We just have a brief word about today's first guest, President Obama's Energy Adviser, Carol Browner, and the discussion about the Gulf oil crisis. And it continues to be a crisis even though the static kill (pouring tons of mud down the well) has seemed to have stopped most all the oil spouting from the well. That's the good news. The not so great news is that it's obvious that the administration has as much information as the rest of us, seeming to be observers as well. At this point, we're all getting the same information and our fear is that we'll never get the full story from BP. As a matter of fact, we'll never get the full story.
Where the government needs to step in big is to restore the Gulf Coast, environmentally and economically because BP sure as hell isn't going to do it. Why the big news outlets don't have teams of scientists and scientific reports down there getting the full story is irresponsible at the least. The story's that BP are blocking access should be made into huge front page story, simply for the fact that a corporation is now dictating the terms of what we're, the American people, are to know about their own country? This is a travesty on a 206 million gallon scale. Ms. Browner did make a very good point on the moratorium on drilling during the crisis, which was the moratorium on drilling during the crisis was the right thing to do because if there had been another accident while this was going on, we wouldn't have had the resources to combat both. Logical. What's not logical is that Republicans got the concessions they wanted on a clean energy bill, most notably the removal of cap-and-trade, and they still voted against it.
This brings us to today's second guest, House Minority Leader, John Boehner (R-OH), who said that the moratorium should be lifted because "a mistake was made with this well." He also said that BP has stepped up and should return the Gulf Coast to where it was before the spill. It is the right thing to say, but there is no utter way that BP has the will, the wear-with-all, or the inclination to do any such thing. And it was a 'mistake' as Mr. Boehner put it, it was negligence on the part of BP, plain and simply. They bypassed safety concerns on the rig for the sake of profit, and unfortunately it bit us all in the ass. Not them.
What kind of leader can not give a straight answer? You can quite clearly see the impatience on Mr. Gregory's face, and for good reason. Mr. Boehner could not answer the key question of the interview, which was if he agreed with Alan Greenspan (from last week's Meet The Press) that an extension of the Bush Tax Cuts would pay for themselves. All Mr. Boehner can utter is the mantra of how the Obama Administration wants more mandates, higher taxes, which lead to higher costs.
What Mr. Boehner and other Republicans don't realize is that simply cutting taxes will not levee our economic troubles. What's the end game with this play? Is it that we'll eliminate taxes all together? In some cases we actually have, with corporations like G.E. and Exxon Mobil not paying any taxes due to off-shore tax loopholes. And these companies who don't pay their fair share of taxes aren't creating more jobs for Americans. Yet, we can not raise taxes in this economy, not even selectively according to Mr. Boehner.
Something's got to give, there has to be another answer out there beside 'tax cuts.' Contrary to what Republicans would tell you, those two words are not a panacea. They're actually two words that keep our spending addiction going... keeping the withdrawal chills away.
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