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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 6, 2008

Updated:

Common Sense Eludes Dems

To say that we should be drilling our own oil here in America is not to ignore the market as it relates to this commodity. On the contrary, we must examine it closely and correctly.

I never claimed gas prices would quickly or profoundly fall due to domestic drilling. I don't know anyone who has. However, all economic theory regarding supply and demand says increased supply with all other factors remaining the same, will in fact cause prices to fall.

The fact that foreign demand for this commodity is rising as economists predict, mandates that current prices will continue to rise. This is irrelevant to domestic drilling. Our drilling may not cause actual prices to decrease, but it will entail lower prices from what they would otherwise be if we don't drill.

It seems many outspoken Democrats don't mind $10 a gallon gas; after all, they think we should imitate the Europeans in all things, gas prices included.

I intentionally underestimate the end result of increases in supply because we definitely won't see immediate drops in prices as estimates for getting oil out of the ground span nearly a decade.

But of course if a Democrat happened to be president when this occurred, they would claim credit, as Bill Clinton did with our economy after Reagan created an anti-inflationary supply-side economic boom.

Now there is no doubt OPEC is an oligarchic cartel and controls price by limiting supply, so domestic drilling has considerable potential for disrupting such cohesiveness. But domestic drilling does so much more. It would strengthen the U.S dollar by reducing foreign debt, employ American workers and stimulate regional economies. The more domestic oil we produce, the less foreign oil we will import, strengthening our trade balance and our dollar and, as Mr. Dunlap points out, actually lower the price of foreign oil we buy due to a better exchange rate.

It is quite relevant that George Soros, one of the major contributors to MoveOn.org and the Democrats, makes his millions from speculating in this other commodity, currency exchange and more specifically the devaluation of the dollar. He makes money when the dollar falls and we pay more. So he makes every effort to ensure that happens, most notably supporting Democrat candidates.

But it was Dunlap's analysis of the price of gas that has backward reasoning. While the price may be tied to production costs, neither is fixed. If cheaper technology is developed prices will drop.

Costs obviously affect supply, but suppliers compete and additional sources being developed will cause those suppliers, whose production costs are lowest, to then lower prices at least to the level unprofitable for other producers pushing the prices down - eventually below the cost of the second cheapest producer, not the most costly, taking away these OPEC countries' windfall profits.

More importantly, they won't be able to raise prices above those levels as competition will enter the market and sell it at that price. Then, international crises won't jolt our markets as they do now.

This refers to oil prices; in order to do the same for gas, we need to construct more refineries outside the gulf coast where storms likewise disrupt the markets. With his assertion that American sources of oil have higher production costs, it makes sense to give incentives to these companies to produce it. I don't like subsidies, but we should not be creating so many political barriers to their production efforts. Also, arguments about who receives oil from Alaska are circular and irrelevant. If China buys our Alaskan oil and our gulf coast refineries buy Venezuelan oil, nothing has changed.

Our trade balance remains the same; the only difference is a cost savings in transporting crude shorter distances. Such arguments are made strictly for pedestrian political purposes.

Then, of course, domestic drilling helps our own economy by hiring Americans and bringing an economic boom to these communities. It's this economic growth that certain environmentalists don't like because business attracts people to places they believe only animals should roam. These naturalists are willing to sacrifice Amazon River dolphins to enhance their own domestic endeavors. Why?

Finally, domestic drilling keeps us from financing the terrorists that mean to do our country harm. If we don't send as much money to OPEC countries, these countries will undoubtedly have less of our money to finance their hatred of us.

So much of this is common sense, it begs the question: Why are Democrats obfuscating the truth and why are they dead set against what's good for America?

John T. Boyle

Hernando Beach

History Repeats

- Slowly

They say that history repeats itself, consequently, it certainly has.

Black males won the right to vote in 1870 - 15th Amendment .

However, it took 50 more years, 1920 - 19th Amendment - before the women of the United States of America, confederate and union, received the honor to vote.

I'm from the generation with "No Name" 1969. We grew up being afraid every time the president addressed the nation. We started with Nixon's end and moved onto Ford, Carter, Reagan.

We had to watch reels of JFK getting assassinated over and over again until we took the seventh-grade history test about where the bullets came from.

With the exception of "women's rights" it was a man's world.

No more promise to love, honor and obey!"

Our peers said to love, honor and cherish sounds more like it.

So I'm saddened by the loss of Hillary, and we'll just have to wait until 2058 before we really see any change in the history books, Washington, D.C., and the lives of the American people.

Mary Mason

Spring Hill

Left On Red To Save Gas

Things we should be doing to help each other because gas isn't going to get any cheaper.

We could set a few standards here in Hernando County, along with helping out our friends and neighbors with the support of our county commissioners. But then this may not be as important to them as it is to us. Most of us don't have a gas budget supported by Hernando taxpayers.

I think we should consider turning left on a red light after stopping. I can't tell you how much fuel I have idled away waiting to make a left turn, and it can be real frustrating at night or early in the morning when there is no traffic.

We also know under-inflated tires cause us to use more gas per mile. But think about it; how many neighbors or friends have their own air compressor and how many stations do you know that have air available? All stations should be required to furnish this along with instructions on how to use. If this requirement digs too deep into the oil company's profits, then it should be bought with state taxes that we are paying on every gallon that we buy.

I know this last item will not go over too well with the people who can afford these high gas prices or the people who have to furnish their own gas, city, state, county and federal government or even people who drive for an employer, but we need to get the speed down to 55 mph. It's easy to say if that is the speed you want to drive, then you drive that speed and let us drive 65 and 70. Try driving 55 with everyone driving faster and observe the close calls you have from people darting around you or sitting on you're back bumper.

These are just a few ideas that we could implement to help ourselves, and I would bet there are a lot more ideas out there that really cost us nothing. We need to start helping ourselves and forcing are elected officials to come up ways to also help us. Isn't that one of the things they said they would do to get our vote?

Walt Searle

Spring Hill

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