Fantasy Politics USA

President Obama spoke on the increasing oversight on manipulation in the oil market today in a speech in the Rose Garden. According to the White House, “President Obama discusses steps his Administration has taken to increase oversight of oil markets and close dangerous loopholes that allow a small numbers of irresponsible traders to hurt consumers by illegally manipulating or rigging the energy markets for their own gain, and calls on Congress to establish additional protections.” He assured us that they are trying to help us at the gas pump by saying, “when gas prices go up, it’s like an additional tax that comes right out of your pocket. That’s one reason we passed the payroll tax cut at the beginning of this year and made sure it extended all the way through this year so that the average American is getting that extra $40 in every paycheck right now.” “But, I think everybody understands that there are no quick fixes to this problem,” he said. Then President Obama claims responsibility for a record amount of oil production. “There are politicians to say that we just drill more then gas prices would just come down right away. What they don’t say is that we have been drilling more. My administration is producing more oil than at any time in the last eight years,” he said. “We’ve opened up new areas for exploration. We’ve quadrupled the number of operating rigs to a record high. We’ve added enough new oil and gas pipelines to circle the Earth and then some.” He then explains it won’t be enough by adding, “But as I have said repeatedly, the problem is we use 20% of the world’s oil and we only have 2% of the world’s proven oil reserves. Even if we drilled every square inch of this country right now, we’d still have to rely disproportionately on other countries for their oil. That means we pay more at the pump overtime when there is instability in the Middle East or growing demand in countries like China and India.”