are brainwashed by the corporate media and don't know diddley.
Any one who comes to ATS and repeats the corporate
media claptrap about environmentalists being to blame
is a major loser and a lowlife media retard.

I mean do they think it's okay that Exxon CEO's make millions of dollars
and don't invest in refineries? The US is being ENRONED -google Enron loop.