The price of oil has almost doubled since Barack Obama was elected president. Candidate Obama blamed Bush\u2019s \u201cties to big oil,\u201d but President Obama claims there\u2019s no silver bullet to lower the price. Moreover, he ridicules Republican calls for drilling. In his view, our energy salvation can only be found in alternative energy which, of course, required massive \u201cgovernment investment.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s an ounce of truth in the President\u2019s position. Oil prices are market-determined, and short of ill-advised price controls, overt threats to oil producers, or \u201cwindfall\u201d profits taxes, there\u2019s little politicians can do in the short run. Alternative energy offers a long-term solution, but there\u2019s no evidence that it will offer much assistance in the short or intermediate terms. Besides, there are many possibilities at this point, and markets\u2014not government\u2014should determine which and when any of these alternatives can begin to make a real difference in meeting our demand for energy.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, gas prices are determined by supply and demand. While China had increased global demand, President Obama has stymied oil exploration in the U.S. It takes several years for drilling permits to translate into increased production. Increases in domestic supply have resulted from permits issued in the Bush years, and prospects for increased production in the short term are bleak.<\/p>\n
The decline in the value of the dollar is a major<\/em> and often overlooked contributor to the crisis. With much of the global oil production occurring outside of the U.S., a weak dollar leads to higher prices. Obama favors a weak dollar.<\/p>\n R&D into alternative energy sources is a good idea, but more drilling is the only real solution for the time being. Increasing domestic supply not only brings down the price of oil, but it also creates jobs at home that would otherwise be created elsewhere. When the President mocks his opponents for a drill-drill-drill strategy, he\u2019s either showing his economic ignorance or he\u2019s comfortable with higher prices. The latter might sound a bit farfetched at first glance, but he\u2019s on record supporting a gradual hike in oil prices as a means of trimming demand and shifting the country away from oil (see www.canadafreepress.com\/index.php\/article\/44810<\/a> or simply Google \u201cObama high gas prices\u201d for more on this).<\/p>\n While the current spike in oil prices cannot be blamed completely on the President, he has contributed to the malaise through his weak dollar policy and his unwillingness to promote the expansion of supply. For this he should be held accountable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The price of oil has almost doubled since Barack Obama was elected president. Candidate Obama blamed Bush\u2019s \u201cties to big oil,\u201d but President Obama claims there\u2019s no silver bullet to lower the price. Moreover, he ridicules Republican calls for drilling. In his view, our energy salvation can only be found in alternative energy which, of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}