Ryan Rips Obama for Higher Pump Prices

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright Sept 11, 2012
All Rights Reserved.                                         

              GOP Vice Presidential nominee House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) blasted President Barack Obama for high gas prices.  Saying that Barack went to “great lengths” to increase pump prices, Ryan completed his latest back-flip, pointing fingers at the White House for vetoing the Keystone pipeline, bringing crude oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.  True to form, Ryan continued the tack of blaming Barack for everything that’s wrong with the county.  He and his running mate former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney blame Obama for the country’s economic malaise where sluggish jobs growth continues to hamper economic recovery.  With the Gross Domestic Product running about 1.5%-2.0%, the GOP hammers Obama on his economic policies.  Neither Ryan nor Romney propose any new fixes other than more tax cuts for the nation’s wealthiest citizens.  Ryan blames the energy problem on the U.S. importing too much foreign oil.

          Ryan doesn’t mention that 90% of U.S. oil imports come from Canada and Mexico, something the GOP doesn’t want people to know.  If only, paraphrasing Ryan and Romney, the U.S. could drill in the Alaskan Natural Wildlife Reserve [ANWR}, it would solve the nation’s energy problems.  Whether the U.S. swims in domestic oil or imports it makes no difference.  Ryan and Romney know there’s little correlation between the cost of crude oil and actual pump prices.  “This is not just something that squeezes families, it squeezes businesses,” said Ryan, referring not to the current oil monopoly but to the failure to produce more domestic oil.  Obama stated clearly in his Sept. 7 acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention that more fuel efficiency of U.S. cars has greatly reduced U.S oil consumption.  Drilling offshore or in ANWR won’t lower pump prices.

            Blaming pump prices on bad foreign policy, Ryan promotes the myth that the U.S. buys its oil from the Middle East.  “It also gives us a bad foreign policy in that we are so dependent on other countries for our oil imports.  It’s the highest part of our trade deficit and so what’s frustrating about the Obama administration’s policies are they’ve gone to great lengths to make oil and gas more expensive,” said Ryan.  Ryan knows that the U.S. buys the lion’s share of “imported” oil from its closest trading partners, Canada and Mexico.  Whether oil is extracted domestically or bought from foreign sources, the price is set by the New York Mercantile Exchange and other foreign commodity exchanges.  Ryan knows that oil companies that control the sale of gasoline and other refined products like diesel fuel set the pump prices.  When Big Oil decides to raise prices, they invent any number of feeble excuses, conveniently transmitted to the financial news media

                 Big Oil has every excuse under the sun to justify increased pump prices, such as, increased consumption in China and India, refinery fires and outages, greater economic growth, political instability in the Middle East, natural disasters, currency fluctuations, etc.   Ryan and Romney forget about U.S. history before Obama.  They forget that Exxon-Mobil, Chevron-Texaco, Royal Dutch Shell and British Petroleum all had their best years under former President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney that gave Big Oil a green light to gouge consumers.  When Exxon-Mobil raked in their biggest profits in 2006, the Bush administration said high pump prices encouraged more conservation.  Today’s inflated pump prices won’t stop until consumers cut back at the pumps.  Once consumers can’t afford to drive, then Big Oil decides to lower pump prices.  Ryan likes to point fingers but has no answer for dealing with today’s stranglehold by Big Oil.

         Ryan insists that Obama’s failure to open up environmentally-protected lands for oil exploration has caused skyrocketing pump prices.  “Don’t forget the fact that he has tried lots of things to try and prevent drilling for natural gas and oil on public lands,” insisted Ryan.  “Let’s not forget the fact that the regulations coming out of the EPA are making it harder for us to harness home-grown American energy,” once again blaming high pump prices on environmental protections.  Ryan knows that because of the global recession the world is swimming in oil.  Abundant supplies around the planet have not stopped domestic and foreign trading desks from driving oil and gas prices through the roof.  Whether or not the U.S. ramped up more domestic production, Big Oil would justify higher pump prices by increased exploration and production costs.  Big Oil likes buying cheap foreign oil and refined products and making a killing at the pumps.

           Ryan and Romney hope the public will buy all their wild tales about how Obama has wrecked the American way of life.  They conveniently forget about life before Barack when the nation’s biggest banks ran out of cash.  When the Dow Jones Industrial Average was about 8,000 on 2009 Inauguration Day, not over 13,300 today—where General Motors and Chrysler faced bankruptcy and where  the nation spent $20 billion a month on foreign wars.   As Clinton pointed out at the DNC last Wednesday night, Romney and Ryan have a plan to fix the economy.  It happens to be the same one that sent the economy into a tailspin in 2007-08.  Ryan’s blaming Barack for high pump prices is far more egregious than fibbing about his marathon time.  Ryan’s plan to drill more offshore or on public lands won’t change pump prices one cent.  He knows that pump prices are driven by global mercantile exchanges and set by Big Oil to charge whatever they want.

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com.and author of Dodging the Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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