High Gasoline Prices: Pete Davis v. Lawrence Kudlow

Let’s start with the comments of someone who can actually think:

Up on Capitol Hill today, talking to a senior Democratic Senate staff protege, I was asked “What can we do to counter the Republicans on offshore drilling for oil?” My response was, “There is no short-term fix to our long-term energy problems. Drilling won’t do it because it will take years to land any oil.” “Yes, but the voters think it’s going to help now.” I responded, “Now you’re asking me for cosmetics, not a solution.” In a nutshell, that’s why we’re 58% dependent upon foreign oil. Every time we have an energy crisis, in 1973, 1979, 1990, and 2008, we rush short-term expedients and cosmetics into law without doing much to solve the long-term problem. If we were serious about the long-term problem we would never have allowed gas guzzling SUV’s onto the road; we wouldn’t have starved mass transportation; we would have developed much more renewable energy; we would have done a lot more conservation; and MOST OF ALL we wouldn’t have allowed prices to decline after the crisis, killing energy saving investments and leading us right back to profligate energy consumption. Our energy policy is like our diets. We diet frequently, but we never stick to our diets long enough or change our lifestyles enough to lose weight. Then, when diabetes and heart disease sets in, we rush to our doctors for the miracle cure that isn’t there … Until we learn to live with somewhat higher energy prices, we’ll continue to be at the mercy of OPEC and of periodic energy crises. As long as we demand quick fixes from our political leaders, that’s all we will get — quick fixes that don’t work.

Thanks for the wisdom Pete, but now I have to ruin the Fourth of July weekend for our AB readers but noting what some village idiot has been saying:

Where in the world is John McCain on this very same issue? It’s simple: Sen. McCain should be pummeling Barack Obama daily on drill, drill, drill. Why? Because oil and gas pump prices are potentially the single-biggest wedge issue in the presidential campaign. Mr. McCain has to pound the point home. According to a new Rasmussen poll, 48 percent of Americans say lower gas prices are the key to an economic recovery, and 60 percent are in favor of off-shore drilling.

I guess Kudlow hasn’t realized that McCain – who once opposed offshore drilling – flip flopped and took this idiotic advice. I say idiotic as every analysis that I’ve seen holds that the immediate impact on gasoline prices would be zero and the effect after a generation would be very small. It’s really funny because McCain had to later admit that his pandering proposal would do nothing to lower the current high gasoline prices. But I guess Kudlow hasn’t figured that one out either. I might advocate that we try to drill, drill, drill some commonsense into Kudlow’s feeble little brain but our friend Pete Davis would likely argue that such efforts wouldn’t work either.

Update: The Pray at the Pump Movement has a plan to lower gasoline prices:

(CNSNews.com) – As the price of oil continues to rise, some are turning to God and prayer for an answer to their financial troubles. The Pray at the Pump Movement, founded by Rocky Twyman, has been holding prayer vigils at gas stations across the country. On Monday, Twyman decided to take his movement from Exxon and Shell stations straight to the steps of the Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington, D.C., hoping to encourage the oil-rich country to raise the amount of barrels they release each day from 200,000 to 1.2 million.

Don’t knock divine intervention as it sounds better than anything John McCain has come up with!