COLUMBUS: We can’t get away from the argument over oil. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has stated several times that he wants gasoline prices to rise. A Congressman asked him if he happens to own a Chevy Volt. Mr. Chu said, “No, I don’t own any car.”  Can you imagine if someone questioned the Secretary of Agriculture about rising food prices and he replied, “Doesn’t bother me. I don’t eat.”

Speaking of eating, I read where a young woman won a million dollar lottery last fall, and has continued to receive food stamps. When a TV reporter caught up with her she said, “After taxes, I only got $500,000 in the bank, and I have to eat.” Well, the government finally cut her off because she won the lottery. I think they should go farther: no one who PLAYS the lottery should receive food stamps.

Last week a reporter asked President Obama if he favored higher gasoline prices. The President responded, “Do you think any president running for re-election wants higher gas prices?” He didn’t really answer the question. To be honest, what he should have said was, “I do not favor higher gas prices until after the election.”

I read on the internet that he likes Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan. Only for the President, it’s “$9.99 a gallon.”

I don’t like to complain about a president, but his plan to eventually shut down oil production makes no sense. Suppose he had been president just over a hundred years ago when Mr. Ford invented the assembly line and started building Model T Fords so cheap that almost anybody could afford one. He might have said, “This won’t do. Mr. Rockefeller and the Oklahoma oil men are selling oil for less than a dollar a barrel, and with millions of cars, why, look at all the roads and bridges we would have to build. People can ride street cars and trains. We don’t want more cars belching out exhaust fumes. Besides, with all those cars, in 20 years we would use up all our oil and have to go back to harpooning whales.”

You can cuss oil and gas and coal all you want, but you won’t find anything cheaper to power the country. When we run out, whatever replaces it will cost more.

Here’s an odd newspaper report. It seems the federal government has been paying students to walk to school, or at least paying the schools. And because we’re $16 Trillion in debt, from now on they may have to walk for nothing. Think of all the old-timers who walked to school every day, through rain, mud, snow and ice, uphill and down, and never got a nickel from the government.

Historic quote by Will Rogers:

“What a great territory (Oklahoma) we had before we struck oil and Republicans, followed by mortgages, foreclosures and impeachments.” DT #670, Sept. 18, 1928