Sarah Palin: Your Tax Dollars Hard at Work...

Today's Wall Street Journal contains some puzzling news for all Americans who are impacted by high energy prices and who share the goal of moving us toward energy independence (Palin, 2009, ¶1).

For years, states rich with an abundance of oil and natural gas have been begging Washington, DC politicians for the right to develop their own natural resources on federal lands and off shore. Such development would mean good paying jobs here in the United States (with health benefits) and the resulting royalties and taxes would provide money for federal coffers that would potentially off-set the need for higher income taxes, reduce the federal debt and deficits, or even help fund a trillion dollar health care plan if one were so inclined to support such a plan (Palin, 2009, ¶2).

So why is it that during these tough times, when we have great needs at home, the Obama White House is prepared to send more than two billion of your hard-earned tax dollars to Brazil so that the nation's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, can drill off shore and create jobs developing its own resources? That's all Americans want; but such rational energy development has been continually thwarted by rabid environmentalists, faceless bureaucrats and a seemingly endless parade of lawsuits aimed at shutting down new energy projects (Palin, 2009, ¶3).

I'll speak for the talent I have personally witnessed on the oil fields in Alaska when I say no other country in the world has a stronger workforce than America, no other country in the world has better safety standards than America, and no other country in the world has stricter environmental standards than America. Come to Alaska to witness how oil and gas can be developed simultaneously with the preservation of our eco-system. America has the resources. We deserve the opportunity to develop our resources no less than the Brazilians. Millions of Americans know it is true: "Drill, baby, drill." Alaska is proof you can drill and develop, and preserve nature, with its magnificent caribou herds passing by the Trans Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS), completely unaffected. One has to wonder if Obama is playing politics and perhaps refusing a "win" for some states just to play to the left with our money (Palin, 2009, ¶4).

The new Gulf of Mexico lease sales tomorrow sound promising and perhaps will move some states in the right direction, but we all know that the extreme environmentalists who serve to block progress elsewhere, including in Alaska, continue to block opportunities. These environmentalists are putting our nation in peril and forcing us to rely on unstable and hostile foreign countries. Mr. Obama can stop the extreme tactics and exert proper government authority to encourage resource development and create jobs and health benefits in the U.S.; instead, he chooses to use American dollars in Brazil that will help to pay the salaries and benefits for Brazilians to drill for resources when the need and desire is great in America (Palin, 2009, ¶5).

Buy American is a wonderful slogan, but you can't say in one breath that you want to strengthen our economy and stimulate it, and then in another ship our much-needed dollars to a nation desperate to drill while depriving us of the same opportunity (Palin, 2009, ¶6).

- Sarah Palin

Commentary

Unlike most politicians today, Governor Palin practices the politics of progress. Her statement really should be painfully obvious. It is simple common sense and does not require a rocket scientist to analyze.

Very simply put, the Obama administration should be investing taxpayer dollars in domestic energy production, which means drilling in our waters and on our lands. We have the technology to do this in an environmentally responsible manner. We need to dispel the myth that oil drilling in the United States is synonymous with environmental destruction. It is not.

We import over 60% of our oil. A significant amount of that originates from nations which do not have our best interests at heart. This is not just an economic issue; it is a national security issue. Domestic energy production will bring greater peace, because it will extricate us from being involved with enemy nations.

The Obama administration very clearly has its priorities in the wrong place. The United States' priority for energy production should be the United States, not Brazil -- or anywhere else.

In addition to the uses Governor Palin suggested, $2 billion is money that can be spent on building refineries on land which held closed military bases. We have not built a refinery in 30 years.

Governor Palin is spot dead on with this. Just as she was with health care -- despite protestations to the contrary from some. She is thinking about what is in this country's best interests and delineated her thought process very succinctly and cogently.

Obama and his entire administration are bent on leading us down the road to being a dependent, mediocre socialist state. His "thought processes" -- for lack of a better term -- are the problem and mirror nearly 40 years of the same miserably failed ideologies pertaining to energy that got us into this predicament in the first instance. He promised "hope and change," but what he is giving instead is really more of the same.

Governor Palin absolutely is the one who offers true hope and change.

References

Palin, S.L.H. (2009, August 19). "Your tax dollars hard at work: First cars, now foreign oil." FaceBook, Sarah Palin. Retrieved August 19, 2009 from: http://www.facebook.com/sarahpalin#/sarahpalin?v=app_2347471856&viewas=1574531555