Users who Dugg This
S. Adele Doherty
396 Followers
Hoi Fai Leung
377 Followers
global76Feb 4, 2012
There is no need for this, this is just so sad.
thewagenaarsFeb 5, 2012
doable by who WHAT A MORON by my mother in law she lives on 753.00 dollars a month social security SHE FRICKING BUDGETS she has cable a phone a house a car these people are NOT BUDGETING CORRECTLY
hibby76Feb 5, 2012
How much money did you send up to help out?
thewagenaarsFeb 5, 2012
70 a month
ObaAdeleFeb 4, 2012
The need for heat. All this crazy talk about deficit, God help us, the prime responsibility of any govt is the welfare of its citizens.
garhentFeb 4, 2012
In the US, the prime responsibility of any govt is the welfare of the 1% of its citizens.
ObaAdeleFeb 5, 2012
I stand corrected, my bad!
crashdvisFeb 4, 2012
No it's not. That is the problem. We have created a segment of our society that think that they need to get everything from the government. Seriously. For that group of people their first question always is, when will the government come help me.Comment is buried, click here to see the rest.
ben7337Feb 4, 2012
In some cases yes, but in this case it is old retired people who likely can't work anymore. Our culture has grown into one that no longer respects elders and thus doesn't care for them. The government can only do so much in taking care of them as well, but there needs to be some system to determine if they are capable of work, or if not, at the very least find a way to keep them from freezing to death or starving. No one deserves to die that way due to natural aging.
ObaAdeleFeb 5, 2012
I see, you must have missed civic lesson in any culture or any country. That a segment needs everything from govt is a code, other developed countries provide basic services such as universal health but why are we always think govt should not do what other developed countries do for their people?
kasha34Feb 5, 2012
Then why is Barry still blocking oil, gas and coal?
ObaAdeleFeb 5, 2012
Welfare of all including the health of all, not just the oil chiefdom
kasha34Feb 5, 2012
Yeah, who needs to drive to work? Or heat their house? Or take a shower every day?
ObaAdeleFeb 5, 2012
Well, who needs a job when the jobs are in China or who needs fish not soaked in crude oil?
kasha34Feb 5, 2012
Having no oil will bring the jobs back?
kasha34Feb 5, 2012
We have no replacement for oil. None. Genius scientists all over the world are working on it. And no one has a clue.
hibby76Feb 5, 2012
True.....will you have the government send me a few million dollars, a ski boat, and a Ferrari? That would help my welfare tremendously and they can afford it after all.
ObaAdeleFeb 5, 2012
Would you want them in pictures or you prefer to collect them from your professor? Now, you tell me you were against the TARP money?
thewagenaarsFeb 4, 2012
what the hell 1200 bucks for two people it is doable where is the money going
ben7337Feb 4, 2012
Doable by who? The government has a lot more than 2 people to be responsible for, and those two people themselves are retired. Old retired people, who may only be living on social security. I hate to break this to you, but even now, social security can't provide that much.
miklkitFeb 4, 2012
How far would $35 billion go towards heating their homes in the winter?
That is how much we subsidize big oil while they are making record profits.
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/07/big_oil_spigot.html
rbrtwtrsFeb 4, 2012
I think that would pay for a years worth of heating bills for ~15 million homes.
ben7337Feb 5, 2012
Well yes, we shouldn't be subsidizing oil, or corn, or meat. All of those products deserve to properly price themselves. Even if it does screw with the fast food and the soft drink industries too. Good luck getting any of the subsidies repealed though.
thewagenaarsFeb 5, 2012
doable by who WHAT A MORON by my mother in law she lives on 753.00 dollars a month social security SHE FRICKING BUDGETS she has cable a phone a house a car these people are NOT BUDGETING CORRECTLY
ben7337Feb 5, 2012
You do realize their monthly cost for oil to heat their homes is likely more than your mother in law lives on in a month right? It's not a matter of budgeting, it's a matter of varied cost of living, and the fact that winter living in northern states is expensive as hell.
thewagenaarsFeb 5, 2012
doable by who WHAT A MORON by my mother in law she lives on 753.00 dollars a month social security SHE FRICKING BUDGETS she has cable a phone a house a car these people are NOT BUDGETING CORRECTLYComment is buried, click here to see the rest.
johnnickFeb 5, 2012
The level of your compassion is impressive. Here's a story about a guy who has to go begging for heating oil and your response is, "He's clearly not budgeting correctly. It must be his own fault." You sound like the kind of person who says, "Get a job" to a homeless person because you know, deep in your heart of hearts, that all homeless people are just lazy and if they can't work it's clearly their own fault.
Does your mother in law live alone on $753 a month? If so, that's more than half what the couple mentioned lives on. And where? How does the cost of living where she lives compare to this area? Is it a free-standing house, where the utility bills would be higher, or some kind of townhouse, apartment or condo?
Does she have medical bills that she also needs to take care of, you'll notice the story mentions that the wife is in a wheelchair? Does she live in an area where the weather is as hard on cars as it is in Maine in the winter? How far does she have to drive for the things she needs compared to the gas these people in Maine have to use for the same thing?
Your assumptions and your arrogance demonstrate your ignorance. I hope for your sake you're never in a position where you need assistance from people like yourself.
thewagenaarsFeb 5, 2012
ib a stand alone house on oxygen dou to a heart condition and they could move
johnnickFeb 6, 2012
You miss the point. You make all kinds of assumptions about their circumstances just because you're familiar with your mother-in-law's situation.
Moving is also expensive and hard for young, healthy people - let alone an elderly couple where one is in a wheelchair. How easy would it be for your mother-in-law to move in the middle of winter?
The problem with situations like this is that people get in a hole and can't get out. They are getting heating oil on credit when they can, which means they need to pay that back, and they're using their electric burners to heat their home, which means they're running up their electric bills, which they will have to pay once they can.
So they're already starting out behind even if they can move or try to do something else once the winter is over.
kasha34Feb 5, 2012
Maybe if the Democrats hadn't been blocking our fully exploiting our own fossil fuels for decades this wouldn't happen.
rbrtwtrsFeb 5, 2012
Big Oil is pulling the wool over your eyes. They aren't fully exploiting the leases they already have. They exploit the cheapest sources wherever they may be and limit production to keep prices up. It's against their interests to "drill baby drill".
kasha34Feb 5, 2012
Of course they drill the cheapest sources. Duh. Or do you WANT to pay more for oil?
rbrtwtrsFeb 5, 2012
Actually yes. Paying the real price would drive us away from oil and all the issues associated with it.
My point is that those cheap sources aren't in the US.
kasha34Feb 5, 2012
Thank you for your honesty.
You're like Steven Chu, who wants us to pay $10/gal.
rbrtwtrsFeb 5, 2012
See the problem is we are already paying that or more. You may not see it on your credit card statement but you do pay. Oil wars, environmental cleanup and related health issues are expensive.
kasha34Feb 5, 2012
Yes, I understand the concept of "externalized costs." I also understand that all types of energy have some externalized costs.
And more important, there is no reasonable alternative to fossil fuels right now. And none on the horizon.
johnnickFeb 5, 2012
Congratulations, you've mastered the Econ 101 concept that, theoretically, any increase in supply would decrease price, but you're missing a couple of major issues related to the fact that US oil production does not take place in a vacuum.
The interconnected nature of global energy markets means that while any increase in US oil production technically results in downward pressure on world prices, the effect of increasing US domestic production wouldn't be so much to lower prices in the United States, but to lower prices everywhere—meaning that American consumers would feel only a small fraction of the theoretical relief.
But that assumes static production from the other oil producers. Since OPEC and other major producers tend to tie export levels to price, the reaction to more American oil on the market would likely mean cuts in production in places like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Venezuela. The net result? A barely-significant increase in the amount of oil available for purchase and little to no difference in the price of gas at the pump.
By cutting the fuel assistance program to solve a short term budget problem, we're making the problem worse in the long term as people are using their electric utility to address their heating needs. Using their electric stoves is inefficient and more expensive than using heating oil, and these people are spending more than their use of heating oil would cost.
kasha34Feb 5, 2012
You're right. Here's what you forget:
When the oil is drilled on American land, someone gets royalties. When it's state or Federal land the royalties go into American govt coffers. Billions, probably.
We need that money. And when money goes into American govt coffers less taxes have to be confiscated from American citizens. Which means less money that enemies can use to attack us.
A win/win/win.
johnnickFeb 5, 2012
Fair point on the royalties, although when you're talking billions on US government scale, the late Sen. Dirksen is often quoted as saying, "A billion here, a billion there, sooner or later you're talking about real money." The royalty system is not a clean cut as you might imagine, either. I'll get back to that.
Your point about less money for "our enemies to attack us" is incorrect. To the extent anyone is using oil money to prepare to attack the US, it might mean less money earned from oil/gas consumption by US consumers used for that purpose, but the oil market is a global market, and US production is not going to reduce demand nor will it significantly reduce price. So if anyone is using their oil revenues to fund attacks on the US, the amount of money they get from the _global_ oil market will not significantly change.
Back to royalties. When it comes to lease revenues, the amount that the government receives is known in the industry as the "government take." According to the GAO, the US government "take" is one of the lowest in the world, and is based on the premise that the more profits the oil companies receive the easier it is for them to invest in new development. In fiscal year 2006 (the most recent year I could find data for in a quick search), oil and gas companies received over $77 billion from the sale of oil and gas produced from federal lands and waters, and the Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service (MMS) (now replaced by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management) reported that these companies paid the federal government about $10B in oil and gas royalties.
While $10B is a lot of money, it's a rounding error in the budget discussions that are going on right now. Then you have the fact that we were "accidentally" giving away royalty free oil leases for a while. In 1996, Congress decided it would encourage deepwater drilling by offering royalty-free leases in certain areas that wouldn't be otherwise commercially interesting.
Which is fine if you want to get companies to invest in drilling in unprofitable areas, but Congress obviously doesn't want to be handing out royalty-free drilling leases on sites that would be commercially attractive even at the going rate - that's just handing out taxpayer money to a few corporations for no good reason, and, among other things, it's not fair to other drillers who have to pay for their leases. So Congress directed the MMS to award these free leases only when the price of oil was at a level low enough that they wouldn't otherwise be profitable to exploit.
So apparently, in 1998-99, the folks at the MMS didn't notice that the price of oil had gotten pretty high and they shouldn't be handing out free leases anymore. As a result, 24 companies got free leases they shouldn't have gotten. And ever since, they've been making extra money that they really ought to be returning in the form of leases on public property to the American taxpayer. As of 2008, the bill came to $1.3 billion; in 2010 the losses were roughly $1.5 billion. Over the decades-long lifetime of the wells it'll add up to a lot more. According to the Government Accountability Office it'll come to $53 billion over the next 25 years.
Again, $50-ish billion over 25 years is a lot of money, but still a rounding error. And that gives you an idea of the scale of the revenues the federal government would be taking in if we'd expanded domestic oil production as you suggest. It also doesn't begin to address the costs of additional management/regulatory infrastructure that would be required to police all that extra drilling.
But, back to the royalty-free leases. So, in Feb. 2011, Rep. Ed Markey and a few other Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee proposed trying to make those oil producers pay the standard amount in the future on the royalty-free leases they mistakenly received due to bureaucratic error. The amendment was voted down, 251-174. I'll let you work out who was in charge of the House at that point.
So, as far as the fuel subsidy is concerned for the people in Maine, people should not have to go begging to their neighbor for enough fuel to stay warm and alive during a harsh winter. To quote Ghandi, "A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members." Right now we're allowing some of them to be cold and we're forcing them to beg for help while some companies are reaping windfall profits.