An Ol’ Broad’s Ramblings

The Power of the POTUS

24 June 2008, 11:31 am. 7 Comments. Filed under 2008, Economy, Feckless Weasels.

Analysis: Soaring gas prices bring pandering, promises

Like two rival filling-station owners across the highway in long-bygone price wars, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain keep putting up flashy signs and offering new incentives in hopes of attracting customers battered by $4 gas prices.

McCain is offering a summer break from the 18.4-cent federal gasoline tax, and holding out the promise of more offshore drilling to help you drive more cheaply to the beach. He wants to build 45 new nuclear reactors to generate electricity. On Monday, he proposed a $300 million government prize to anyone who can develop a superior battery to power cars of the future.

He may even wash your windows.

If you pull into the Obama station, he’ll promise you cash back from the windfall-profits tax he plans to slap on Big Oil. Check the tires? How about promises to go after oil-market speculators who help drive up prices as well as big subsidies for solar, wind, ethanol and other alternative-energy projects? The Illinois senator likens his energy package to the Kennedy-era space program.

Oil and gas prices that have doubled in the past year have squeezed aside the war in Iraq as the No. 1 issue this election year and both parties are blaming each other for the price spike — and for apparent congressional paralysis.

Obama and McCain have made high gas prices a top issue and have offered dueling remedies. Their positions are being echoed daily by their surrogates on Capitol Hill. And both make it sound as if only their proposals would chart the path to lower fuel prices and a final cure for what President Bush once labeled the nation’s addiction to foreign oil.

I would really like to know how we ended up with with two of the most CLUELESS weasels on the planet vying for the top spot in the United States!!! Unless an executive order is issued, neither one of them has the power to do a damn thing. They can suggest, they can propose bills to Congress, but they do not, and cannot control the price of a box of cereal, much less a gallon of gas. When did people get the idea that the POTUS could wield so much power? No where in Article II, Section 2 do I see any power bestowed on the POTUS to do any such thing as “control” the price of ANYTHING! Perhaps I’m just to dumb? PFFT!

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7 Comments »

  1. Jenn. 24 June 2008, 11:56 am

    I’m buying a horse.

  2. olbroad. 24 June 2008, 12:10 pm

    @Jenn:

    Wish we had a place to stash one. I wonder if the Mr would be willing to give up his “man cave” to house one? Or maybe when the neighbors get their barn built for their horses, they wouldn’t mind having an extra one or two eating up their hay and such? Wonder where we can get a buggy?

    Hey, at least with a horse, you get a byproduct for fertilizing the crops we’ll all have to start growing. :)

  3. HeatherRadish. 24 June 2008, 6:53 pm

    Unless an executive order is issued, neither one of them has the power to do a damn thing.

    They could nuke India and China, thus weakening global demand for oil…and India is an ally (and capitalist!  Evil!) in the WoT so they’re fair game for an Obama invasion….

  4. olbroad. 24 June 2008, 8:02 pm

    @HeatherRadish:

    Well, didn’t B. Hussein say he’d bomb Pakistan? Welp, there ya go! :? If he’d bomb one, he’d have no problem bombing those ol’ evil capitalist!

  5. Elroy. 25 June 2008, 1:26 am

    OK, short of bombing the competition (and I’m not sure y’all aren’t joking), what do you honestly suggest?

    Remember, if your POTUS is powerless to act, you have to ask why, and the answer is – this is what y’all wanted. This is the logical extension of the economic revolution started by Reagan, Thatcher, Friedman et al. Welcome to your world. 

    Oh, and a war in the Middle East doesn’t help.

    So what do you suggest we, the world, do about it? Seriously, what do you think will be a long-term solution?

    Cheers

    Elroy

  6. olbroad. 25 June 2008, 8:12 am

    @Elroy:

    So what do you suggest we, the world, do about it?

    How ’bout “YOU, the world”, get the hell out of our way! YOU, the world, have sat by appeasing the terrorists, and do little or nothing to stop the spread. Don’t want to offend anyone, right?

  7. Elroy. 25 June 2008, 6:12 pm

    What has this go to do with terrorism? This thread is about the inability of nation states to effect energy resource prices. Try to stay on topic, dear!

    And by ‘we’, I mean ‘we’ – you, the rest of us, everybody. You might not have noticed this, but you do not actually have your own planet. The rest of us have to live on it too, and we are rather interested in solutions that do not include making half of it toast.

    So, what should ‘we’ do? 

    Cheers

    Elroy

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