Posted on 08/20/2011 9:57:33 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
GOP presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann on Friday stood by her promise to bring gas prices down to around $2 a gallon if elected.
“The price of gasoline the day that Barack Obama took office was $1.79 a gallon. If the price of gasoline was $1.79 a gallon just two and three years ago, certainly we can get it back down to that level again. Why wouldn’t we be able to do that? We’re a ‘can-do’ America,” the Minnesota congresswoman said during an interview on the Washington Times-affiliated “America's Morning News” radio program.
The $2 gas promise raised eyebrows around the country, but the tea party-backed candidate who won last weekend’s Ames Straw Poll wasn’t backing down.
“What Barack Obama has done is lock up America’s eneregy reserves. We’re the No. 1 energy-resource-rich nation in the world. We have more oil in three Western states in the form of shale oil than all the oil in Saudi Arabia. That doesn’t include the Bakken oil field in North Dakota or the eastern Gulf region or the Atlantic or the Pacific or Anwar or the Arctic region,” she said.
“We also have a brand-new natural gas find in Pennsylvania with over a trillion cubic feet of natural gas. We also have 25 percent of all the coal in the world. We just aren’t accessing or utilizing our energy. Energy could be one of the most stable, accessible forms of resources for business in the United States. …And we would create millions of high-paying jobs instantly,” she said.
Mrs. Bachmann, 55, blamed presidential policies, including stimulus programs supplemented by the Federal Reserve, for high gas prices and the shortfall in domestic supply.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
FReeing drilling and proper resource management WHo knows the good things that can happen...
In Alaska a new gold find is measured the amout of Gold and copper recovered in TONS....
THAT is TONS OF GOLD.. hundreds of tons of Gold.. many hundreds of tons of Gold..
And God knows how much copper silver, and molybdenum AND jobs..
No to speak of the Oil natural gas that will be finally tapped...
And if the oil sans and shale is tapped.. we will not need Canadian oil sand oil...
This like her "I would not raise the debt ceiling" stump speech talking point (except she signed a pledge, Cut-Cap-Balance with a repeal of Obamacare, to do just that).
It's weird and not credible sounding.
"Drill, Baby, Drill" and a strong dollar policy could do wonders for gas prices.
A 2008 Cato piece Weak Dollar and US Petroleum Reserves Behind Strong Oil Price
There doesn't have to world market control on prices for oil that is drilled, refined, and used in America. Nothing says we couldn't give big tax breaks for domestic production of oil/gas. Not the ethanol subsidy crap, or wind/solar pipe dream scam, real gas.
She will not back down and go wimper in the corner and it makes the msm even crazier.
A strong dollar and a little more drilling would go a long way to reducing gas prices.
When a politician starts making promises that may be beyond their capability, they begin to sound desperate.
Bachmann has promised to repeal Obamacare. Bachmann has promised under-$2-gas.
The Republicans couldn’t even deliver on their $100 Billion in spending cuts they promised in 2010, choosing rather to kick that can down the road.
If they start promising ‘the moon’, I start losing interest.
Read my lips, etc.
I’m giving her a pass on this one. Most people in this country are apparently complete morons, so she needed to couch the issues of monetary policy and artificially restricting our fuel supply in real terms rather than abstracts.
But she can remove the government imposed restrictions that prevent us from drilling for our own oil on our own land.
Image the world if the US was the chief energy exporter and the price all around the world dropped significantly. OPEC would collapse and Chavez would too. There is little downside to a massive increase in oil production.
>>She cannot will the price of something to drop to $2.<<
I agree. But her statement was what, in sales, is called a Big Fat Claim (BFC). It is actually a very effective tool if you can back up your BFC with facts and statistics. In her follow up comments she is showing the beginnings of doing just that.
That is a good thing.
And I think she is right. There was a related article today about a Wyoming judge ruling against salazar for sitting on drilling permits. If the oil companies were allowed to start exploiting what we already know we have, the price WOULD be below $2. Significantly so. We’ve merely been conditioned to see that as cheap. Kinda like we now see $1,500 gold as cheap. ;-)
>>As much as I would like to see $2.00/gal, that sounds like goofy (if not outright looney) thing to say.<<
We are living in interesting times. Saying house prices could drop 25% sounded goofy in 2007. We now only wish it was that little.
Time has a way of exposing those who saw the logical outcome of events better than others. Her remark is very much fullfillable if she takes Palinesque action. In fact, it could drop to a dollar or less (excluding taxes). It seems unthinkable only because of our current conditioning.
It would be interesting to view the taxation on a barrel of crude oil from its origin, through pipelines/shipping and refining process, to the consumer price at the pump. I agree that a reduction in per gallon price is feasible, but will require a freeze on increased taxation if not a reduction. Can this happen? Sure, right after Obama publicly apologizes for his incompetence to the American people.!
A very foolish pledge because the price of gasoline depends on supply and demand considerations that government cannot, and should not, control. If she does all the right things and the price of gasoline is, say, $3.00/gallon — maybe because the economy is booming or there has been supply disruptions in the Middle-East — she’s going to come under pressure to blame oil companies, impose price controls, restrict demand, an all the usual socialist snake oil.
Step 1.) Authorize Drilling
Step 2.) Subsidize Drilling (You don’t think they’re gonna front their own profits do you?)
Step 3.) Do some exploratory drilling
Step 4.) Determine that the best oil is under inhabited land and apply for Emminent Domain
Step 5.) Forcibly remove the “citizens” foolishly holding up property by having bought homes where the oil companies want to drill.
Step 6.) Wait 5-7 years for Exploratory drilling to pay off (Or until the research subsidies run out)
Step 7.) Pay subsidies to build processing plants (They’re surely not going to use their own profits you know).
Step 8.) Revoke collective bargaining rights for plant workers so the Oil companies can keep their labor costs in line with what they pay in 3rd world counries.
Step 9.) Realize after 12 years that US output does not significantly impact worldwide supply and as a result does not impact price.
Step 10.) Try to play catch up with all the countries that started to shift to alternative energy 10 years back.
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