Congress Is Stuck On Stupid

English: Prime Minister Stephen Harper speakin...

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For the moment I am going to ignore the fact that the currently debated tax cut is not a tax cut but a raid on Social Security. I am not even going to comment on the impracticality of a so-called tax cut that only lasts for two months. I am going to comment on another part of the bill that is being tossed around Congress as a political football.

Please understand, the current debate over the tax bill is worth more politically to President Obama than the bill would be if it were passed. The debate over this bill is the perfect opportunity for the Washington establishment to trash the Tea Party. There is also the problem that if the bill were passed, President Obama would have to approve the Keystone Pipeline or explain why he wasn’t approving it (as opposed to his current vote of ‘present’).

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air posted an article today about the Keystone Pipeline. Prime Minister Harper of Canada is getting rather tired of the dithering of the Obama Administration on the matter.

The article reports:

 Canada could sell its oil to China and other overseas markets with or without approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline in the United States, says Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

In a year-end television interview, Harper indicated he had doubts the $7-billion pipeline would receive political approval from U.S. President Barack Obama, and that Canada should be looking outside the United States for markets.

“I am very serious about selling our oil off this continent, selling our energy products off to Asia. I think we have to do that,” Harper said in the Monday interview with CTV National News.

Harper’s comments were released a day after the White House sent signals it might kill TransCanada’s oil sands pipeline if it is forced to make a decision on the project in 60 days, saying there wasn’t sufficient time to complete a new environmental review.

The Keystone Pipeline is needed–it would create jobs and put more of America’s oil supply in the hands of a country that actually likes us. With the Arab spring turning into the Muslim winter, we really need to think about where our energy comes from.

The article at Hot Air concludes:

Meanwhile, China is growing thirstier, and Canada grows impatient to sell its bountiful oil to someone who really wants it.  Maybe everyone should concentrate on the real economic benefits of the Keystone XL pipeline instead of the illusory differences between a 2- and 12-month extension of a tax holiday that produced no economic stimulus at all over the past year.

The House of Representatives is right to demand a year-long extension of the so-called tax cut, but they are going to be thoroughly slammed in the political debate.

 

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