Are High Gas Prices the Second 9/11?

Commentary by John Riley -

I hope this doesn't soound like a knee jerk reaction, and maybe it is, but so many people seem to be so preplexed by the $4.00 gas we keep paying for. It almost seems like someone else is pulling the strings, and getting rich, or trying to make us suffer. The first person to get the blame is George Bush, and I think that this is for the most part unjust. First the President does not control the goverment purse strings, Congress does. Secondly, the next group to blame are the Big Oil Companies. It's true that they make alot of money, but they really do work hard to get it. Few people realize they only get 9% of the total cost of your gas, while State and Federal Taxes take 12 percent.

The key to high gas prices is oil, and the price has never been higher. We get much more than half of it overseas, and OPEC is a huge chunk of this. These are people that do not have our best interest at heart. Some are friendly to us for sure, but others like Saudi Arabia act nice, but remember this is where most of the terrorist that staged 9/11 came from. Our president just visited there to gain increased oil production to ease oil prices and they pretty much laughed it off. They have us hostage every time we put gas into our tank, and some of them want us dead and destroyed. They soak our economy dry, then watch us suffer, with glee.

I'm getting pretty tired of this, and I bet you are too. But what are we doing about it? Congress, controlled by the Democrats routinely block attempts to drill off our coasts and in Alaska. They don't have our best interests at heart either, while I struggle to even have enough money to take the family to the movies, they make big bucks and spending 100 dollars for a tank of gas for their luxury vehicles is a drop in the bucket.

We don't have to stand for this. We need to let our voice be heard. As Mike Huckabee declared, we need to be Energy Independent in the next 10 Years. If a country does not have our best interest, we send them no more of our money, let China and India burn their oil. We need to drill all over the place HERE, we need to develope our oil shale, and help Canada to produce much, much more. We need to turn much of our vast coal reserves into oil, we have the technology already, but we have not built the plants. That would help the poor in my native Kentucky and in West Virgina so much. We have been economicly depressed here fro decades, and the good people here are very willing to work hard. We need to triple our agricultural production, producing much more bio-fuel, while growing plenty of food to eat. We need to pay our farmers to plant, not to let their ground lie fallow. 25% of our current federal gas tax needs to go directly toward the development of new technologies for alternative fuels, and transportation. If we could put a man on the moon in less than 10 years in the 1960's, we should be able to be energy independent in 10 years now. We have the brains, we just need the will and the right people to motivate us into this direction.

Or we could just sit around, starving and complaining.

The choice is ours. Shall we escape the grip of this strangle hold from the Middle East, or will we keep gasping for air. It's time to remove the hand around our neck. Its time to breathe again.