Bribery as Political Strategy

If ever there were a measure of the moral bankrupcy of the Republican party, today's debate on gas prices was it. Bill Frist announced proudly the Republican plan for winning the hearts and minds of Americans, give them $100 each due to the high price of gasoline!

How about giving us health care and fuel economy standards. Maybe then we wouldn't be so worried about filling up our SUVs.

The $100 offer is a blatant bribe and a pointed admission that the Republicans, bought and paid for by Big Oil, haven't a clue what to do about energy. They gave the industry $14 billion in tax breaks last year. Oil more than any other sector donates to Republican campaigns and funds Republican lobbyists. Now this bribe, like any other, comes with a price. We're to sell the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for $100 per taxpayer. Yes, taxpayer. Minor children get $100 in gas tax rebates, the official name for the bribe. Prisoners who file taxes get the cash, as do those without driver's licenses. The Democrats aren't doing much better by offering to suspend the Federal fuel tax for 60 days but at least they're not sending out checks to buy votes in November.

Everyone is talking price gouging. I don't want to defend oil companies but two things are at work here. First, the corporation is not lining its pockets. The profits are being redistributed to shareholders, among others me through my mutual fund holdings. A corporation distributes wealth to its shareholders either in the form of equity or dividends. Second, the oil industry has been investigated several times since the oil shocks of the '70's and there has never been a hint of price fixing. The problem is a resource in high demand but with limited supply. Get ready for $4.00 per gallon, folks, cause the time for action has been squandered by our oil buddies in Congress.

Bush's proposals, further erosion of the Clean Air Act and increased taxes on oil companies, would provide a savings of less than a day's oil consumption this summer. Still, feeling the pressure of eroding support among everyone except his faithful, he's proposing ideas worthy of Crawford's absentee village idiot. Today he even proposed higher fuel standards for passenger cars. Notably missing were the high-consumption Hummers and F-350's, the vehicle of choice among his constituency and a bone to the struggling American auto industry. That $100 bribe from the Republicans in Congress would fill the tanks of these gas guzzlers once. That in itself will reduce the number of them on the road, although those at the high end of the proposed oil bribe, singles making $140,000 and couples making over $200,000 probably aren't noticing the higher gas prices.

And Bush is once again willing to sell our soul for oil, reaching out to oil-rich but democracy-poor nations like Azerbaijan and Equatorial Guinea to please, pretty please, produce more and stop colluding to fix the prices. Shrub, the addiction to oil won't be cured by searching out new pushers. Condi's remarks concerning the president of Equatorial Guinea, a man who siezed power in a coup in 1979 only prove that human rights don't matter, oil does. They're calling it energy diversification. Another Snow job, another turd smartly polished, more spin in the name of truth.

U. S. automakers fight higher fuel economy by saying that lighter cars will be less safe. One of the safest cars on the road today, the Toyota Prius, is also one of the lightest. The spin goes on and our competitors build better products. And our automakers wonder why they're not selling.

Indirectly related, ten states sued the Federal government over clean air standards today. They're joined by several cities in sueing the Environmental Protection Agency for not regulating carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels such as oil. Perhaps the last agency not to see the light, the EPA, once a protector of the environment, refuses to acknowledge that global warming exists. They and my Wingnut friend are about the last people on Earth to believe we are not warming our planet with our massive emissions of carbon dioxide. Controls on carbon dioxide would also control fossil fuel burning, to all our benefit, but the Shrubs of the world, fossils themselves, refuse to listen.