Dear George,
You have an image problem. Let’s face it when history is written your legacy will be Iraq. Sorry about your luck dude, but you won in 2000, so when Bin Laden’s crew struck in 2001 it was you who got the short end of the stick. I won’t even discuss what Al Gore’s response would have been or where we’d be today had he been in office at that time. But I digress.
You have an image problem and I herein am proposing a solution. The biggest personal concern of American Citizens today is inflation. The price of everything that has to be transported by planes, trains or trucks is going way up because of rising fuel costs. American oil producers have long refused to pump American oil because it’s always been cheaper to buy foreign oil on the open market. Well the people are fed up but don’t know what to do about it.
This is where you came in. As Commander In Chief of U.S. Armed Forces you should immediately order the Army Corps of Engineers to drill and pump oil from ANWAR, the Gulf of Mexico, and any of the other U.S. held lands (and I don’t mean Iraq).
George, you and I both know that the actual cost to pump a barrel is probably close to $30 a barrel, and the current over-inflated price is due to speculators driving up the prices, which the oil companies gladly pay because they know we won’t do without our cars.
So let’s assume a production cost of $30 a barrel. We then sell that oil to any U.S. or Canadian owned company for refinement and sale exclusively to U.S. and Canadian consumers (I intentionally did not include Mexico in this NAFTA-esqe plan because they’re the ones that will be employed pumping the oil anyway so they’ll get theirs). Any oil in excess of U.S. and Canadian needs may then be sold by these companies on the open market at market prices. The only stipulation is that any company wishing to purchase this oil must have new refineries online within 7 years, but you’re going to relax the EPA requirements to a reasonable standard.
Here’s how this helps your image: We pump the oil for $30 a barrel. We sell it to the oil companies at $45 a barrel, no speculators allowed. The huge influx of capital will eliminate the budget deficit with enough left over to fix Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and reduce personal income taxes. I don’t think rest of the world will be able to bitch that we’re doing nothing to help them because when the other oil producing countries see that we’re no longer their oil junkies they’ll have to lower their prices.
You can expect Congress to try to block funding for this immense undertaking, so you’re gonna have to have Reagan-sized cojones when you stand up in front of the American people and say “Y’all would be buyin’ your gas for under 2 bucks a gallon, except your elected representatives, who think they’re so much smarter than you, are trying to keep your energy costs high". You might want to add a line to the effect that maybe it’s time for you, as their employers, to fire them, but I’ll leave that one up to you.
George, you have only a short time left in office, so now is the time to act, and you can be assured that your popularity numbers will go up in a hurry when you announce this plan and will steadily increase as Americans’ fuel costs come down.
Sincerely,
The BlacKnight
P.S.: In your speech, when you mention finding alternative sources of energy, you might want to stay away from trying to pronounce “Nuclear".