Like the last couple Memorial Days, this one will be held under the shadow of not only an ongoing war, but a deeply depressed economy and divided nation. Politicians, many of whom have gotten us into this mess, will undoubtedly step forward and make their speeches and no doubt, some will take advantage of the day to score a few political points.
But, who will actually take the bull by the horns and do what is needed to correct this elongated Great Recession we remain in?
As well as being a day to honor our fallen heroes, Memorial Day is also considered the official kick-off to the summer, where people across the country will go on vacation, visit relatives and friends far distances from them and get out and enjoy the countryside as much as they may.
With gas breaking $4.00 a gallon, unemployment still riding high, taxes going up all over, business still failing and the dark mood of the nation because of it, many less trips will be taken than was just a few years ago. Ultimately, that will result in making the situation worse as even less tax revenues from summer purchases will be made.
No need to buy summer clothes for traveling. And not realized by many, whether you travel by car, bus, rail or fly in an airplane, taxes are collected off of the fuel used and off of the fares paid for travel. The current situation is very much a vicious circle with elected officials not seeing the forest for the trees as they still block most of the access to our own fuel sources.
API (American Petroleum Institute) has produced a short video providing some solutions to this quagmire we remain in.
Currently, politicians are demonizing the oil companies and using them as a ‘boogieman’ in the partisan power struggles in Washington D.C. You and I are stuck in the middle of this political tug of war, doing without, staying home, unable to afford vacations or travel or purchase very much that we might wish to.
At the same time, we have our Troops fighting in lands against terrorists, lands that we also obtain a significant portion of our foreign oil from and countries that don’t think too kindly towards us.
As we saw after liberating Iraq from the clutches of Saddam Hussein, we don’t even receive preferential purchases of Iraqi oil, most of it going to China and Russia, who played no role in Iraq’s liberation.
I have long maintained that the oil industry remains prepared to create hundreds of thousands of well paying jobs. Exploring, drilling, refining and delivering oil products as well as a multitude of secondary jobs in supportive roles to the industry, jobs are sitting there waiting to be created.
Along with those jobs will come increased revenues to the treasury from more and more people working, buying products again that also send revenues to the treasury. As more people are working and wanting to make more purchases, companies expand creating more jobs for the goods to be manufactured to meet the needs and wants of middle class Americans currently struggling just to get by.
Wood McKenzie Energy Consulting, at the request of the API recently conducted another study into opening areas currently barred for accessing our own domestic energy sources. The areas are the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, portions of the Rocky Mountains, ANWR, and the Atlantic and Pacific Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), the latter with pending legislation co-sponsored by both of our Democrat Senators, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell to place a permanent ban on any access to those sources. Joining them is both of the Senators from Oregon as well as those from California.
As indicated in the chart below, we could increase our jobs by over 500,000 and increase revenues to the treasury by $194 Billion with undoubtedly more coming in from those supportive industries and recovery of our manufacturing sectors supplying what the newly hired people will begin buying again.
As long as these areas remain ‘off limits’ to us none of that will happen. As long as we remain silent and a fall for the ‘boogieman’ scenario created for political gain, our gas prices will steadily increase, job creation will languish and we will find ourselves increasingly dependent upon government, a government that cannot even meet our current needs necessitating borrowing more and more monies from other countries and raising our already astronomical $14 Trillion debt.
If that number seems unimaginable to you, consider that “a cube of one trillion pennies stacked together would be 273 feet tall.” That’s just one trillion! To stagger your imagination more, it would take a little under Two Trillion pennies to completely fill the Empire State Building in New York City. Compare nearly 7 Empire State Buildings as equivalent to our debt and it is rising steadily as I write just from interest on the loans.
That some claim past President Reagan saying “the debt doesn’t matter” is meaningless with as out of control as it has gotten. It does matter and past claims make it no different.
Nothing or anyone is going to get us out of this predicament we are in overnight. It is going to take years of hard work and sacrifices and those won’t come without jobs beginning a recovery somewhere.
That somewhere remains to be those oil companies the left currently demonizes so much. Yes, they’ll make profits, lots of profits I hope. Out of those profits we will see expanded job opportunities, increased revenues to the treasury and a restoration of our freedoms to move about as we see fit, in our cars or on other modes of transportation.
Let’s spend our time Monday paying homage to those who have fallen in all of our wars and who died so we could enjoy those very freedoms we currently cannot afford. They and their loved ones have paid a high price for us to enjoy the freedoms our founding fathers also fought for us to have, freedoms and liberties never before seen in this world.
Come Tuesday, after the flags are folded back up, after the politicians end their speeches and the parades cease, let’s get down to business and demand our elected political Representatives and Senators honor those sacrifices when they return to Washington D.C. by stopping their nonsense and allow us to get back to work.
Let’s make the day after this Memorial Day the start of the Summer of Recovery.
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