Obama and Reid Oppose a Bill which will provide national security, fiscal solvency, and decrease unemployment

President Barack Obama has shown true leadership cowardliness last week with his threats to veto the payroll tax cut extension since Republicans are adding on to it an approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline, which promises to employ more than 10,000 workers and decrease gasoline prices in the United States.

“Any effort to tie Keystone to the payroll tax cut, I will reject. So everybody can be on notice,” Obama announced. Obama accused the Republicans for playing "politics and focusing on extraneous issues" instead of following his every whim.

If we thought Obama was the only one who cared more for his own reelection than the jobs of 10,000 unemployed Americans, think again. Harry Reid, senate Majority Leader and sidekick to Obama has announced last Friday that, “If the House sends us their bill with Keystone on it, they are just wasting valuable time because it will not pass the Senate.”

Approving the Keystone Pipeline will not only create many jobs, but will also lead to lower gas prices and increased national security since the oil originates from our ally, Canada, and will be processed within the U.S.

The only reason the Keystone Pipeline has not yet been approved, is actually the same reason why we aren't drilling in many oil-rich areas throughout the United States and that is none other than the environmentalists who have the Democrats sitting in their palms thanks to the grease they send their way.

Victor Davis Hanson wrote a brilliant column which clarifies the importance and necessity for the country to become energy independent through the extraction of natural resources previously unknown or difficult to extract and cutting our dependence on foreign Arabic oil. New technology has made many oil wells previously thought inaccessible or too expensive, extremely doable – if only environmentalists would take a step back. Additionally, many new oil and gas wells have been discovered, thus greatly increasing our quantities.  

With expanded exploration and conservation, the United States could also eventually supply half its own petroleum needs. If we were to eliminate just 5 million barrels of our current daily 9 million barrels of imported petroleum, the annual savings could reach nearly $200 billion per year. Eventually, the new gas and oil could add another 1.6 million new jobs and add up to nearly $1 trillion in federal revenue.

That windfall would cut out about a third of our present annual trade deficit -- well apart from additional income earned by new natural gas exportation. "Investments," "shovel-ready jobs" and "stimulus" would finally become more than empty sloganeering.

Current crises in American foreign policy -- Iran's efforts to obtain the bomb, the protection of an embattled Israel, stopping the funding of radical Islamists -- might be freed from the worries of perennial OPEC threats of cutoffs and price spikes.

Federal subsidies for inefficient corn-based ethanol production in the Midwest also could cease. That would save the Treasury billions of dollars and allow millions of American acres to return to food production to supply an increasingly hungry world.

The Obama administration's efforts to subsidize "green" energy so far have proved both uneconomical and occasionally corrupt -- as we have seen in the Solyndra affair. Yet more gas and oil can offer America critical breathing space until better technology makes wind, solar and electric power more price-competitive -- without massive federal subsidies and a marked reduction in our standard of living.

Of course, there are sizable interests opposed to the new American gas and oil finds -- not all of them foreign governments, but instead reflected in the current Obama administration policy of halting new pipelines, placing moratoriums on offshore drilling, and putting lucrative federal lands off-limits. Yet if the United States does not produce much of the fuel that it uses, will the oil-exporting Gulf sheikdoms, Nigeria or Iran better protect the world's environment than American-based oil companies? Would our oil dollars or theirs be less likely to fuel terrorism, illegal arms sales and rogue regimes?

For the American poor and unemployed, how liberal is it, really, to keep energy prices high while stalling millions of high-paying private-sector jobs that would both lower government costs in entitlements and empower the working classes?

In the current presidential campaign, three issues dominate: national security, fiscal solvency and high unemployment. Development of America's vast new gas and oil finds addresses all three at once.

The idea of vastly expanding American gas and oil production in the 21st century is almost as unbelievable as the present administration's apparent reluctance to capitalize on its windfall.

You can read here the entire column .