Americans Remain Frustrationed With President Obama And High Gasoline Prices

Obama's Energy Can Wait Plan
Toon by A.F. Branco

Today in Washington, D.C. - March 30, 2012:
The Supreme Court has ceased hearing oral arguments on the Federal Health Care Law, aka Obamacare, and the Supreme Court justices may meet today to conduct their initial vote in the case. Chief Justice John Roberts will then select an author to prepare the majority opinion of the court. The final decisions may be internally argued and changed before their official final release of the decision. However, this vote will not be made public. It is doubtful that their decision will be released before June.

There are numerous opinions on what the Court may do. Most believe they will strike the individual mandate, other debate whether the rest of the law will be allowed to stand. It is interesting that the without the sever-ability clause in the actual Healthcare bill how the American taxpayer can be saddened with a deficient law. However, the justices after hopefully striking the unconstitutional individual mandate may leave the fate for the rest of the bill up to the people to decide by their votes in November as to who will control and / or repeal, replace or correct this major monstrosity created and forced on America people with apparent malice and forethought by the members of democratic party.

The Senate is in recess until Monday April 16. When the Senate returns, Democrats have scheduled a vote on cloture on the motion to proceed to S. 2230, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s (D-RI) “Buffett Rule” tax hike bill.

Yesterday, Democrats’ latest bid to raise taxes on American energy producers, S. 2204, failed to get cloture by a vote of 51-47.

The House adjourned this morning for its two week spring break and is scheduled to return on April 16, 2012. Yesterday, the House passed H. Res. 600 to HR 4281 (266-158), a 90 Day temporary funding extension of Highway funding. The House and the Senate were unable to resolve the differences between the original House passed bill and the Senates changes to the bill. Senate Democrats are insisting that the House pass the modified $109 billion two-year Senate bill. The Senate Democrats, infamous for their own Continuing Resolutions, angrily accepted the House 90 day extension the highway funding which would have ceased on Saturday with Congress with Congress out of session for a two-week spring break except for potential pro-forma meetings.

Yesterday, The House voted on two budget plans. The first plan, H.Con.Res. 113, was defeated (136-285). It was the conservative Republican Study Committee's "cut, cap, and balance" 2013 budget proposal which would have brought the government back into alignment in five years. The ARRA News Service supported the RSC proposal and appreciates the the efforts of SRC and the leadership of Reps Jim Jordan and Scott Garrett, and the majority of House Republicans who voted for the alternative that would have placed the government on a path of fiscal responsibility and accountability.

The House then approved H.Con.Res. 112. (228-191) the Ryan Budget plan. All the Republicans except for 10 voted for the Ryan budget plan. All the democrats opposed the Ryan budget plan. Americans for Limited Government called the Ryan plan "a small step in the right direction that will reduce deficits to just $166 billion by 2018, a fraction of the current trillion dollar deficits we see every year from the Obama Administration. It would actually result in net cuts to the budget in 2013 and 2014 by $94 billion and $54 billion, respectively. However, it may be too little, too late, to save the nation from flying off the cliff of insolvency."

Doug Schoen at Forbes added: "Ryan's Budget isa start -- but only a start. ... Republicans can now say that they are putting forward actual solutions to the nation’s fiscal problems, repudiating the Democrats’ attack that they have only rejected President Obama’s initiatives without proposing ideas of their own. . . . Meanwhile, the Democrats have largely avoided taking a serious approach to entitlement reform and balancing the budget. Despite what Obama senior advisor David Plouffe said on last Sunday’s morning talk shows, the President did not really embrace the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction plan, and has not yet committed to fiscal discipline and achieving a balanced budget."

The Wall Street Journal wrote yesterday, “The White House and its Democratic allies are doing what they can to shift Americans' frustration with high gasoline prices from President Barack Obama to another group: oil and gasoline companies. Senate Democrats pressed for a vote Thursday to end some $20 billion in federal subsidies to the largest oil and gas companies. The vote failed, as Democrats knew it would. The effort was a political gesture . . . .” ABC News added, “A last minute entreaty by President Obama wasn’t enough to convince senators to strip the oil and gas industry of billions in tax incentives.” And The Hill noted, “Four Democrats — Sens. Mark Begich (Alaska), Mary Landrieu (La.), Ben Nelson (Neb.) and Jim Webb (Va.) — voted against the bill. The outcome of the vote was not a surprise, given that a similar plan failed 52-48 last May. But the decision to take another shot at passing the bill— and the decision by the White House to wade into the fight — underscore the political salience of rising gasoline prices in an election year. Obama has sought to deflect blame for high gas prices, in part by casting Republicans as allies of big oil companies.”

Charles Krauthammer said on Fox News last night, “I think any objective observer would look at what the president said today in the Rose Garden on this and conclude as I did: it is truly staggering cynicism.” Indeed, Senate Democrats have repeatedly acknowledged that their attempts to raise taxes on American energy producers would have “no impact on gasoline prices” and “will not reduce gasoline prices by one penny.” Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK) lamented this week, “We should have a real energy debate, not this show and tell for campaigning purposes.” And previously Begich and Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) have called this tax proposal “a gimmick” and “laughable,” respectively.

The Washington Post reported yesterday that “the price of gas has risen for 20 consecutive days” and yet the president and Democrats put forward this tax hike that news reports called “a political gesture.” Also, Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell said yesterday, “Is this really the best we can do? Is this the best we have to offer folks who are staring at $4 a gallon gasoline?  A bill that even Democrats admit won’t do anything to lower the price of gas? And a process that blocks any other idea from even coming to the floor for a vote? Does anybody think the Senate’s really done its job on this issue?”

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Tags: Washington, D.C., Obama administration, high gas prices, US Senate, US House, Highway funding, continuing resolution, RSC budget plan Ryan budget plan, Tony Blanco, political cartoon To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!