Drill Baby Drill?????
Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal broke a story regarding Americans funding off-shore drilling…in Brazil. According to the paper, the United States is loaning Brazil’s state-owned oil company, Petrobras, $2 billion in the form of either a direct loan or loan guarantees. Even more bizarre, we obviously don’t have $2 billion sitting around; we are taking out a loan to make a loan, something similar to speculators and day-traders who put their house at risk to borrow to play the stock market.
The implications here are staggering. First, there is the environmental implications. Aren’t we arguing over cap-and-trade because we are supposed to be part of a worldwide environment? How, then, does supporting the drilling of oil fit into that mantra? Doesn’t that make the Obama Administration rather hypocritical, to say that it’s awful for Americans to benefit from destructive drilling, but it’s okay for those in Brazil?
Second, one of the greatest fears about cap-and-trade is that American jobs will be outsourced and American companies will move outside of the United States. Although this loan is not a direct result of cap-and-trade, by using American dollars to create foreign jobs when America is already struggling under such high levels of unemployment seems to be a signal that such worries are not a priority to Obama. Sarah Palin contends that such money could be used to drill inside the United States, thus reducing our dependence on foreign oil while creating many American jobs. But even if we never drill domestically, every amount of money that we spend is money that comes from the taxpayers pockets, which means Americans will pay higher taxes for Brazil to grow economically. If the Obama administration feels the need to frivol away my money, I would rather that money at least stay in America. I never thought a 35 hours American job would look so good. Washington has proven yet again just how little it values regular people in America.
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Originally Posted by R Little
