Degrees only mean something when it is the person you are rooting for. When it is the opponent they mean nothing. The current president has an MBA, his business solution was to give the people their money back. It worked. Now the lawyer wants to take it all away. That is idiotic in my view.

Sure, Bush gave us a tax cut, but for millions of hard-working middle-class families, life under Bush rule has grown less affordable and less secure. President Bush’s record of fiscal inaptitude and mismanagement, and Republicans’ close ties with special interests, have helped lead to both lower wages and skyrocketing costs for basic necessities like gas, health care, and college tuition. Unfortunately, instead of producing solutions to the problems facing the middle class, Bush Republicans are ignoring them and pushing for policies that will make matters even worse.
In addition to tightening the squeeze on families, Republican policies have made our entire nation less secure economically. Republicans have pushed to increase our debt to nearly $9 trillion and have insisted on spending billions of dollars every year on budget-busting tax breaks for special interests and multi-millionaires.

Prices at the gas pump jumped 174 percent from $1.47 per gallon the week President Bush took office in January 2001 to $4.01 in the latest week of energy price data. The price for a barrel of oil has increased fourfold during the Bush Administration from $30.63 in January 2001 to $130.40 in late July 2008.

Please tell me how this affected you.



I am sorry but how is college tuition a necessity?

Health care skyrocketed when Senator Kennedy insisted we stop paying for health care ourselves and use his wonderful idea called HMO. Now he says that HMO’s suck and the legislation was no good. He wrote it but now it is a bad thing.

Lawyers sued everyone they could with malpractice causing prices to go even higher and when the republicans tried to put a cap on law suits so health care could remain affordable, the special interest group (trial lawyers) lobbied the Democrats to stop that silly talk.

When Mr. Bush and the republicans wanted to drill for oil to reduce gas prices we were all told that it was a ploy because Mr. Bush was in bed with “Evil” oil. The environmental lobby put a stop to that. The environmental lobby demanded we use bio-fuels in order to save the planet, and reduce the fuel price. The result was less food, more expensive food, fuels that are more expensive and less useful than gasoline. And now all food is more expensive because the price of getting it to market is higher because of the high cost of gas.

Just for the record the price of gas went from 1.74 a gallon to 2.12 a gallon then the democrats took over congress and the price in two years went from 2.12 to 4.11 a gallon so in six years the price of gas went up .38 cents and the two years of democrat control the price went up 1.99 yeah that evil Bush is doing it to us every way he can.



In what way is he doing this?

Do anybody hear the oil companies complaining about offshore drilling or any other place to drill for oil? No, because they have approximately 50 to 60 million acres of leased federal land including offshore with oil deposits in which they have not drilled a single well. Even if the oil companies were given 30 to 40 million more acres of offshore land, who’s to say they would drill a single well and who would make them if they didn’t? You should be ashamed of yourselves to believe that the oil companies want to produce more oil for less money--Competition is the key and alternative energy is the only way.

(Wall Street Journal, 3/27/06) Median household income has declined $1,273 from $47,599 in 2000 to $46,326 in 2005.

You are using out dated democrat talking points. This lie you are repeating was debunked within a week of it being told.

With the prohibition of off shore drilling that started in the 1970’s what is there to complain about? The oil companies said they needed to drill. They testified in front of the Congress and the Congress of the time placed a ban on it.

If you bothered to do a little research you would have learned that the federal leases are only good for a certain amount of time. In that time they have to test to see if there is any oil down there, apply for permits do test drill, and if they find oil then apply for more permits to actually drill for oil. If they have not drilled it is because the land has been tested and there is not enough recoverable oil to make any money. When you are talking about millions of dollars just to sink a well you don’t just drill for the fun of it. I am not an expert in the field my only experience has to do with the fact that I watched the hearings in the 70’s and cheered when evil oil was told to pound sand. 30 years later we see they were right and I and the rest of the liberal democrats were wrong.



You should be ashamed of your self for not knowing how to do the math. If the price of gas is 100 a gallon or 1 dollar a gallon they still make the same amount of money. Federal law limits the amount of profit they can make. 9.9 cents a gallon, the huge profits they make is on volume sold not the price it was sold at. My family used to own a gas station in the 70’s the laws is quite strict. As an independent owner we could only make 3 cents a gallon, the oil companies can only make 9.9 cents a gallon. The rest is cost of the product and taxes.



I knew you were a liar when you posted your talking points. This is why I specifically asked YOU to answer the question about YOU. I did not ask about other people I asked how did this affect YOU. The reply is some article with no reference to how it affects you. This leads me to believe that you are just a shill for the idiots that love to spread lies.

You missed the reference. I was already chastised for mocking assasination, when all I was doing was mocking Hillary, not Obama. (Her Comment about Bobby Kennedy).

That is your opinion, not supported by the facts. And I am glad you can express it - now. With any more nanny laws, you may be forbidden. Note I say nanny laws, not Patriot ones.



You forgot Democrats too - even closer (one might say incestuous) ties.



Or you can just as easily (and more accurately) say that the price increased by 90 cents a gallon under 6 years of republican control of congress, and almost $2 under the (less than) 2 years democrat control. Congress makes laws, the president can veto them if they ever get to his desk. But he cant sign them if they do not.

For the second time, that is not about the middle class, but adding a lot of lower income households to the survey. Illegal immigrants? I am sure you have heard of them. They have been in all the papers.

Factor those out, and then report on median (which is middle, not average) income. If you dare.

(Committee On Natural Resources) - In an effort to compel oil and gas companies to produce on the 68 million acres of federal lands, both onshore and offshore, that are leased but sitting idle, House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick J. Rahall (D-WV) today introduced legislation that gives Big Oil one option - either "use it or lose it."

"Big Oil, as many Americans already suspect, are perfectly fine with high gasoline prices at the pump while they hold back domestic production on federal leases and enjoy world record profits. I am calling them on the carpet. I am calling their bluff. We are not going to continue to allow them to speculate and profiteer with public resources to the detriment of the American people," Rahall said.

The Responsible Federal Oil and Gas Lease Act of 2008 (H.R. 6251) is a direct response to the facts outlined in the recent House Natural Resources Committee Majority Staff report, "The Truth About America's Energy: Big Oil Stockpiles Supplies and Pockets Profits", that illustrate how energy companies are not using the federal lands and waters that are already open to drilling. The legislation is co-sponsored by Reps. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Ed Markey (D-MA), and John Yarmuth (D-KY).

The 68 million acres of leased but inactive federal land have the potential to produce an additional 4.8 million barrels of oil and 44.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas each day. This would nearly double total U.S. oil production, and increase natural gas production by 75 percent. It would also cut U.S. oil imports by more than one-third, reducing America's dependency on foreign oil.

The Rahall bill would force oil and gas companies to either produce or give up federal onshore and offshore leases they are stockpiling by barring the companies from obtaining any more leases unless they can demonstrate that they are producing oil and gas, or are diligently developing the leases they already hold, during the initial term of the leases.

Coal companies, which are issued leases for 20-year terms, are required, as a result of the Federal Coal Leasing Amendments Act of 1976 to show that they are diligently developing their leases during the initial lease term. The law was enacted in an effort to end rampant speculation on federal coal as a result of the energy crises of the 1970's.

Oil and gas companies, however, are not required to demonstrate diligent development. Because of this, oil and gas companies have been allowed to stockpile leases in a non-producing status, while leaving millions of acres of leased land untouched. The Rahall legislation directs the Secretary of the Interior to define what constitutes diligent development for oil and gas leases.

Companies could avoid this new lease prohibition by relinquishing their non-producing leases, thus creating an opportunity for another company to explore for and perhaps produce oil and gas.

"As long as oil companies hold oil hostage, they will continue to get away with charging high prices and demanding a greater share of the public's land. This bill forces their hand by compelling them to produce or hand the over their idle leases for someone who will," Rahall said.

profit margin is defined as: “A ratio of profitability calculated as net income divided by revenues, or net profits divided by sales. It measures how much out of every dollar of sales a company actually keeps in earnings… Profit margin is displayed as a percentage; a 20% profit margin, for example, means the company has a net income of $0.20 for each dollar of sales.”
So let’s look at some oil company profit margins:
Exxon Mobile: 11.65%
Chevron: 9.49%
BP: 8.09%
So let’s see here. Exxon, the highest on the list, makes 11.65 cents on the dollar.

Yup, still going with outdated trash from the democrats. All federal leases have a time limit. This means that every single oil lease on federal land has a drop dead date. Your congressman is making political points with his legislation of use it or lose it because it is already written in the lease. I was a purchasing agent for the Federal Government for two years while recuperating from some minor injuries. I had to learn the Federal Acquisition Regulations or (FAR) since I have been out of that area of federal work for 20 + years and I know this regulation don’t you think the Congress should know the laws when leasing federal property? Are you ashamed that they took you in so easily? Try Google since it has its own website, learn how you are being used like a 2 dollar whore.



He is lying through his tooth. It can take up to ten years to drill for the oil once the lease has been made. They have to survey the land, and if they suspect there is oil then they have to do and environmental impact study before they can get a permit to put up a test well, if the test well shows that drilling may be profitable then they have to do another environmental impact statement and hope it is not challenged by the tree huggers, then they have to request another permit after all court challenges are resolved. If the Congress approves then they can drill for oil. They have to do all of this before the lease runs out or they have to start all over again and at the same time compete with other oil companies that might have noticed the lease has expired and try to out bid the first company because all the hard work was already done.

So with all the money spent you honestly think they are just letting the land sit idol in order to give us high prices for gas? You have been rolled my friend.



The key word is potential, none of it has been discovered, it could be there but we don’t know for sure until a test well has been sunk. Every person in the womb has the potential of being the next Albert Einstein, or the next Adolf Hitler. Until the child is born and reaches his full potential we won’t know for sure, most fall in the middle. The same is true with the oil leases. It looks good and has potential for a large amount of oil but until it has been tested we don’t know for sure. Getting the permits takes years so the land looks as if no one is doing anything but people have been out there doing their surveys, and finding potential areas to drill. This is the game that is being played on you. Just because there is not a rig pumping oil, you are told they are sitting on the land and not doing anything. When you see an oil rig you have seen the end of the process not the beginning.

How about this one in the Dakotas there was a find in the 1950’s of ten billion barrels of oil. the problem was that at the time of its discovery it would cost 25 dollars a barrel to pull out of the ground. Back then they could buy oil at 8 dollars a barrel. With new technology they can now get that oil at 20 dollars a barrel. The lease expired 30 years ago and Congress has not permitted another lease for that land. How about off the coast of Santa Barbra California, 400 million barrels of oil sit there, the wells have been capped because the state and federal governments banned drilling there. All that is required is for Congress to lift the ban and they can reopen the wells that are already there. But it seems your buddies in Congress don’t want to even open up proven wells, proven reserves, all they have to do is update the equipment and start pumping the oil. last word I heard on that was last week and it will take a year to start pumping again.

Great strategy your buddies have, drill where there is no oil or no proven oil but don’t drill where we know there is oil. you have been lied to, big time!



So the federal ban on offshore drilling means nothing? Congress has to lift that ban before they can pump that oil again. Only in a few states is it currently allowed and those places are being worked. You are so gullible!



Have you seen all the congressional bans on coal usage? Let me guess, your democrat buddies that want oil companies to drill it or lose it came up with that one too right?

Instead of new legislation to force oil companies to do what federal law already demands why don’t they lift the bans on oil drilling where we have proven reserves? It would take less time and we would actually see some results from it.



Sorry having a son that works for an oil company makes it hard to believe that this is happening. They have 10 to 20 years to produce or they lose the rights to the lease. That has been established before you were born. Had you bothered to check that out you would not have swallowed their lies hook, line, sinker, the boat and half the water it displaced.



Federal law states 9.9 cents per gallon as profit. If they broke that law do you think the democrats in the Congress would be silent about it? That is not a profit ratio it is a hard number. Now they are allowed to recoup the cost of the barrel of oil but that is the cost of doing business not profit. So yes they may get 11 cents on the dollar but 9.9 cents is profit. They make any more than that the government can shut them down. You are complaining because they show a profit of 11.65 cents on the dollar when the federal government makes 68 cents on the dollar in taxes. Add to that the state and local taxes tacked on. Give me a break, smell what you are shoveling.

Don’t you think a 10 to 20 year lease gives the oil companies adequate time to find the oil?

So you are saying that the oil companies are actually searching for oil on those 68 million acres but have not discovered any oil?

Why are you so defensive of big oil?