To Drill Baby Drill, or not to Drill Baby Drill

The off-shore drilling debate became incredibly polarized and over-simplified by both sides during the last presidential election. (I know, what else is new.) Two things are clear. Oil spills and oil prices both suck. Otherwise, neither the pros nor the cons of an expanded domestic drilling program have ever been adequately quantified. In 2009 the democrats did their self-satisfied environmental protector routine while republicans were in take-no-prisoners drill mode.

On one hand it’s standard liberal operating procedure to champion a noble cause with zero regard for the tradeoffs. The downside of refusing to drill domestically was largely and predictably ignored by anyone on the left. But the flip side of that charge sticks for republicans too- what do we really stand to gain if we take the oil companies off their leash?

Who can forget the chants of “drill baby drill” emanating from their convention in ‘09; all those supporters drunk and delirious with petrol-lust? But how much did prices drop when drilling commenced in the Gulf of Mexico? Did every American get a fuel-perks card good for dollar gasoline? The only people who benefit when a new area opens up for drilling are those who own the leases. That oil hits the open market like all the rest; it doesn’t get routed to American pumps at a discount. Prices in general might drop a penny per supply and demand, but that doesn't justify the mess unless you were a BP stockholder. How can we change that? And if we do, how much will that change things, given that we have fewer reserves in this country than Qatar or Kazakhstan? There may be answers to these questions. If there are, we want hear them. So conservatives need to expand the message this time. If they want to risk a giant disaster in another region, we need to hear more than a rabble of blithering idiots screaming “drill baby drill” and “we’re sending money to people who hate us!” 

Take the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, for instance. What quantities of proven, probable and possible reserves are present? How much time and resources are required for primary, secondary and tertiary extraction? Who will be given the drilling rights? What mechanism is in place to ensure that the American people will genuinely benefit? And how much impact at the pump can any of this ultimately have if we have less oil than the backwards country they made fun of in Borat? Keep asking these kinds of questions and it begs another- has this issue been all style and no substance all along?

I don’t excuse democrats from these types of demands, but the larger burden of proof falls to republicans in this case because their position is the one that risks further environmental catastrophe. And, in the political arena, because they are the ones seeking to win back the White House. They cannot simply rely on slogans and quick-hitter talking points again, not just on this issue but with regard to the assault on Obama in general. They can do it, and through primary season they to a large degree have. But it won’t be good enough to get general election votes from those who think critically.


EDIT (to clarify my personal thoughts):


I am all for more drilling in theory. But like a lot of issues I feel that voters on both sides of this particular fence are too busy root-root-rooting for the home team to hold the politicians accountable. Since there are major left wing staples like alternative energy and the environment that, on the surface, don't mesh  with *anything* relating to drilling, you can forget about those guys. So we're left with independents and mainstream republicans. And since independents are ignored until the general election, it falls on the party faithful to demand from its leaders answers to the questions I posed above. Yet it largely remains an echo chamber. This is my beef.

Let's Talk Taxes

A favorite stance to take among many on the left is that the wealthy in this country should “pay their fair share” when it comes to taxes. 

Here’s a quick scenario- you and three friends plan a vacation together. You charge the hotel room, which costs $400 a night, to your credit card. Do you then…

      

A)    Collect $100 per person for the room.

or

B)    Compare tax returns and conclude that, to be fair, the friend making $100,000 should pay $200, the two making $60,000 should pay $85, and the one making $35,000 should pay $30.

Naturally you’d go with option A.  A person's “fair share” of anything is based on what it costs and how many people are splitting it. It has nothing to do with how much money people make. That doesn't mean that a well-off friend can’t hook up his buddy if he's going through a rough patch. But we call that generosity, not an obligation. Self-righteous liberals would do well to remember this.

It’s convention to say that the government provides us with things- safe roads, police departments, military protection. But the reality is that we, as societies, provide ourselves with these things. Your town has firefighters because the townsfolk pitched in and hired them, not because the government was generous enough to go get them for you. The government is a glorified middle man, and societies elect government office-holders just like your group of friends nominates its most anal-retentive member to book a hotel room.

The governments of the United States, including the federal, state and local levels, collected $4.9 trillion in total taxes in 2011. With a population of 313 million that comes to about $15,000 per person. That’s how much the things Americans have agreed to pitch on (via our representative democracy) cost last year (to keep it simple let's ignore our staggering debt). Your town pitched in for schools, your state pitched in for highways, and your country pitched in to blow shit up in Afghanistan. Everyone’s fair share of all that stuff and more came out to about 15 grand.

Obviously most Americans can’t afford to fork over that kind of money every year. But we can’t kill only the terrorists who plan to bomb an affluent area, or fix potholes only for those above a certain bracket. And nor would we want to. But that means that regardless of how you feel about concepts like supply-side economics and trickle-down theory, those who have the most must pay more than their fair share.

Naturally we’re not always going to agree on exactly how much more the most fortunate (or most clever, or hardest-working, or most devious, or whatever) should pay. That will always be a conversation. But instead of starting that conversation with indignant demands, let’s start it with “thank you.” Thank you for paying more than your share so the children of alcoholics have clean water to drink and safe food to eat. Thank you for paying more than your share so the children of dropouts have a chance to escape the poverty cycle. Thank you for paying more than your share so that working class kids can borrow money for college.

And after that we can all go back to boldly chucking around uninformed opinions on fiscal and monetary policy. Entitlements! Job creators! Job destroyers! Special interests! Pork barrel spending! Blah! Blah!! BLAH!!!