George W. Bush likes to strut around declaring that
he’s a bold leader who’s unafraid to tackle big problems. So
where’s His Boldness on the gargantuan problem of America’s
addiction to high-priced, high-polluting oil?
We recently saw the ballyhooed release of his
“new energy program,” which wasn’t new at all and does
practically nothing to shift our nation’s policy to a sensible future
of clean, renewable energy. But let’s just deal here with the
volatile issue of the skyrocketing prices at the gas pump.
Even Bush’s Hummer-driving constituency is
mumbling about $2.50-a-gallon gas, and these rising prices are putting a
real hardship on cabbies, farmers, truck drivers, and other working folks.
But Mr. Bold Leader says he’s powerless to do anything.
Hogwash. A real leader would crack down on the oil
companies that are gouging the middle-class and poor folks, robbing us not
with a gun but with the nozzle of a gas pump. The corporate oil cartel is
making a killing from its oil wells, then using monopolistic control of
refining and marketing to profiteer at our expense. Their windfall profits
this year alone are so huge that some of them are complaining that they
don’t know how to spend it all.
But our problem-solver-in-chief is AWOL. No temporary
price regulations to stop the gouging, no windfall profits tax to recoup
the rip-off, no presidential scolding of the gougers, no crackdown by the
Federal Trade Commission on price collusion by the oil giants. Nothing.
Of course, this is no surprise, because the Bushites
have oil for brains. Big Oil is a big-time campaign donor to Bush and
literally makes federal energy policy. For example, guess whom Bush
appointed to head the FTC, the agency that’s supposed to be the
public’s watchdog against such monopolistic gouging? A lawyer from
ChevronTexaco.
This article appears in May 19-25, 2005.
