May 13, 2008
The Facts
With monstrous support by Republicans, Congress has halted adding oil to our reserves. Several congressional members have been advocating doing this ever since speculators have run up the price of crude oil. The savings will amount to only 70,000 barrels per day, but many think this could send a signal that high oil prices will have a price of its own to pay. As of today, our reserves are 97% full at 701 million barrels. President Bush has been very adamant about not doing this in spite of the fact that oil is about $55 above what supply and demand calls for.
My View
Ok, so many will say that saving less than one-third of one percent of our daily usage is nothing. However, I see two positives here even if the price of crude oil does not go down. The first is obvious; Bush has had his way with spending us into an additional fifty plus years of debt, and Congress has finally said enough is enough, albeit a small amount. But is it? Curtailing the added deposits until the end of the year as Congress proposes will save US taxpayers $2,030,000,000 at today’s prices and will not hurt us on reserves. Of course, I’m sure they will find something else to spend the money on, being what they are. Had the Republican Congress for the first six years of Bush’s presidency and the Democratic Congress for the past year and a half been this firm with Bush, we wouldn’t be in the shape we are in today. As Republican strategist Ed Rollins said, Bush is the most irrelevant President in the past 50 years. However, considering how far Bush has pushed us into debt, I hardly think history will record him as being irrelevant.
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