GOP members in congress have a novel idea. Allow oil companies to drill for oil here in the United States! How shocking! The agenda behind opening up drilling in our nation, is to help drive down gas prices. Now this may seem extreme to any liberal minded reader who happens across my blog, not that I get many readers, but I digress. We have been told for decades that drilling would not bring down oil prices, or get us off dependency on foreign oil. It will take years they like to say. (Fox News).

“We are kidding ourselves if we think we can drill our way out of these problems,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., said during the bill mark-up session.

“The disappointing part about some of the energy policies being promoted (is) that it calls for more drilling when drilling really is the problem. And all we’ve got to show for pretty aggressive (domestic) drilling for the last 35 years is, again, $4 for a gallon of gas,” Manuel said, adding “since the first Arab oil shock in the 1970s, the U.S. has produced almost 90 billion barrels of oil since then, so we’ve tried drilling our way out of the problem and it just hasn’t worked.”

This is a fallacy, We have so limited drilling that we are forced to import oil, and we have refused to drill in places like Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. In the years between 1973 and 2008 have seen dramatic increases in population and increases on demand for products that require oil for production, such as plastics. But the statement by Manuel doesn’t reflect this does it. Not, it is simply out of context, and truth be told simply a liberal lie.

Liberals think the way to address the current artifically high gas prices, is to institute more taxes on the companies which do business getting gas to the pumps and running those pumps. “Americans are furious about what’s going on,” declared Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. He said they want Congress to do something about oil company profits and the “orgy of speculation” on oil markets. (Hebert) The House bill number 2977 introduced by a Seattle liberal democrat, Bob Hasegawa. Fortunately it was defeated, in the Senate as well, by getting a vote of 51 falling short of a required 60.(HEBERT) Seven so-called Republicans voted with the liberals to support the bill.

Here is a problem with taking more money from Oil companies. Taxes do not fill barrels with oil. Perhaps Harry Reid and Byron Dorgan do not realize this. Further taking money from oil companies will not lower the pump price we are paying. It will not be returned to the tax payers, nor will it likely go to support anything worth while but will instead go to pay for the pork barrel spending by congress.(Riedl, Acosta-Fraser) (Note the Farm Bill and Byron Dorgan’s handy work there in)

WASHINGTON - Saved by Senate Republicans, big oil companies dodged an attempt Tuesday to slap them with a windfall profits tax and take away billions of dollars in tax breaks in response to the record gasoline prices that have the nation fuming.

GOP senators shoved aside the Democratic proposal, arguing that punishing Big Oil won’t do a thing to lower the $4-a-gallon-price of gasoline that is sending economic waves across the country. High prices at the pump are threatening everything from summer vacations to Meals on Wheels deliveries to the elderly.

The Democratic energy package would have imposed a 25 percent tax on any “unreasonable” profits of the five largest U.S. oil companies, which together made $36 billion during the first three months of the year. It also would have given the government more power to address oil market speculation, opened the way for antitrust actions against countries belonging to the OPEC oil cartel, and made energy price gouging a federal crime.

By H. JOSEF HEBERT , Associated Press Last update: June 11, 2008 - 1:39 AM

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Photo Credit Seth Perlman, Associated Press.