A simple solution to high gas prices

The idea that this country can not deal with the price of gas and how constricting it is to our way of life is a complete joke.  History tells us that this trend comes about this time every year and goes for a few months here and there.  The spin offered by those who believe this is a hot issue is astounding and therefore made to appear so complex that many Americans just throw up their hands and look for anyone who will promise to find the answer.

I allowed myself to be drawn into this discussion by Laura Conaway’s feed on the Maddowblog article titled Your Democratic president on GOP ideas.  In it she quotes Ezra Klien, whom I have great respect for and love to listen to.  While I do agree with what was reported as Ezra writing “the shift toward Republican thinking hasn't gained President Obama support from Republicans, and it leaves a lot of empty space on the left,” I do not totally agree with his premise and find myself agreeing with the comment by April 985752 who said that “Ezra's article sounds like another light weight hit piece by the gang of JournoLists. They have their meme of "he hasn't done enough" while they ignore all that has been done and even most of what got squashed by the filibuster in the Senate,” without the perceived hostility though.  I, too, wish that as much coverage would be done about the things he has done right as it is about the things he has done wrong or haven’t done.  We all should be conscientious of the fact that before many of us began to walk, we first had to crawl.  I am not happy with how some of the things got done but I can hold my head up high because they were done.  There is a whole lot left for him to do but to do it in one year or even four is far less the opportunity given to those who occupied that seat before him.  We must keep his feet to the fire as he requested and we must remember that he, himself said that no party has all of the answers.  For those Democrats who want to see more fighting, I say the more you fight the less you accomplish because the stronger you grow, your opposition will get just as strong.  We have wasted too much time and energy trying to out arm-wrestles each other, it’s time to put the childish things aside and concentrate on completing the task.  I remember him saying that he would rather be a good one term president than just another two term president.

As far as my solution to the high gas prices, I have to include other comments from this same article.  The first is from Mark 1679748 who suggested “Obama could just announce that he's lifting the ban and prices would come down. We could drill now until the technology and price is reasonable enough where people could buy hybrid or electric cars, or use the money from exporting oil to other countries to fuel the R&D for future cars.”  Before I could answer, he was corrected by two acutely aware Americans.  Tough Cookie explained that “the reason prices are so high right now is because of market speculation. There are no shortages, out of commission refineries, that's just spin.”   While Mickey Mouser broke it down even further, “Our current oil reserves and refineries are actually full and are refusing any more deposits of crude oil until they've refined what exists. Additionally oil is not sold as a singular American product, even if it is mined and refined in our country. Oil gets sold on a global market; lifting the ban on drilling will not solve gas prices.”    My solution is this, Sates where these out of commission oil refineries are, take control of them and refine the oil here to be used here.  This reduces our dependency and creates millions of jobs.  The Oil Producing Nations or (OPEC) will then have to recalculate though not by much because we are not the largest consumer anymore.  Let OPEC know that this is only being done because we have to dedicate our resources to our fellow Americans and lower our unemployment rate.  We also need to spare no expense in going after those who are robbing the poor and middle class or their well deserved tax breaks by the speculation causing this spike.  The tax breaks were done to put money back in our pockets to keep this economy moving not to line the pockets of those who already have more than they need.  Just my opinion and I could be wrong.