The big oil companies and their backers in congress insist that we must open up everything to drilling and give them billions of dollars a year to help them search for new oil. They say if we will open up all public land to oil production we can become less dependent on foreign oil. But what they don’t say is that, as far as the oil companies are concerned that doesn’t mean that the price at the pump will go down even a penny.  The above cartoon does a lot to explain why that is the case.

The Republicans like to try to blame President Obama for the high gas prices but in reality it is the oil companies who are demanding the same profits as the oil sheiks of the Middle East. I see on TV that a couple of the oil companies are putting out a PR campaign saying how they are socially responsible citizens just like the rest of us.  I am a firm believer in the phrase “action speaks louder than words” so if they want to prove they are the good guys then they need to give us the oil taken from federal lands at a reasonable profit.

I read an article recently about the Keystone pipeline that said that a couple of side effects of completing the pipeline will be an increase in the price of gas for us folks in the Midwest as the oil companies will be able to ship their product to a higher demand market.  The other side effect is that getting the oil to Houston, which is a coastal refinery will make it much easier to ship it to foreign markets where they might make even more profit. Don’t let anyone fool you the oil companies are about profit and profit only. If they can make a dime more by selling to anyone else that is most likely what they will do. After all isn’t that what the capitalist system is all about?

So, in the end is comes down to the fact that domestic drilled oil is raking in the same exorbitant profits as foreign oil. For the U.S. consumer that means it really doesn’t matter whether it is foreign oil or not.  We will pay just the same whether it is produced with taxpayer dollars or not.

How sad is that.

But what do I know…..