By Carter Clews
Executive Editor of ALG News
ALG Editor’s Note: You will notice that the size of Sen. Reid’s omnibus spending bill has shrunk dramatically from $25 billion to $11.3 billion. The credit for this more than 50 percent reduction in wasteful spending goes largely to the vigilant editors, bloggers, and talk show hosts who alerted the public as to what was about to happen. As Mr. Clews’ column notes below, this battle continues and the next goal is zero.
Q: What would you call a guy who cuts off your body’s ability to manufacture its own blood and then forces you to buy daily transfusions at sky-high prices from a group of miscreants who wants to see you dead – while he sits around trying to pick your pocket?
A: Harry Reid.
Yes, Harry Reid is at it again. The dour little Democrat who has led the fight to keep America energy dependent has now buried the emergency “Gas Price Reduction Act of 2008” deep in the Senate Calendar—while he front-and-centers his own Omnibus Spending Bill to rob the taxpayer of an additional $11.3 billion before the summer’s end.
And, it’s time for timid Senate Republicans to manufacture enough testosterone to deep-six Harry’s money-grab and force a vote on reducing the price at the gas pump—now, pronto, before another day passes. (Note to Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Gang that Couldn’t Stand Straight: It’s going to take more than your customary thimbleful.)
The Gas Price Reduction Act (S3202) would allow the U.S. to drill for its own oil on and off its own shores. It would immediately open up the western state oil shales, which hold more than three times the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. And it would allow for safe, clean offshore oil exploration, which could yield more than all the U.S. oil imports from the Persian Gulf countries over the past 15 years.
“So,” you’re saying to yourself, “if we have all of that oil right at the tips of our own fingers, why haven’t we been drilling for it all along and cutting OPEC off at the knees?” Well, quite simply, because Harry Reid and his cadre of Democrat One Worlders would rather force us to buy daily transfusions at sky-high prices from miscreants who want to see us dead.
The Gas Price Reduction Act was introduced on June 26. And Harry promptly shuffled it off into the far recesses of the Senate Calendar with stern instructions that it not see the light of day until the next millennium. Since Harry is the Majority Leader, that kind of mean-spirited consignment to oblivion carries a lot of weight. And, it gets worse.
Instead of taking up S3202 as one would expect a public servant to do when the public he serves is in dire straights, Harry hurriedly introduced his own pet project: the Omnibus Spending Bill of 2008. Harry’s Omnibus Spending Bill contains every piece of pork barrel legislation he couldn’t force through earlier in the year. The bill lumps them all together, disallows debate – and sticks the taxpayer with the bill for a whopping $11.3 billion over and above the current deficit.
And Harry, in the words of Al Capp’s Sen. Jack S. Phogbound, expects you to “Show yore ‘preciation!”
Sen. “Jack S.” Reid has a problem though—in the form of his old nemesis: Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK). Sen. Coburn has vowed to fight the Reid Omnibus Spending Bill to his last ounce of breath and force the Senate to instead take up the Gas Price Reduction Act before the summer’s end. He’s against the government giving itself yet another raise—and he’s for the government giving the taxpayer some instant relief from their gas pump pains.
Like “Mr. Smith” of “Goes to Washington” fame, Mr. Coburn is ready to mount an Omnibus Bill-killing filibuster and get on to the people’s business. But, there’s only one problem: getting the gutless Republicans to join in the effort.
That’s right, out of 49 Republicans in the U.S. Senate, so far only 20 have signed on with Mr. Smith – er, make that Coburn – to stop Harry and the Dems from ripping off the American people for another twenty-five billion clams, and get on to seriously addressing the energy crisis.
And, it’s time for the American people to stand up and fight!
Four-dollar gas pump prices are destroying the hopes and dreams of millions of Americans. Family trips – even those of the utmost importance – are being put off. Vacations are being canceled. For many a middle-class American, a quick run to the grocery store has become tantamount to a financial crisis.
And it’s all because Harry Reid — along with a bunch of willful Democrats and cowardly Republicans—won’t knock off the Omnibus spending nonsense and pass a bill to reduce the price of gasoline. Now. Before they bankrupt the entire economy and everyone in it.
If a doctor cut off your body’s ability to manufacture your own blood and sold you out to a bunch of plasma-hoarding miscreants, you’d probably want to string the bum up, right? Well, in this case, that may be going a little too far. So, instead, you might want to ring the bum up—at 202-224-3542. Just as for “Jack S. Reid.”
