Posted by
Bill Crawford on Sunday, July 11, 2010 9:35:21 PM
This may turn into an ugly segue half way through this, but as I dig for causation, I find it unavoidable, Please bear with me here.
The situation in the Gulf is actually looking up. BP is in the process of putting a new cap on the well, one which they are convinced will absorb most of the outflow. Being that continuing to recover and refine the oil from that reserve has been one of their primary goals, I don't doubt them. In another month, the relief wells should finish the job. By early next year, a remarkable amount of this crap will be anciant history. (I hope).
There is still a lot of oil out there, and an active hurricane season will indeed be a potential FEMA nightmare. Thing one: a whole passel of beaches in the area have barely been touched by the slick. Thing two: federal testing on local seafood has shown much of it to be unaffected to this point. But the fisherman are grounded, applying to BP for benefits! That's because that is what the government is encouraging them to do.
I'll simply state also that I'm at a loss to figure why Washington didn't step in two months ago and force feed a solution to BP that involved shutting that damned thing down for good. You have to drop a sarcophagus on the thing. No more oil from that reserve? Too bad. No, folks, BP dictated their terms, and the feds swallowed them whole. Maybe that was part of the $20B deal, I don't know.
But we get to pass money out to the locals. BP money, our money. In a bureacracy, if you reach the end of the budget year with money left over, you spend it any way you can, because if you let the world know you can get along on 5% less, that's what you get with the new budget.
And that's the big picture. Obama inherited a three trillion dollar government, running on a $500B deficit- the other $800B in 2008 was the TARP outlays. The White House wants to set the new baseline as a FOUR trillion dollar government, with $1.5 trillion as deficit. Once you establish that you can't cut back from that, then you find the way to pay for it.
That's where cap & trade, value added taxes and assorted other ideas come into play. Because, (choke back tear, concerned look), we have to be responsible and balance the budget.
Cut spending? Are you serious? The federal government has not stopped hiring throughout this glorious recession. There are no furloughs, wage freezes, givebacks going on among federal employees.
They need to spend it, as fast as they can. And if that means shutting down the economy in the Gulf and putting them all on federal relief, you gotta do what you gotta do. Why teach a man to fish, when you can throw them a bone?