PolitiByte

What change? Looks like more of the same to me.

For all his talk of “change,” the only things that seem to change where Obama is concerned are his positions on issues.

I haven’t checked to see if their sales are up, but the makers of Dramamine should be experiencing record profits this campaign season. Why, you ask? Simple – the word “change” has been thrown around so much in recent months that it undoubtedly is causing many to buy massive quantities of the anti-nausea medicine.

Indeed, the word “change” has moved well beyond being a simple, hackneyed slogan and has now become the mantra of the day. One could even say that “change” has achieved a religious stature, with its adherents solemnly pronouncing the word, eyes glazing over as they achieve their version of nirvana.

Their “savior,” one Barack Hussein Obama, has proclaimed that we need “change” – and he is the anointed one who shall deliver it unto us. So what “change” would this messiah bring? To his followers, it matters not – as the only thing that matters to them is change itself, even if it is only talking about “change.”

For all his talk of “change,” the only things that seem to change where Obama is concerned are his positions on issues – which seem to be changing daily. Flip-flopping is of course a long-held tradition with poll-driven politicians.

Change? Sounds like more of the same to me . . . How would Barack Hussein Obama govern if elected to the presidency? With less than one term as a U.S. senator, and with most of that time having been spent running for president, it’s a little hard to say but there are certainly some good indicators.

There is no question that Obama is very liberal (the most liberal U.S. senator, based on a National Journal vote ranking). With a voting record in line with folks like John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Barbara Boxer et al, an Obama presidency would certainly mean more government “solutions” to our problems. We already have plenty of that now, so the only “change” would be more of the same – except in greater quantities.

What about defending our borders? Millions of illegal aliens are now in this country draining our resources, closing down hospitals that can no longer afford to provide them free treatment, demanding we learn Spanish rather than they learning English, depositing “anchor babies” on our soil who immediately become citizens and “entitled” to gobs of goodies at taxpayer expense. The Bush Administration has done nothing to impede the flow, and it is quite evident Obama – “the agent of change” – will do nothing either. Obama actually agrees with the illegals by the way, and thinks your children should learn Spanish. Sounds like more of the same, only pushed absurdly even further.

What about increasing oil supplies? We could start lifting these restrictions on drilling for our own oil and building refineries, and the price of oil would go down. It has the added benefit of decreasing our dependence on the Middle East. For years, our own government has kept us dependent on OPEC, rather than looking for ways to become self-reliant. Barack Obama is opposed to drilling offshore or in ANWR. Change? Sounds like more of the same to me…

What about out of control judges who legislate from the bench? Courts packed with liberal judges have been pushing liberal causes down our throats for some time now. What types of judges would Obama appoint? He has spoken glowing words of praise for Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David H. Souter. Not exactly my idea of strict constructionists who follow the intent of the constitution. With more of these types being added to federal courts that are already chock full of liberals, we’d be getting, yes – more of the same.

The reality is that we could use some changes, but not the kind that Barack Hussein Obama would give us. We could use some folks in Washington who have some sort of understanding of our system of government – elected officials who know that our founders gave us a republic, not a democracy. We could use some leaders who understand that the federal government has grown entirely too large, with its tentacles sweeping into every aspect of our lives (along with picking our pockets).

We need leaders who will secure our own borders first, rather than those of other nations. We need leaders who will put America and its people first. Most of all, we need leaders who believe in, and will get back to the principles of the U.S. Constitution. Change? That would be real change!

With Hillary it's never enough!

Hillary Clinton's campaign is sending out letters to donors asking permission to roll a $2,300 contribution to Clinton's 2008 general election coffers to her 2012 senate election fund instead of offering a refund.

The letter, read to me by one recipient, includes a photocopy of a handwritten note from Clinton that says, "Dear friend, your commitment has meant so much to me over the course of my presidential campaign. You were there for me when I needed you the most and I'll never forget it. I hope you'll help me continue to fight for the issues and causes we believe in by filling out the enclosed form in support of Friends of Hillary."

The form says, "I hereby verify that my 2008 general election contribution may be designated to the 2012 Senate election. I designate the entire amount to the 2012 primary election. However if I have already contributed to the 2012 primary, I designate any amount in excess of $2,300 to the 2012 general election." "If we do not hear back from you by August 28 2008 we will automatically refund your contribution."

This donor, at least, had no intention of signing. "Of course I'm going to get my money back," the donor told me.

Is Hillary ever satisfied? At what point is enough money enough?

In the end, the saddest part of Hillary's historic run for the presidency will be that Hillary once again had to go to a man to help bail her out financially. Without Obama's support and his willingness to buy her voters by eliminating her debts (to herself), Hillary would be financially ruined. On top of that, she now wants to roll her presidential donations into her Senate coffers.

When will enough be enough?

Why you are not hearing any reports out of Iraq?

It's simple........the news is great and the Democrats do not know how to spin it.

Moderate liberal pundit Mickey Kaus has a rule of the thumb about news from Iraq. If only foreign newspapers print it, the news must be good.

The New York Times mentioned in a story June 21 that Mosul, Iraq's third largest city, was "in the midst of a major security operation." So what happened? Marie Colvin of the Times of London had an answer Sunday: "American and Iraqi forces are driving al Qaida in Iraq out of its last redoubt in the north of the country in the culmination of one of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror."

Al Qaida was making its "last stand" in Mosul, and now is done, finished, kaput, said Ms. Colvin, who was embedded with the 2nd Iraqi Division for Operation Lion's Roar. The victory is so complete that Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki said Saturday his government has defeated the terrorists in Iraq. Defeated. Past tense.

Major General Mark Hertling, who commands U.S. troops in northern Iraq, wouldn't go that far. But he told Ms. Colvin: "I think we're at the irreversible point." Not a word about this "spectacular victory" appeared in the Washington Post or the New York Times Sunday, or on the evening network newscasts. The New York Times did run a story on the front page Monday about an "epic battle," but it was about a tennis match at Wimbledon.

Few American newspaper readers learned that on Saturday the last of 550 metric tons of yellowcake was shipped from Iraq to a firm in Canada. Yellowcake is milled uranium oxide, the raw material from which nuclear bombs are made.

According to Norman Dombey, professor of theoretical physics at the University of Sussex in England, the yellowcake shipped from Iraq was enough to make 142 nuclear bombs. Apparently, Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program was rather more than a figment of Dick Cheney's fevered imagination.

"This is a big deal," the New York Sun said in an editorial Monday. "Iraq, sitting on vast oil reserves, has no peaceful need for nuclear power. Saddam Hussein had already invaded Kuwait, launched missiles into Israeli cities, and harbored a terrorist group, the PKK, hostile to America's NATO ally, Turkey. To leave this nuclear material sitting around the Middle East in the hands of Saddam and the same corrupt United Nations that failed to stop the genocide in Darfur and was guilty of the oil-for-food scandal would have been too big a risk."

But it wasn't a big enough deal to make it beyond the newsbriefs section of most of those few newspapers which chose to report it. Evidence Saddam possessed enough material to build more than a hundred nuclear bombs undermines the media meme that he had no WMD, so it's not a story many journalists wish to revisit, new evidence or no.

On the Fourth of July, 1,215 U.S. servicemen and women re-enlisted in the largest re-enlistment ceremony ever, conducted by Gen. David Petraeus in one of Saddam's palaces in Baghdad. Only a handful of newspapers here mentioned it. The Times of London noted Gen. Petraeus, the guy Democrats last year were insinuating was a liar, "beats mega-star Angelina Jolie as Iraq crowd-puller." Gen. Petraeus, wrote James Hider, "is in such demand for photographs that his aides have had to organize special mass photo-ops every six weeks inside the Green Zone and at the other huge U.S. base at Baghdad airport."

The vast improvement in the military situation is so obvious even Rep. Jack Murtha (D-Pa), the most comically hysterical of the war critics in Congress, acknowledged it in an interview with Pittsburgh's KDKA TV July 3. But political progess isn't being made, he said. That's not true.

When Democrats took control of Congress in 2007, they set 18 "benchmarks" to measure the security, political and economic progress. On July 2, in response to a request from a Democratic representative from North Carolina, the U.S. embassy reported the Iraqi government has met all but three.

Progress is even greater than the report indicated, because though the Iraqi parliament hasn't passed laws to share oil revenues or to disarm militias, the government is sharing oil revenues, and largely has disarmed the militas.

Stories about this report, you'll not be surprised to learn, were buried in the inside pages of newspapers which, last September, had splashed on the front page the more critical initial report.

Are cigarette taxes fair to the poor?

The cigarette tax is the most regressive form of taxation out there, even worse than a flat rate tax.

As this piece is being written, the Massachusetts House passed a bill with a 93-52 vote to increase the cost of cigarettes by $1 per pack. According to the Boston Herald, the increase would generate $174 million in new taxes.

As of January 1, 2008, according to the Federation of Tax Administrators (taxadmin.org), Massachusetts currently ranks 15th in the nation on cigarette taxes, at $1.51/pack. The highest in the nation is New Jersey, which taxes $2.575/pack.  The lowest state in the Union is Missouri, which charges just 17¢/pack.

If the Massachusetts cigarette tax goes up $1, the $2.51 in taxes will be the second highest in the nation. As for the bordering states, currently, the cigarette tax in Vermont is $1.70/pack (11th), $1.08 in New Hampshire (24th), $2.46 in Rhode Island (2nd) and $2.00/pack in Connecticut (4th).

It is not known whether the expected revenue projections included the fact that Massachusetts will lose many purchasers of tobacco products to New Hampshire, where the cigarette tax will be $1.43/pack lower, as well as purchasers from Connecticut or Rhode Island, where there will no longer be a significant tax disparity.

Merchants in Pittsfield should be aware that New York has $1.50 in taxes on cigarettes, making the state cigarette tax $1.01 less per pack in places such as Lebanon.

Of course, on state Indian reservations in New York there are no cigarette, taxes producing substantial savings for consumers.

There is little denying that cigarette smoking is just about the most harmful thing you can do to your body, save for using crack cocaine as a hobby or jumping off a cliff without a parachute.  The problem is that it is powerfully addictive, and those who smoke may be powerless to quit.

One justification for the tax is that cigarette smokers overly tax the health care system.  But most of the studies on the subject consider only the costs imposed by those who die from cigarette related diseases.  However, since everybody dies, it is uncertain whether the cost of dying by cancer is more expensive than the cost imposed by the type of death which would have occurred later in life but for the patient’s smoking.  Moreover, there are costs associated with living: routine health care costs, dental care, and medical expenses for such things as broken hips. There are also the costs associated with providing housing for an elderly person who has not died, as well as exorbitant nursing home costs that often must be picked up by the state.

Finally, when people die early, there is the savings on Social Security and Medicare. When all of these facts are taken into account, the argument that there is somehow a net savings when people live longer and die of non-cigarette related reasons may be specious.

The more credible argument for increasing the cost of cigarettes is that it may reduce the number of smokers. One problem with this argument is that it does not account for the number of people who take up rolling their own cigarettes and who often do not use filters.

Another is that monies that were supposed to be spent fighting smoking almost never end up being used as promised and the taxes end up in the general tax revenues, as has happened in Massachusetts before. Still, there are some people who decide that they cannot afford to smoke anymore, and actually cut back or quit altogether.  But the question is how many?

According to the Birmingham News, when Alabama raised its cigarette taxes in 2004 from 16.5 cents/pack to a still low 42.5 cents/pack, there was no reduction in the percentage of people that smoked. According to a 2001 study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, “Laws limiting vending machine access had a statistically significant deterrent effect among youth who smoked, but cigarette taxes did not.” The problem is that when you start smoking, the monetary deterrent is minimal; but by the time you acquire a two-pack-a-day addiction, you are compelled to pay the taxes to feed your habit.

One thing is for sure — the cigarette tax is the most regressive form of taxation out there, far worse than a flat rate tax. The $916 per year in taxes for those Massachusetts residents who smoke a pack a day habit constitutes 3.66% of income for those earning $25,000/year, but just .916% of income for those earning $100,000. By way of comparison, the Massachusetts income tax is currently a flat rate of 5.3%.

The magic of Obama!!!!!

Life outside the beltway, will politicians ever really understand us?

Washington elites, pontificating pundits and media types would be very surprised to know: there is life outside the beltway. Millions of largely invisible, average Americans live there. And these Americans are living lives totally alien to the thousands of so-called experts and talking heads who claim to represent them.

For instance: these Americans, (I'll call them "we" Americans, as I belong to their ranks), aren't waiting breathlessly for the latest word on high from Hillary. We really don't care what she says, having learned long ago that much of what comes out of her mouth is designed for political expediency, not conveying truths.

We're also not marveling over the new media messiah, Obama. We've been around awhile and we know what all the experts don't; namely, that a 15-minute flash in the pan does not a president make. As far as we're concerned, the job of running this, the greatest country in the world, requires more than being able to give a good speech. And even though some of us wear checkered shirts and have been known to drink beer on occasion doesn't mean we don't know the difference between socialism and capitalism.

Instead of spending all our time dissecting the nuance and context of the latest sound bite du jour, we have better things to do. Like earning a living, spending time with family or just plain having fun.

We have lives that are not dependent on political fortunes or government largesse. We live in the real world. A world, unlike the inside of the D.C. beltway, where hard work and merit are appreciated and rewarded. A world where a man's word is still his bond and Christian values still mean something. A world where acquiring power and money mean less than earning an honest living and the respect of our neighbors.

The latest polls mean less than zero to us. We know that in politics, 24 hours can be a lifetime and there are many lifetimes to go before we cast our votes in November.

We "invisible" Americans know when we're being patronized and we have enough common sense to take with a grain of salt any pronouncements claiming to be "for our own good." We know best how to run our lives, not some yahoo who's only accomplishment was fooling enough of the populace to get elected to a position of political power.

To most of us in flyover country, political correctness is the hallmark of a herd animal – one who follows the group and lets others do his thinking for him. One who is more concerned with group status than doing what he thinks is right. You know who I mean: the guys and gals who appear on TV, gravely giving us peons the benefit of their vast knowledge. The ones who claim that "truth" is relative yet insist that their version is the only acceptable truth.

The difference between those who inhabit the rarified real-estate inside-the-beltway and we average Americans is, we are held accountable for the decisions we make. And when we endorse or promote a cause or an idea, we do it with our own money, not the taxpayers'. And we do it quietly, for the right reasons, knowing that the virtue is in the doing, not the talking about it.

Here in the heartland, we all practice capitalism without shame and we don't apologize for making a profit. A lot of us still lower our voices to a whisper when discussing race, but we're working on that.

Words still have meanings and we know that relabelling a donkey as a princess doesn't make that ass a princess. We know a rose is still a rose, even if a self-annointed expert says it isn't. We really don't need or want all the inside-the-beltway experts telling us how to raise our own kids, what kind of car to buy, or how to celebrate diversity.

Mostly, we'd just like to be left alone by all the do-gooders whose main talents are manufacturing crises in order to save us from them. We'd sure appreciate it if you'd limit your mischief making to inside the beltway and leave us all alone. We can live our lives just fine without your help.

Does Obama have a spine?

Once again, Obama flip flops on an issue when it is in his best interest. Again and again, Obama conintues to prove that rather than being the candidate of change, it's still the same old Washington politics as usual.

It was no surprise when Barack Obama flipped on public financing last week. When it suited his goals last year, he pledged, "If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election." When it didn't suit his goals, he ditched the pledge. And get this: Apparently he did it because the Republicans made him do it.

Obama has raised an impressive $296 million to date -- dwarfing John McCain's $122 million. He stands to raise a lot of money -- certainly more than the $84 million he would have received from the federal presidential public financing system -- for the nine weeks following the Democratic convention. So forget "change we can believe in."

I cannot get as indignant as some critics seem to be. After all, public financing never was about reforming politics. It always was about helping Democrats get into the White House -- which is why so many alleged reformers have not only accepted Obama's flip-flop, but praised it. Even the goo-goo Center for Responsive Politics website featured an opinion piece that suggested that the $1.2 million per day of public financing "just might not be enough" for a presidential candidate.

In a video e-mailed to supporters last week, Obama floated the argument that his huge war chest was akin to public financing because of all the $5, $10 and $20 checks his team has cashed. But as the New York Times reported, already Obama "has collected more money in contributions of $1,000 or more than even Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's once-vaunted team of bundlers of donations." This week, Obama is trolling for big checks from Clinton fat cats. Obama also claimed that he was opting out of public financing, even though he supports it, because "the system is broken." It's broken, you see, because right-leaning GOP 527s -- independent groups that operate outside fundraising limits -- will be used to "smear" Obama. After eight years of Democrat 527 smears against Republicans, it is kind of him to notice.

Team Obama set up fightthesmears.com ostensibly to fight misinformation. Site visitors are invited to send viral e-mail that charges, "Rush Limbaugh and his fellow right-wing attack dogs have been spreading baseless rumors about a nonexistent video tape showing Michelle Obama using a racial epithet." It was a vile, baseless rumor.

You could applaud Team Obama for setting the record straight, if it did not gloss over the starring role of Larry C. Johnson, identified simply as a "blogger," not a supporter of Hillary Clinton, as David Weigel reported in The American Prospect online. Instead it targeted Limbaugh for saying "a tape exists of Michelle Obama using the word 'whitey' from the pulpit of Trinity United."

Thing is, Limbaugh stipulated, "There's a rumor that there's a tape" two weeks after Johnson's first blog alleging that Republicans were hoarding a "whitey" tape. (Limbaugh should not have repeated the rumor, but he did so as many political editors and reporters were grappling over whether to report the unsubstantiated but widely traveled Internet rumor, or just ignore it.)

Then Obama pulled the race card. At a fundraiser -- where else? -- Obama told supporters that he had to turn down public financing so that he can raise enough money to fight GOP 527s. As the New York Times reported, he said, "They're going to try to make you afraid of me. 'He's young and inexperienced and he's got a funny name. And did I mention he's black?"

Who does Obama think he's kidding?

He has raised buckets of cash -- and rather than be upfront about opting out of public financing because of the math, he stooped to blaming other people for his decision to cash in. He also blamed the system and played the race card. Which raises a question that may well have torpedoed Hillary Clinton's campaign: Does America really need another victim in the White House?

Who is the real "Candidate of Change"?

WASHINGTON -- Gas is $4 a gallon. Oil is $135 a barrel and rising. We import two-thirds of our oil, sending hundreds of billions of dollars to the likes of Russia, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. And yet we voluntarily prohibit ourselves from even exploring huge domestic reserves of petroleum and natural gas.

At a time when U.S. crude oil production has fallen 40 percent in the last 25 years, 75 billion barrels of oil have been declared off-limits, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That would be enough to replace every barrel of non-North American imports (oil trade with Canada and Mexico is a net economic and national security plus) for 22 years.

That's nearly a quarter-century of energy independence. The situation is absurd. To which John McCain is responding with a partial fix: Lift the federal ban on Outer Continental Shelf drilling, where a fifth of the off-limits stuff lies.

This is a change for McCain, but circumstances have changed. When the moratorium was imposed in 1982, gasoline was $1.20 and oil was $30 a barrel. Since the moratorium was instituted, we've had two wars in the Middle East, and in between a decade of garrisoning troops in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE to preserve the peace and keep untold oil riches out of the hands of the most malevolent of our enemies.

Technological conditions have changed as well. We now are able to drill with far more precision and environmental care than a quarter-century ago. We have thousands of rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, yet not even hurricanes Katrina and Rita resulted in spills of any significance.

McCain's problem is that he's only able to go halfway on energy production because he has locked himself into opposition to the other obvious source of domestic oil -- the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

His fastidiousness on this is inexplicable. "I believe that ANWR is a pristine area," he explains. Is it more pristine than the ocean, where he now wants to drill? More pristine than the Arabian Desert from which we daily beg the Saudi princes to pump more oil?

The entire Arctic refuge is one-third the size of the United Kingdom (which includes Scotland and Wales). The drilling site would be one-seventh the size of Manhattan Island. The footprint is tiny. Moreover, forbidding drilling there does not prevent despoliation. It merely exports it. The crude oil we're not getting from the Arctic we import instead from places like the Niger Delta, where millions live and where the resulting pollution and oil spillages poison the lives of many of the world's most wretchedly poor.

Our environmental imperialism does not just redistribute pollution to people who can least afford it. It generally increases the total overall damage because oil extraction in the wealthier and more technologically advanced U.S. is far more environmentally sensitive.

McCain's unwillingness to include ANWR lacks even political logic. His policy on offshore drilling is a flip-flop from his past positions. Perfectly justified, but a reconsideration nonetheless. If you are going to take the hit for flip-flopping and for offending environmentalists, why go halfway?

The oil crisis handed McCain an unexpected and singularly effective campaign issue. A majority of Americans now favor drilling in the Arctic and offshore. Democrats stand in the way of increased production just as they did 13 years ago when President Clinton vetoed drilling in ANWR. Domestic oil production would be about 20 percent higher today if the Republican Congress had been allowed to prevail.

As expected and right on cue, Barack Obama reflexively attacked McCain. "His decision to completely change his position" to one that would please the oil industry is "the same Washington politics that has prevented us from achieving energy independence for decades." One can only marvel at Obama's audacity in characterizing McCain's proposal to change our policy as "old politics," while the candidate of "change" adheres rigidly to the no-drilling status quo.

McCain is a lot of things, but the man who opposed ethanol in Iowa -- as Obama shamelessly endorsed the most abysmally stupid of our energy policies -- is no patsy of the energy producers. Americans know that increased production is needed to complement reduced consumption as the only way to get us out from oil shocks, high prices and national security blackmail.

Alas, McCain's proposed reform is only partial. Still better than Obama, however, who refuses to deviate from liberal orthodoxy. But that is the story of his campaign, is it not?

The huge "aftershocks" from the run up in oil that will never go away.

WASHINGTON -- We all know that gasoline is at $4 a gallon and oil is at $135 a barrel. But if you think that's the end of the story, don't talk to economist Jeffrey Rubin of CIBC World Markets. By Rubin's reckoning, we've barely passed the halfway point on a steady march upward that will take gasoline to $7 a gallon and oil to $225 by 2012. Despite fluctuations, the underlying rise, he says, will have pervasive and surprising side effects. Among them:

-- U.S. manufacturers benefit, because rising ocean-freight costs -- reflecting fuel prices -- make imports more expensive. Some production returns to the United States, and some shifts from Asia to closer exporters (Mexico over China). Since 2000, estimates Rubin, the cost of shipping a 40-foot container from East Asia has gone from $3,000 to $8,000. With oil at $200 a barrel, the shipping cost would be $15,000.

-- Inflation becomes more stubborn. For years, the Federal Reserve has focused on so-called core inflation -- prices minus energy and food. The justification is that large food and energy price changes usually reverse themselves. But if they move steadily higher, that logic collapses. "While core inflation may be barely over 2 percent, that's only of solace if you don't eat or drive," Rubin says. Overall inflation is twice that, about 4 percent.

-- Two distressed industries -- homebuilding and autos -- suffer further. "In two years, there will be fewer Americans driving," he says. Higher gasoline prices push people to mass transit and carpools. Home prices take another hit, especially in distant suburbs with long commutes. "People won't be able to afford what they used to afford," he says.

Do not underestimate oil's fallout. The world may have arrived at Peak Oil, when dwindling oil reserves no longer permit much annual increase in production. This may not be literally true; estimates of vast undiscovered oil reservoirs imply that Peak Oil is decades away. But governments that control 75 percent or more of known reserves are behaving as if Peak Oil is already here. They're hoarding a scarce commodity by limiting new exploration projects. Meanwhile, production at some old fields is dropping rapidly. Spare capacity has been depleted, as demand outruns new supply.

High prices close the gap. The grim price outlook by Rubin and others presumes that this situation persists. Of course, they could be wrong if higher prices cause demand to drop sharply and supplies increase unexpectedly. In the United States, prices have already led to less driving. In March, highway travel was down 4.3 percent from a year earlier. Buying patterns for vehicles have shifted. Through May, sales of SUVs dropped 31 percent from a year earlier, reports wardsauto.com. Oil demand is also stagnating in Europe and Japan.

But higher demand from developing countries and oil producers is offsetting the lower demand of wealthy countries. Consumption in these countries will rise 3 percent in 2008, projects the International Energy Agency.

There's been a huge transfer of power to oil producers. Even at $100 a barrel, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates will earn almost $8 trillion in oil revenues between now and 2020, estimates the McKinsey Global Institute. More troubling are the political implications. "This has really strengthened the Iranians, Russians and Venezuelans to be more provocative in the world," says Larry Goldstein of the Energy Policy Research Foundation. Although governments control crude supplies, private companies have dominated distribution. Anyone can buy oil at a price. Now oil could become a political commodity offered to friends at a discount, withheld from rivals.

How can we retrieve some of our lost power? The first thing is to get out of denial. Stop blaming oil companies and "speculators." Next, we need to expand domestic oil and natural-gas drilling, including Alaska. Although we can't "drill our way" out of this problem, we can augment oil supplies and lessen price strains. It might take 10 years or more, because new projects are huge undertakings. But delay will only aggravate our future problems.

Finally, we need to realize high prices may stimulate new biofuels from wood chips, food waste and switch grass. Production costs of these fuels may be in the range of $1 a gallon, says David Cole of the Center for Automotive Research. If true, that's well below today's wholesale gasoline prices. To assure new producers that they wouldn't be wiped out if oil prices plunged, we should set a floor price for oil of $50 to $80 a barrel, says Cole. This could be done with a standby tariff that would activate only if prices hit the threshold. Oil prices are unpredictable and should a price collapse occur, Americans wouldn't be deluded into thinking we've returned permanently to cheap energy. We've made that mistake before.

Democrats want the Saudis to increase production yet our oil is off limits!

WASHINGTON -- Rising in the Senate on May 13, Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat, explained: "I rise to discuss rising energy prices." The president was heading to Saudi Arabia to seek an increase in its oil production, and Schumer's gorge was rising.

Saudi Arabia, he said, "holds the key to reducing gasoline prices at home in the short term." Therefore arms sales to that kingdom should be blocked unless it "increases its oil production by one million barrels per day," which would cause the price of gasoline to fall "50 cents a gallon almost immediately."

Can a senator, with so many things on his mind, know so precisely how the price of gasoline would respond to that increase in the oil supply? Schumer does know that if you increase the supply of something, the price of it probably will fall. That is why he and 96 other senators recently voted to increase the supply of oil on the market by stopping the flow of oil into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which protects against major physical interruptions. Seventy-one of the 97 senators who voted to stop filling the SPR also oppose drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

One million barrels is what might today be flowing from ANWR if in 1995 President Clinton had not vetoed legislation to permit drilling there. One million barrels produce 27 million gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel. Seventy-two of today's senators -- including Schumer, of course, and 38 other Democrats, including Barack Obama, and 33 Republicans, including John McCain -- have voted to keep ANWR's estimated 10.4 billion barrels of oil off the market.

So Schumer, according to Schumer, is complicit in taking $10 away from every American who buys 20 gallons of gasoline. "Democracy," said H.L. Mencken, "is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard." The common people of New York want Schumer to be their senator, so they should pipe down about gasoline prices, which are a predictable consequence of their political choice.

Also disqualified from complaining are all voters who sent to Washington senators and representatives who have voted to keep ANWR's oil in the ground, and who voted to put 85 percent of America's offshore territory off-limits to drilling. The U.S. Minerals Management Service says that restricted area contains perhaps 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas -- 10 times the oil and 20 times the natural gas Americans use in a year.

Drilling is under way 60 miles off Florida. The drilling is being done by China, in cooperation with Cuba, which is drilling closer to South Florida than U.S. companies are.

ANWR is larger than the combined areas of five states (Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware) and drilling along its coastal plain would be confined to a space one-sixth the size of Washington's Dulles Airport. Offshore? Hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed or damaged hundreds of drilling rigs without causing a large spill. There has not been a significant spill from an offshore U.S. well since 1969. Of the more than 7 billion barrels of oil pumped offshore in the past 25 years, 0.001 percent -- that is one-thousandth of 1 percent -- has been spilled. Louisiana has more than 3,200 rigs offshore -- and a thriving commercial fishing industry.

In his "Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of 'Energy Independence,'" Robert Bryce says Brazil's energy success has little to do with its much-discussed ethanol production and much to do with its increased oil production, the vast majority of which comes from off Brazil's shore. Investor's Business Daily reports that Brazil, "which recently made a major oil discovery almost in sight of Rio's beaches," has leased most of the world's deep-sea drilling rigs.

In September 2006, two U.S. companies announced that their "Jack No. 2" well, in the Gulf 270 miles southwest of New Orleans, had tapped a field with perhaps 15 billion barrels of oil, which would increase America's proven reserves by 50 percent. Just probing four miles below the Gulf's floor costs $100 million. Congress' response to such expenditures is to propose increasing the oil companies' tax burdens.

America says to foreign producers: We prefer not to pump our oil, so please pump more of yours, thereby lowering its value, for our benefit. Let it not be said that America has no energy policy.