Charm Offensive?

The media has termed the president’s recent outreach to republicans and as being a charm offensive tactic. The president is supposed to be all smiles as he listens attentively to the GOP concerns. Last night, Lawrence O’Donnell said that the president received a standing ovation from the Republican wing when he entered the house chamber and received the same as he was leaving. That’s good, those gestures offsets the warning of not getting too close to the president because it might hurt their chances of reelection. Doe we really have that many small mined hateful voters in America?

Last week, the house voted to defund ACORN even though it has been out of business for three years. The GOP also renewed their sights on repealing Obamacare, and are currently taking steps to ensure that the work provisions in the welfare program are strengthened; even though they were never weakened. The other day, Born2Bme enlightened me of their motives. I couldn’t understand why we were revisiting the issues of the 2008 and 2012 election. The house GOP is on a permanent reelection campaign, so they must constantly feed the red meat to their base. As I was watching a TV host explain the "free phone for votes" hyperbole being used as an Obama political strategy,  I decided to do a little fact checking. I was wrong because I didn’t think such a program existed, but I was right because it wasn’t an Obama “phones for votes” program. This is how Forbes magazine (no liberal rag) explained the program “The federal program wasn’t started by President Obama. It dates back to 1996, as part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The Act did a number of things, including increasing internet access to doctors and patients in rural hospitals (for consults with specialists); subsidizing internet and phone coverage for schools and libraries and providing free or subsidized coverage for families who can’t afford it so that they have links to emergency and government services. The Act was not taxpayer funded… exactly. Taxpayers do pay for coverage but not via federal income taxes. Instead, the Act “mandated the creation of the universal service fund (USF) into which all telecommunications providers are required to contribute a percentage of their interstate and international end-user telecommunications revenues.” So that little fee on your phone bill labeled USF? That’s what you’re paying for.”

As we go back and forth on what will and won’t get done, I can see the wheels turning on both sides, so we might get a small bargain but the differences are too huge to be reconciled in one or two legislative sessions. Paul Ryan and the GOP thinks that since they presented their plan to balance the budget in ten-years, the president should use the same parameters to counter their proposal. I’m glad that the president said that balancing the budget is not a priority but the path to bringing down the cost curve of the debt is. Republicans in the house and the senate are open to tax reform by eliminating tax loopholes but they differ on what to do with the savings. The GOP wants to cut tax rates with the savings but that’s just like moving around the deck chairs on the Titanic to keep it from sinking. They don’t mind eliminating the loopholes that the wealthy receive because they give it back to them in a form of a tax cut. The democrats want to use those savings to further reduce the deficit. The deficit is coming down on its own with the newly enacted tax revenues, so the democrats aren’t that keen on trading tax increases for a big entitlement reform package.

And yet we have another local yokel, Mike Beeson, who wrote a letter titled “Victoria doesn’t need federal grant money.” The writer takes a local teeny weenie solar project and compares it to the problems with our nations alternative fuels in a “drill baby drill” fashion. I don’t think anyone expected the grant to produce the next solar boom and besides energy experts all agree that solar will certainly be part of the mix as we continue our path to get off fossil fuels and our dependency on foreign oil. The writer doesn’t mention the tax incentives the oil companies receive nor does he mention their tax shelters in the Cayman Islands which are designed specifically to legally avoid U.S. tax.

Yesterday my trusty iPad broke so I'm going to Houston Saturday to hopefully get it repaired. While  I'm there I think I'll go to Costco and get me a jumbo bag of popcorn to enjoy as I watch the CPAC circus this weekend . I'm taping the whole event because I don't want to miss a word...:-)

Gasoline Prices are Dropping..Good or Bad?

I'm probably one of the very few that don't get overly excited over low gasoline prices. To be clear, I'm happy for the industries that are dependent on cheap fuel prices and for those who cannot afford the high cost of gasoline. I get it, because I've never convinced my wife that low gasoline price is not necessarily a good thing, so I understand that they are not many people who will agree with me. I concede, owing a Prius, might be influencing my thoughts a little bit. I still am wondering if those who were blaming the president for high gasoline prices three months ago because he didn't sign the Keystone XL Pipeline Project, will give the president credit for the today's gasoline prices. The XL project has not begun, and oil prices are falling. That was a rhetorical question because presidents have nothing to do with the oil prices that are sold on the open world market. I'm not saying that it won't enhance the president's chances of getting reelected, if gasoline is selling for less than $3.00 a gallon in November. We always have to factor in the low information voter.

I may not be a full fledged wracked environmentalist (I didn’t mention of how the microorganisms would be hurt) but I can see our environment, especially if EPA laws are severely restricted, take a huge hit. I'm not ready to blame greenhouse emissions for the Colorado fires, but I can see where it might've been a part of the intensity of the fires. I'm not ready to compare local weather reports but horrendous wildfires, heat waves, droughts,severe hurricanes,tornadoes and massive flooding ,all the fall into the extreme climate conditions scientists have warned us about. I assume we have all heard of the intensity a 1° rise in temperature in the ocean can cause. We can't restrict climate-change weather patterns to the United States, even though we are the world's largest greenhouse-gas emitter. I recall the warning from, James Hansen, NASA climatologist, saying that if we started tapping into the Canadian oil sand, it would probably boost our crude production for many years to come, but in his words could mean" game over" for the environment.

 

Our current economic slowdown has reduced our demand for oil; hence the lower prices.

When I'm not worrying about the environment, I worry about the clean green energy innovators who will give up trying to find the next great alternative energy. You can bet that China will use all the oil and coal they can, but they will have a lot of scientists working on alternative fuels. I can see start-ups like the Massachusetts A123 system which provides lithium-ion batteries for electronic cars might be filing for bankruptcy at today's prices, even with their large government subsides. The same for plug-ins like the Chevy Volt and Nissan leaf. Didn't we learn anything from the oil embargo of 1974?



We will continue to use oil because it's a cheap energy source, but the price at the pump does not factor in the health and environmental hazards. Fossil fuels will be with us for a long time but as of today, it's not an infinite source of energy. We need an energy plan that would incorporate a manageable safe use of crude oil and include a plan for alternative clean energy.