It's the straw that broke this Republican's back.
Much has been written about our skyrocketing oil prices, and how speculators in the oil market are greatly to blame. In 2000, speculators accounted for 37 percent of the oil market; today the number stands at 71 percent. These people are dealing in paper, not barrels of oil. They are not using the oil they trade; they do not affect demand.
I heard that 47 Republican senators have stood up and criticized speculators for driving up the price of gas.
Now, a government task force says the price of oil is up due to increased demand, and speculators are not to blame. (How many Republican political appointees are on this task force, anyway?)
The White House has chimed in and says the same thing. Supply and demand. Yet demand worldwide is up only a little more than one percent and demand in the USA has fallen slightly.
And guess what? The Republicans have suddenly gone silent on shutting down oil speculators, and the Democrat-led effort to put new controls on them is in danger of failing.
Do you think the oil companies and Wall Street have told their Republican buddies to nix this, because it might cost them money? I do.
President Bush gave the rich a huge tax cut with the idea the benefits would trickle down to the underclasses. And once again, the President and his rich cronies are once again thinking of themselves rather than the good of the nation.
I don't want to be associated in any way with these people. I quit.
John McCain is a good man, as far as I can tell. I may vote for him. If I do, I won't be voting for his party or a continuation of the crap the current administration has pulled on us.
I don't exactly trust the Democratic Party either, but I think working class citizens, organized labor, and other truly mainstream American interests hold more sway with them than in the Republican ranks.
So: call me an Independent for now, and get back to me in four more years. If I haven't quit the country all together and become an expat residing in some other nation.
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Now that oil prices are coming back to earth, we should all reflect on what has happened to US production over the past 25 years. No matter the cause of the price spike, US has reduced domestic production by 45% since 1985 (eia.doe.gov). Why? Democrats say "Can't drill there! Can't drill here! Can't drill there either!" There is a lot of oil off the coast of California, but noooo, it cannot be touched. There is a lot of oil in the wasteland of ANWR, but noooo, we have to preserve the wasteland. For what? Nobody is ever going to go there. That is why it is called a wasteland. Regardless of the price of oil, we shouldn't be sending all that money out of the country when we can keep it for our own economy.
We have a perfectly good powerplant sitting on the CA-NV state line that can produce enough electricity for nearly a million homes, the Mohave plant. But nooo, it can't be used because it uses coal. The Democrats, or the wacko wing of the party, forced its shutdown and are demanding we pay much, much more for expensive solar or wind. "No coal plants! No nuclear plants!" Nevermind that we have more coal than Saudi Arabia has oil. Nevermind that nuclear energy is the safest and relatively inexpensive form of energy.
Democrats are for more taxes, more expensive energy, more foreign oil. Unfortunately, unless the Libertarian wing of the Republicans break away, we still only have one choice.
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