At last week’s dog-and-pony show in Congress, the crass political class feigned self-righteous indignation to oil executives about high gasoline prices. And the Democrat Party finally revealed its true agenda: a Marxist nationalization of America’s oil sector.
In response to a statement from Shell’s President John Hofmeister, wherein he rightly blamed Congress for restricting oil supplies, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) let the Democrat cat out of the bag – fangs bared and claws extended:
Congresswoman Maxine Waters: “What guarantees are you going to give this liberal about how that will reduce the cost of gasoline at the pump if we let you drill where you say you want to drill?”
Shell Oil President, John Hofmeister: “I can guarantee to the American people because of the inaction of the United States Congress ever increasing prices unless the demand comes down, and the $5 will look like a very low price in the years to come if we are prohibited from finding new reserves, new opportunities to increase supplies.”
Ms. Waters: “And guess what this liberal will be all about? This liberal will be about socializing—uh-uh—would be about… basically… taking over, and the government running all of your companies.”
In other words, the Hard Left wants to restrict oil supplies precisely because it causes the prices to go up, and because they believe they can then effectively blame the oil companies for “price-gouging” to justify a national takeover of the entire industry. All of this, of course, would ostensibly be done to make the price at the pump more affordable.
But really, that’s not the goal at all. The real goal would be to further restrict oil’s use and increase the prices even more. That’s because if the government controlled the oil industry, oil sales would be a revenue generator. After all, the higher Hard Left hikes the costs of oil, and the more it makes in gasoline taxes, the less Americans drive, servicing the Greens’ interest of destroying the economy. So, with national control over oil, it would get a double windfall to fund all of its Big Government projects.
And at that point, why would government increase supply? Especially when the Democrats have made clear they will never drill for our own domestic oil in ANWR, offshore, or underneath the western shelves.
Whenever there’s any sort of government-produced economic emergency, as ALG News has reported earlier, that’s exactly when the Left takes the opportunity to increase government control of the economy.
And without any opposition either from the White House – if Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton is elected – or Congress – which stands to have its Democrat majorities increased this year – there will be nothing American taxpayers can do about it. Republican leadership, even with the White House, and much of the time Congress, in its control, has been unable – no, make that unwilling – to expand U.S. energy production in the past eight years. What will it be able to do to stop the Democrats once they control both the presidency and Congress?
Other nations around the world have already nationalized their oil industries, including Venezuela, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Mexico, and Nigeria. By joining that club, the U.S. would really do nothing to lower the price of oil as it is traded on the global commodity markets, especially since it imports about 60 percent of the oil it produces. And assuming the government was unscrupulous enough to artificially lower prices here in the U.S. – without increasing supply – it would only create shortages and thus an even greater crisis.
It would also serve to increase prices globally, because it would dry up actual investment into oil production by serious speculators. Remember, government can never be as efficient as the free market in producing oil. If they take over oil, that would in essence mean less money for drilling, for refining, etc. because of the lack of investment. And that would mean less supply. And in the end, that would mean higher prices.
The effects of nationalized oil are entirely predictable. And in the number one oil-consuming nation in the worlds, those effects will be devastating economically. Not just for Americans, but the world over. Instead of trying to fulfill some sort of Marxist utopia of government control over the means of production, politicians should be lifting government restrictions on supplies, so that the free market can take over.
And the Republicans in Congress ought to have the courage for once in their lives to stand up and shout down the Hard Left – no matter how angrily Ms. Waters hisses, snarls, bares her fangs, and burnishes her claws.
ALG Perspective: Ms. Waters definitely committed a serious Freudian slip with her call to “socialize” the oil industry. Lest anyone think she is just an outlying radical in her party, this call was also echoed by Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY): “We ought to look at … breaking up oil companies.” No, these are not left-wing radicals departing from their party’s orthodoxy. The fact is that they simply are members of a radical, left-wing party. And unless the political right in America gets its act together, the American people may be forced to suffer a radical, socialist revolution that will seek to nationalize every aspect of the American economy, wrecking our strength and putting the nation into government-imposed poverty.
