75-05-A6
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Oil Talk
TranscriptIf talk were oil, we'd be rich. If oil could talk, it would say the people in Washington were crazy. I'll be right back. If words could be burned as fuel Congress would have the energy problem solved and we'd be in the export business by now. The lawmakers in the administration are in a verbal tug of war about rationing gas taxes to discourage usage. In a variety of regulations and controls, so far, the verbal barrage hasn't produced a single drop of oil. By now everyone knows that we must develop new sources of oil and other energy if we're ever to be freed of the arab oil cartel's blackmail potential. So far, though, no clear-cut program to do this has emerged from the Puzzle Palaces on the Potomac. Even if it did today several years would go by before we'd be truly independent. Meanwhile we're consuming 17 million barrels of oil a day, 2 million of which we import from the Arabs at a price that accounts for half the increase in our wholesale price index. Not only is part of our inflation due to the Arab oil cartel, so is a good part of the multi-billion deficit in our balance of trade. We know from experience now how government panaceas work in an economy such as ours. Anyone who estimates how much we'll reduce our oil consumption if we have to pay a punitive tax isn't even making a well-educated guess, and remember, government doesn't tax to get the money it needs it always needs the money it gets. That punitive gas tax would wind up being spent on increased government and long after the energy problems had been solved, the tax would linger on. For a ready example just look at your telephone bill with a World War II tax still on it. Now if you've been planning to write your Congressman to tell him to get on with a long-range energy program that includes incentives to find and produce new oil and other fuels and speedy use of our offshore oil deposits, fine but please don't ask him to do anything about the short-range problem. He'd probably only produce another costly bureaucratic nightmare for you and every other consumer. Instead let's do something for ourselves. Recently an official of the oil cartel told an American businessman, quote, "I don't understand you Americans. You talk of your economy being destroyed when it's obvious you waste enormous amounts of this god-given resource." Unquote. He meant oil, of course. He's right, the federal energy office estimates we waste as much oil as all of Japan uses. Per person we use six times as much as they do and twice as much as the Germans. We can do something about that without any help from Congress. Let's cut the waste as we did when the Arabs were boycotting us. Combine errands into a single trip. Double up with a neighbor on shopping rounds. Cut out Sunday drives. By cutting out the unnecessary little trips, it's estimated we could save one million barrels of oil a day. That's just 1/17th of our total consumption but it would improve our balance of trade by four billion dollars. Next time you get in the car ask yourself, "Is this trip necessary?" At home the same thing applies. We can be more careful with lights, in the use of television, keep the thermostat lower and the air conditioner higher. We can bring down the cost of fuel, make our resources last longer and be a lot happier for making that good old American willpower work effectively and you can start today. Tell your friends about it too. Who knows, once we've succeeded Congress may even take the credit for it. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening. |
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