If I could pick one member of congress who personified the ignorance on Capitol Hill, I’d have a very difficult time because there are simply so many names. I might just be able to throw all 534 names in a hat (Ron Paul is not included, at least by me) and pull one out at random. If I absolutely had to choose, Maxine Waters (D-CA) would be in the top five.

The economic and political ineptitude of this woman is mind blowing; she may even exceed Barack Obama’s economic ignorance. I’m sure we all remember the eye gouging gas prices during the summer, when a gallon of gasoline was around $4.00. During this time, our democratic congress members called for windfall profit taxes (Barack Obama).  Maxine Waters even wanted to nationalize the oil companies (only she couldn’t remember the word “nationalize”). The economic realities often escape…

our leaders; both of these actions would have been disastrous overreactions because now we see capitalism works. Now in November, I can go get a gallon of gasoline for $2.15. The November 12th, 2008 Wall Street Journal has the price of a barrel of crude at $59.33 (the first dip below $60.00 since March 2007) and speculators are forecasting even further declines in oil prices. Why? How did this happen without government intervention? It’s called a market system and, newsflash…it works.

When something gets expensive, people generally tend to buy less of it. When gasoline shot up to $4.00 a gallon American consumers carpooled, took the bus or just stayed home. The combined cut backs of millions of Americans brought about a decline in demand and therefore a decline in price. It took some months, but with a combined decline in demand from China, oil prices are finally correcting themselves. The uproar in congress over price speculators and oil company greed makes me lose most, if not all, faith in our leaders. Maxine Waters has the audacity to sit in her congressional high chair and tell the oil companies their prices are too high, when in her state (California) the combined state and federal tax on unleaded regular is about $0.63 a gallon (not including hidden costs of complying with California’s environmental standards and paying state and federal corporate tax). Her solution to the problem was not only to nationalize the oil companies, but she also blamed the “over bloated salaries” of the oil company executives. Their million dollar salaries are pennies compared to the overall size of their companies’ expenditures. And why can’t they make salaries in the millions? They have a lot of responsibility and a tough job. Who does Maxine Waters thinks she is to tell them how much money they are allowed to make? How much they should sell a gallon of gasoline for? She has no clue what she is talking about.

After Maxine Waters’ threat to nationalize America’s oil companies the President of Shell Oil, John Hofmeister, attempted to (slowly) explain to Maxine Waters and the rest of the congressional bullies how the $4.00/$5.00 per gallon will seem cheap to the American public if they are not allowed to explore and drill for new domestic oil supplies because of insane environmental laws. It’s simple economics. Limited supply creates a shortage. In this case, the limited supply is being created by government intervention. Voters shouldn’t get angry at oil companies for charging the prices they need to charge to stay in business. They should get angry at law makers like Maxine Waters who vote to raise taxes on gasoline, raise corporate income taxes, and ban drilling and exploration for more oil all the while playing it off as the “evil capitalist oil company” is the bad guy which she needs to protect us from with her enlightened liberal policies of um…sorry I can’t remember the word.