Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Newt, "North Dakota Doesn't Count"

 It's highly unlikely that Newt Gingrich reads the posts of a small town Catholic blogger but in the last Republican debate he sounded like he had read my last posting about his clearly incorrect comments on domestic oil production over the last three years. It seemed that his new comments were spin to obscure the issue. Probably staff or friends pointed out to him the patently incorrect nature of his earlier claim and this was his effort spin away from it.

 In the process he made a rather strange excuse for his position. He began by pointing out North Dakotas' oil boom and low unemployment ratio (almost quoting , it seemed, my postings) and then made the amazing claim that North Dakota did not count on the domestic energy production issue because, "all those oil wells are on private property."  DUH, Newt, that how it's done.

The very next morning, in a story filed before the debate, there was a front page article in the Fargo Forum about North Dakota's Governor arranging to lease State owned property for oil drilling. Now, North Dakota's state budget has been running a surplus for several years, unlike the US and most states, due to tax revenues from oil production and does not need the revenue. Thus it's a little strange that a Republican Governor felt the need to get the state into the oil business. Even stranger that a candidate for President implies that a president can get credit for an improved domestic energy situation only if Government were to go into the oil business itself.

Earlier posting on Oil/Energy Issue:
http://vftl.blogspot.com/2012/01/media-confirms-newts-error.html
http://vftl.blogspot.com/2012/01/newt-steps-in-it-again.html
http://vftl.blogspot.com/2011/09/strange-republican-claims-concerning.html

Earlier posts praising Newt:
http://vftl.blogspot.com/2012/01/newt-bucks-republican-tradition-again.html
http://vftl.blogspot.com/2011/11/newts-immigration-stand.html

No comments: