2008 Soap Box Archives

It's Still The Economy Stupid

I operate by a set of standards I call cowboy logic and it goes something like this: Two and two is always four, water never runs uphill and if there's smoke there's a fire somewhere.

The media is all ablaze these days warning us that our economy is going south. They claim it's caused by the housing slump, the trade deficit, the credit crunch, the free fall of the dollar against other world currencies and a bunch of other things that you'd need a doctorate from MIT to even decipher.

Now I'm aware that all these things are happening but let's take a look at what's causing them. I propose to you that the biggest single contributing factor to a sliding economy is the price of energy. It affects every single American much more than almost anything else could.

I heard that within the last couple of weeks six thousand truckers have gone out of business. I don't think the public at large realizes what a large part the truckers play in this nation's economy.

Diesel fuel is around four dollars a gallon now and with big trucks only getting a few miles to the gallon it is becoming too expensive to keep them on the road, which means thousands of truckers unemployed and not enough trucks to move the goods we use in our daily lives, which includes just about everything you eat and wear.

I think the Presidential candidates and everybody running for Congress and the Senate this year should be not only questioned but also thoroughly grilled about what they're going to do about fuel prices.

They should not be allowed to sidestep the question, it should be thrown in their faces at every rally and press conference.

They should be forced to present comprehensive and implementable plans about immediately bringing energy prices down, way down.

All the stimulant packages they propose are not going to do anymore more than put a band-aid on the problem and is nothing more than pouring money down a black hole in Saudi Arabia. It will never come back to us in any form.

I'm not talking about some pie in the sky, we support the development of fuel cells, alternative fuels will be a priority in my administration, "let's build some more windmills" type of bovine scatology.

I've heard enough of that. I want some answers and they're out there and if the Democrats and Republicans had enough sense and human decency to stop trying to destroy each other long enough they can be found.

Any nation with people smart enough to split the atom, invent stealth technology, build super computers, travel in space, fly above the speed of sound, operate satellites and all the other incredible feats of science, we have surely got enough brain power in this nation to come up with a workable and affordable way to replace fossil fuel. We are at least thirty years behind the curve here and it's way past high time to get moving.

If the supposedly brilliant scientists would worry as much about energy as they do about Global Warming we'd probably already have the answer.

So Mr. Politician, you want to do something to help the economy? Figure out a way to reduce the price of energy and you could start with the mountain of taxes the state and federal governments put on every gallon of fuel. If you expect the American people to cut their budget you bunch of spendthrift money junkies should have to cut yours too.

And I am not simply observing, I know what I'm talking about. I operate three diesel vehicles.

Pray for our troops

What do you think?

God bless America

Charlie Daniels

March 28, 2008