By Bill O'Reilly for BillOReilly.com

Thursday, April 24, 2008

So now we have the presidential candidates running around telling voters that they will help solve high gas prices. Well, if you believe that, you'll believe that Hugo Chavez drives a Yugo. It's just bull.

Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are calling for "investigations" into "price gouging" by American oil companies. Good. There's plenty of price manipulation going on and, under Presidents Bush and Clinton, little federal oversight. If a big oil company wants to tighten supply, for example, it's a snap. Just slow down the refinery process by ordering some extra "maintenance" or something.

But who is going to investigate Senators Obama and Clinton over their opposition to oil drilling? The Democratic Party has consistently opposed new drilling, and nuclear energy as well. Even the dedicated liberal governments in France and Sweden bought into nuclear. But not the American left, no way.

On the Republican side, President Bush has done absolutely nothing about rising gas prices, which is part of the reason is approval rating is approaching 20%. He blames the Democrats. Fine. But the President should be telling all Americans to cut back their gas consumption by 15%. He should be urging us to use less gas. That would at least cut into big oil's record profit margins.

Senator John McCain proposes a gas tax "holiday" this summer. True, that would save the folks a few bucks, but it would also add to the massive spending deficit. The government better start balancing the budget soon before Häagen-Dazs becomes more valuable than the U.S. currency.

The sad truth is that both political parties have sold out the folks. For decades, economists knew China and India were industrializing and those countries would demand much greater amounts of oil. Everybody knew that OPEC could slow down production and gouge the world if it could and, of course, now it can.

But if Americans would get angry and begin punishing the oil bandits, then prices would drop. However, we are often a selfish people. We want those gas-guzzling Hummers and SUVs, and we're paying a big price for that above and beyond the sticker.

If I were president, I'd be on every program leading the charge to buy less gas, urging folks to conserve energy in creative ways. I'd create peer pressure against the guzzle crowd. I'd name the names of greedy oil company CEOs who are making tens of millions of dollars while working folks suffer.

We need leadership on this energy business, or it is going to cripple our economy. Our energy incompetence has already empowered our enemies.

So let's get angry out there. We the people can do this. Big oil is not looking out for us. Let's stop rewarding it.