Fight Back Against Big Oil
     By Bill O'Reilly for BillOReilly.com
     Thursday, Apr 24, 2008

     So now we have the presidential candidates running around telling
voters that they will help solve high gas prices. Well, if you believe that,
you'll believe that Hugo Chavez drives a Yugo. It's just bull.

     Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are calling for "investigations"
into "price gouging" by American oil companies. Good. There's plenty of
price manipulation going on and, under Presidents Bush and Clinton, little
federal oversight. If a big oil company wants to tighten supply, for
example, it's a snap. Just slow down the refinery process by ordering some
extra "maintenance" or something.

     But who is going to investigate Senators Obama and Clinton over their
opposition to oil drilling? The Democratic Party has consistently opposed
new drilling, and nuclear energy as well. Even the dedicated liberal
governments in France and Sweden bought into nuclear. But not the American
left, no way.

     On the Republican side, President Bush has done absolutely nothing
about rising gas prices, which is part of the reason is approval rating is
approaching 20%. He blames the Democrats. Fine. But the President should be
telling all Americans to cut back their gas consumption by 15%. He should be
urging us to use less gas. That would at least cut into big oil's record
profit margins.

     Senator John McCain proposes a gas tax "holiday" this summer. True,
that would save the folks a few bucks, but it would also add to the massive
spending deficit. The government better start balancing the budget soon
before Häagen-Dazs becomes more valuable than the U.S. currency.

     The sad truth is that both political parties have sold out the folks.
For decades, economists knew China and India were industrializing and those
countries would demand much greater amounts of oil. Everybody knew that OPEC
could slow down production and gouge the world if it could and, of course,
now it can.

     But if Americans would get angry and begin punishing the oil bandits,
then prices would drop. However, we are often a selfish people. We want
those gas-guzzling Hummers and SUVs, and we're paying a big price for that
above and beyond the sticker.