13 Comments

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  SushiSake3 at 10:18 AM JST - 25th June

  U.S. presidential candidates push their energy plans

  A key plank of Sen. McCain's energy plans seems to involve first disagreeing with taxing the excess profits of big oil companies, then agreeing with the initiative.

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  Sarge at 10:39 AM JST - 25th June

  "Obama, at one point, complained he was at times unsure who he was running against"

  He's unsure about a lot of stuff.

  "Obama

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  Sarge at 10:42 AM JST - 25th June

  Aah! Hit the submit button too soon!

  "Obama has adopted a traditional Democratic approach of pressing for greater regulatory oversight"

  Unfortunately, this approach bites the big one! We don't need government stifling our companies!

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  Betzee at 10:55 AM JST - 25th June

  McCain needs to go back farther than Carter to appreciate the origins of the problem:

  In August 1971, the Nixon administration, mired in an expensive war in Vietnam, worried about the state of the dollar and fearful of rising inflation, introduced wage and price controls for a period of 90 days, which turned into several years. President Nixon scrapped most of the controls in 1974 (they weren't working generally), but because government needed some sort of response to increased oil prices, he kept the provisions relating to energy. Under the scheme, there were limits on the price and therefore the profits on oil produced domestically. At the same time, however, there were no such limits on imported oil. Oil companies could make more money importing oil than producing it at home.

  The result was predictable: The United States became more, not less, dependent on Arab oil-producing countries. As Americans lined up at gas stations and shortages occurred, the price of fuel soared. President Ford floundered. Not until Jimmy Carter became president were price controls mostly lifted in 1980, with President Reagan finishing the job in 1981. As part of a bargain with Congress, however, Carter supported a windfall profit tax on domestically produced crude. It meant substituting one bad idea for another....

  A worthier bill is the proposed Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008, which would extend tax breaks for alternative energy producers. It incentivizes innovation without the government deciding what is and isn't innovative.

  The truth is that conservation and innovation are the key responses to the high cost of gasoline.

  http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-heilbrunn24-2008jun24,0,2588214.story

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  SushiSake3 at 11:48 AM JST - 25th June

  Sarge - "We don't need government stifling our companies!"

  We don't need big companies running Government.

  But Bush and McCain would disagree.

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  SushiSake3 at 11:52 AM JST - 25th June

  Sarge, why do you continue to support giving massive tax breaks to Big Oil?

  Is it so that they can continue **not **exploring?

  Or is it a case that you feel sorry that their already record-breaking profits aren't big enough? :-)

  Maybe you should support Obama, who wants to tax excessive profits of oil companies to - you know - downgrade their MASSIVE RECORD-BREAKING profits into STILL VERY LARGE profits.

  Anything less and you support the terrorists.....

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  Sarge at 12:57 PM JST - 25th June

  Sushi - "We don't need big companies running Government"

  We don't need government running companies, big or small.

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  adaydream at 01:26 PM JST - 25th June

  We've given energy companies and big money run of the government for a very long time. It's about time that we become took control and brought it back under control.

  Between speculators and the republican's blindness, we're paying out our wallet and the giving has to stop. Big oil has to give back to the people who have made them.

  Remember the energy meeting that dick cheney had at the Whitehouse? Nobody was allowed to know who attended, the agenda or how we were going to get screwed.

  Another 4 or 8 years like the last 7 would be devistating to this country. < :-)

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  SushiSake3 at 03:10 PM JST - 25th June

  Sheesh, the more I look at John "No, what I REALLY meant was -" McCain, the more attractive Al Bundy (see link below) looks as a potential Republican presidential nominee.

  www.in-da-house.de/mediac/4000/media/Kopie~von~albundy2neu

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  Madverts at 05:58 PM JST - 25th June

  Well, I hope McCain's plan is better than his summer gas tax "plan".

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  SushiSake3 at 09:56 PM JST - 25th June

  Madverts, are you talking about McCain's gas tax "plan" that would have enriched the oil companies and polluted the environment even more, directly contradicting not 1 but 2 of Sen. McCain's policies?

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  Madverts at 06:06 PM JST - 26th June

  Nope.

  The "plan" to give gas tax relief to ordinary Americans for the summer vacation that McCain claimed would cost "no more than an average government project"....

  ...until CNN did the maths on this whopper and realized it would cost something in excess of 1400 times more.

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  Sarge at 06:10 PM JST - 26th June

  "Schwarzenegger is a McCain backer"

  McCain can't lose if Arnie's backing him. Why do I say that? Even the deeply unpopular Bush won with Arnie's backing.

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