The Democratic Party has always said they were the party of the people. The party for the working man or woman. The party that had the union support. Recently, the Democratic Party has become the party of the environmentalists. The Sierra Club and Greenpeace expect full support from the Democrats and distrust the Republicans. As we hit the wall on energy the Democrats may have to choose between one or the other.
High gasoline prices hit poor people harder than anyone. High utility bills hit the same group and may even make them do without natural gas or electricity as the utilities pull the plug on them in the spring. Natural gas prices are at an all time high. Coal has gone up to almost $100 a ton, double what it was a year ago. Every utility is in for rate increases averaging 10-15%. Many states let utilities pass through actual costs quickly without going through the normal process.
A working person who is on a tight budget will be pressed to pay the utility increases and buy gasoline at double the price. They are going to be looking for fast relief. This appears to be the party line. Republican Party: The Democrats under Bill Clinton vetoed the bill congress passed to drill in Alaska. If that had passed we would be enjoying a million barrels a day of domestic production. The Democrats want the carbon cap which will increase gasoline prices 50 cents a gallon and double utility bills. The Democrats are the reason we can’t build nuclear plants, drill offshore, use coal for liquid fuel, and go after known ways to help our dependency on unstable energy sources and add supply to reduce costs. This is causing you financial hardship and is losing jobs. This is particularly true of teamsters who are losing money due to high diesel fuel. Democrats: Washington is totally absolved of any blame for high gas prices. It’s the oil industry and OPEC. We will lower your gasoline prices by jaw boning OPEC and through a windfall profits tax on Big Oil. We want energy independence but we want OPEC to give us more oil increasing energy dependence and burning more hydrocarbons which we want to do less for the environment. Tough argument.
This portends to be a mine field for Democrats. If they try to move toward the Republican position, they stand to lose the support of the environmentalists. If they don’t, they have to rely on lots of help from the media as they have gotten in the past, to help spin their yarn and make it sound credible. It may be a story that has worked until we hit rock bottom. Desperate times call for desperate measures. People are less likely to buy the conspiracy theories if the Republicans are doing a good job of educating us on why jaw boning and taxing won’t help.
Stay tuned this will be interesting. You notice we haven’t heard much from Uncle Al Gore of late. Expect him to be gagged between now and the election. The last thing Democrats want to hear is Al telling people high gas prices are a good thing. That they are cutting demand and helping with global warming. John Dingell jumped on the carbon tax, but old Dingleberry jumped off real quick when he realized the people he represents in Michigan care about the auto industry and would vote him out in a heartbeat if he pushed this.(see the March 21 st entry where he was awarded the Dinglebery Award). Senator Sanders from Vermont, an avowed socialist, wants to threaten OPEC that we will stop selling them arms if they don’t produce more oil. This guy is proud of the first bill he introduced was to combat global warming is begging for more fossil fuels from OPEC.
There is a record of our last experience with windfall profits taxing. Put in by Jimmy Carter it generated $80 billion against a projection of nearly $400 billion, was a big headache for the IRS, and raised imports. Wow, that’s an idea we should try again, right Clinton and Obama?
