It would appear the nominees running for President of the United States have been whittled to three primary candidates. For the record, I don’t consider the current front-runners of John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to be the answer for our nation.
I’ve come to learn that holding steadfastly to a particular party is fruitless, and I would ask that each of you consider doing the same. Voting strictly along party lines is detrimental for the good of the nation and I believe the past 20 years have proven me correct.
While I certainly have a great deal of respect for John McCain, make no mistake he’s a Washington insider. His positions on immigration and the war in Iraq are enough to make me very concerned for the long-term well-being for this country I love so much.
For those of you that feel a real change in leadership comes in the form of Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, I’d suggest you listen more carefully to their respective rhetoric. Both of them are socialists and if you don’t believe me, I’ll list countless instances where they’ve made statements proving their true agendas.
Among the many hot button issues of the day are the national debt and our dependence on foreign oil. Every politician currently running for President will suggest they have the answer to resolve the problems.
As I write this article, the national debt is $9.297 trillion. At present, the national debt increases $1.56 billion per day. To see the national debt clock, click here.
When Ronald Reagan took office in 1980, the national debt was just less than $1 trillion. When he left office in 1988, the debt was $2.6 trillion. From 1988 until 2000, the debt increased another $3.0 trillion to $5.6 trillion. Since 2000, the Bush Administration has increased our debt another $3.6 trillion.
During fiscal year 2007, the interest on the national debt was nearly $430 billion. To see past year’s interest on the debt, click here. To put these numbers in context, let’s turn our attention to the proposed budget recently submitted by the Bush Administration.
For the coming fiscal year, the White House is asking Congress to pass a $3.1 trillion dollar budget, an increase of $400 billion over the previous fiscal year. Suppose the proposed budget allocates monies to pay all of the interest on the national debt incurred in 2007. That would result in 13.87% of the proposed budget being spent for the purpose of paying the interest on the national debt. On top of that, the proposed budget has a projected deficit of $410 billion. To view the current proposed budget, click here.
What do all of these numbers mean? The current estimated population of the U.S. is 304 million, meaning each of us would have to pay approximately $30,582.00 to eliminate the national debt.
Actually there are some solutions to the national debt issue, and some are tied to the reduction in spending. Others suggest a more radical approach by printing up so much money every year and buying back some reasonable portion of our debt, without going through the debt making process of selling Treasury Notes, Bonds and Bills via the Federal Reserve.
Approximately 19.4% of the $3.6 trillion incurred over the past eight years can be attributed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Someone will eventually see the light and put an end to our involvement in these engagements, at least to the point where we’ve reduced our liabilities and exposure. In doing so, we’ll save approximately $700 billion over a four-year period, not to mention, the cost in lives.
Another obvious solution is to balance the budget, or better yet, reduce spending to create a TRUE budget surplus, not the fantasy surplus reported in 1999. That supposed surplus was only accomplished by pilfering money from the Social Security Trust Fund. Excess monies had been accumulated because of an increase in the Social Security tax in 1983.
That increase was mandated to compensate for the baby boomers. From that year on, Social Security had a surplus but every President from Reagan to Clinton used the Social Security surpluses for other general fund spending purposes.
So how are the next President and Congress going to resolve our national debt dilemma? They aren’t. The reality is none of them have ever had the answer, and they never will. And don’t let them tell you they do.
Let’s turn the attention of this article to our dependency on foreign oil. When the Presidential nomination process began, many candidates from both parties appeared in a series of debates. Among those initial candidates was Senator Joe Biden (D-DE), who has been in office for nearly 25 years.
During one of the debates, Senator Biden was asked how he would solve the problem of our nation’s rising fuel prices. His response: we have to make the auto manufacturers build cars with greater MPG capabilities.
Therein lays the problem with Joe Biden, and the majority of our so-called “leaders.” Just because you’ve been elected into office doesn’t mean you have any business being there.
What idiot Joe and the rest of the politicians don’t know, the rising fuel prices don’t have a damn thing to do with how many MPG a vehicle gets.
Some of you were alive in 1973; it was a turning point year in my young life – puberty, (which incidentally, I wouldn’t have made it through those formative years without Dawn Wells, who portrayed Mary Ann on Gilligan’s Island), Watergate, Nixon’s resignation, the end of our involvement in Vietnam, and the oil embargo.
In October of 1973, OPEC announced, as a result of the ongoing Yom Kippur War, they would no longer ship oil to nations that had supported Israel in its conflict with Syria and Egypt.
At the time of the embargo, based on the national average, the price per gallon of gasoline was $0.38. The embargo was lifted in March 1974, but the lingering effects continued, and to some extent, do so to this day. By June of 1974, the national average price per gallon of gasoline rose to $0.55, and American auto manufacturers began building cars with greater MPG capabilities.
For nearly 35 years, auto manufacturers have been building vehicles with greater MPG capabilities. During the early part of this decade, fuel prices began to rise sharply, and for the first time Americans we’re paying $2.00 for a gallon of gasoline. A few years ago, prices jumped well over $3.00 per gallon, and today, the national average for a gallon of gasoline is $2.96.
So what does all this talk about oil embargoes, fuel prices, and MPG have to do with anything? Getting back to what Senator Biden said, the data clearly shows that building cards with greater MPG capabilities doesn’t have anything to do with fuel prices. It didn’t work after the oil embargo, and it isn’t going to work now.
The answer can be found in consumption, and not just in the U.S., but the global consumption of petroleum products. In short, supply and demand. As the reserves of oil begin to dwindle, and the need for oil increases daily, the cost naturally rises. You can blame the oil companies all you want, but the fact is we only have ourselves to blame.
During the oil embargo of 1973, economies in China, Korea, Indonesia and Taiwan were afterthoughts. Today those countries along with several others are experiencing exploding economies that require oil to feed the growth.
In 2007, U.S. daily oil consumption was 20.7 million barrels or 7.5 billion barrels annually. A barrel of oil contains 42 gallons, of which approximately 20 gallons of gasoline are produced, seven gallons of diesel, and 15 gallons of other petroleum products, primarily heating oil.
The U.S. consumes 140 billion gallons of gasoline annually, more than any other country. 2008 projections call for an increase of 140,000 barrels per day, while the cost of gasoline and diesel is expected to rise well above $3.00 per gallon. To view 2007 statistics and 2008 projections, click here.
So what are the new President and Congress going to do to solve our dependency on foreign oil? Nothing – and don’t let them tell you they are. We can explore the depths of the oceans and other remote locations in search for oil until we’ve exhausted every possibility, but that isn’t going to solve the problem.
Corn isn’t the answer to our nation’s dependency on oil. The problems with ethanol are numerous, most notably, the amount of corn that would be needed to meet the current consumption levels. For every gallon of gasoline we use, 1.4 gallons of ethanol would have to be produced.
Based on current annual consumption of 140 billion gallons of gasoline, we’d need 196 billion gallons of ethanol. One acre of corn can produce approximately 55 gallons of ethanol, therefore, the total acreage required to produce the needed amount of corn isn’t possible.
Certainly corn can be a contributing factor in resolving our dependency on oil. Other bio-degradable products can be used and can be mass produced to meet the current gasoline consumption levels. However, the production facilities and transport mechanisms haven’t been established to meet the need of the nation’s gasoline and diesel consumption.
The reason they haven’t is because the politicians, lobbyists and special interest groups won’t allow it. All of this information is readily available, and the politicians know it. They don’t want you to know it because it will prove the decades of incompetence we’ve had to endure.
If we began today, the time it would take to produce the bio-degradable mass, build production facilities, and establish transport mechanisms would take approximately 10 years. Is 10 years such a long period of time to rid ourselves on the dependency of foreign oil?
When you go to the voting booth this fall take consolation in the fact that your vote means nothing. It doesn’t matter who you vote for because no one is going to solve the outlined problems, or too many others. In fact, I suspect instead of this country moving forward, we’re going to continue along a path of digression.
We need to rid ourselves of the politicians, or at best, find capable people to represent us. This is a government for the people, by the people. Start acting like you know it! Give thought to this for a moment: a politician has the easiest job in the United States. Even easier than someone who predicts the weather for a living. Why? All the politician has to do is what YOU tell them to do.
Take a stand and be the voice of change, even if it means it’s the unpopular choice. Be the person on your block to vote based on what’s best for this nation. If we all do that, we will be a better nation.
