Gas. Oil. We pretty much all use it some way shape or form every day. Driving our cars is the big one. Other things use oil (plastics, heating oil, etc). It is hard to find someone not using some oil in some way.

During the height of the Democratic Primary. Hillary Clinton introduced she wanted to get rid of the Gas Tax. John McCain jumped on the bus and wanted it to. Barack Obama was against it from the start.

Now, the gas tax is around 18 cents of the total of a gallon of gas. Here are some possible scenarios.

1) The Gas Tax is repealed, we save 18 cents a gallon.

2) The Gas Tax is repealed, the oil companies raise the price 18 cents.

3) The Gas Tax is not repealed, we find another solution

Now, if anyone can argue that the oil companies would not raise the price so they make up the difference of the gas tax, I would like to hear it. Instead of gas, think of any commodity. If you were the supplier, you would jump on that and raise the price, and pocket the profits. So, common sense tells us that Obama was correct and McCain/Clinton were pandering to voters, trying to get uninformed voters to say “yeah, we want 18 cents saved per gallon” and vote on that issue, and that alone, when in reality , they wouldn’t save anything.

Now, recently, Offshore Drilling has come up all over the news. It seems that John McCain realized the Gas Tax issue failed, so he dug into the bag of tricks to find something else to pander to the uninformed. Offshore Drilling was the next best thing.

Well, at the end of May, John McCain himself said that Offshore Drilling wouldn’t do much in the short term for us. Well two days ago, he flip flopped on the issue and now thinks it would help us combat the high gas prices.

Obama once again, is on the oppisite side, saying what economists and other experts in the field say. That offshore drilling won’t make any short term impact on gas prices. Any offshore drilling happening today MIGHT have a 10-25 cent impact 10-25 years from now. Woah, and this can be confirmed from numerous sources. Looks like John McCain is pandering again, and Obama is using common sense, and actually telling the truth.

Even better, today, President Bush decided he wanted to flip flop and came out saying he wants offshore drilling now. In classic Bush fashion, he will come out strong, with an issue like this, that he knows will never pass in the Congress, and then when the bill fails, he will blame Congress for failing the country. It is called passing the buck.

What it really is, is an energy policy that is written and supported by the Oil Companies, and has no benefit whatsoever for the , or the American People.

What we need to do is figure out a way to get off our dependence on not just foreign oil, but oil in general. President Bush has said this in every State of the Union address he has had, and yet, nothing has happened. John McCain will just continue on this failed policy of “do nothing but support the oil companies”

We need a policy that gets us on alternative energy, that closes tax loopholes for the oil companies, that pressures auto makers for better fuel efficiency, for better mass transit, etc, etc, etc. This is what Barack Obama wants, and it is just common sense, anyone who has filled up their gas tank lately can agree (just think, if you didn’t have to pay for gas, but could fuel your car with.. water? maybe someday).