Sarah Palin published an op-ed in the Washington Post today. I received a package this morning, wrapped in plain brown paper with no return address, identifying the following piece as the first draft of the op-ed, written by Palin herself.
There is no shortage of threats to our economy from the terrorists and those who would seek to threaten our way of life, such as the bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. But of all the threats, the gravest threat of all to our economic state of being may be the president of the United States himself. I speak, of course, of Barack Obama, the president.
President Barack Obama believes that by capping our energy and trading it away, he can fix the economy. As someone who knows what it is like to lose a job, as I am about to not have the one that I currently have because I am going to pass the ball and get things done outside the system. I don't need a title for that!!! I can speak from experience that this solution will not work, because it means the federal government will be more involved in our lives.
Who needs 'em???!!!
Personally, I wish I could get the media to talk about our economy as well as our energy and important issues such as these. But they are focused on one thing and one thing only: tearing down the lives that my children have built for themselves and I.
That is why I am writing an essay criticizing President Barack Obama's cap and trade plan to make energy more expensive and destroy our economy: to make the media refocus away from the things they should not be talking about, like my life, and toward the things that they should be talking about, like what I want to do with America.
America is where we are today because of the energy that we have. Not just the energy of our people, which is truly great, but because of the energy that is in our land and beneath our seas, like oil and gas and coal. In Alaska, we understand this better than you do because we have a lot of oil, even if some of those bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. won't let us get all of it.
Just imagine what would happen if we were to cap this abundant energy, as President Barack Obama and the Democrat Party in Congress as well as the elites would have you do. Who wants Hollywood deciding our energy? Our energy keeps us secure and helps make us prosper. But most of all, it creates jobs. Why would we want to cap jobs?!?!?!
Do we need to reform the policies that make our energy possible? Of course we do. Too often our cars run on gas tainted by socialism, like when it comes from Venezuela, or the gas from the Middle East, helping terrorists who want to destroy all that we hold dear in America. Also our environment dictates that we should use less energy. But that doesn't mean we should cap it!!!
President Barack Obama's cap and trade system, which is also known as a cap and tax plan because it will raise taxes by making things cost more, like the things we enjoy most in life such as hunting and fishing in the beautiful outdoor vistas with Todd and our five children. I am so proud to be the Governor of this beautiful state of Alaska for about two more weeks. Our groceries are just one of many examples of things that ordinary Americans would have to pay more for under this plan to tax them and their energy.
That is just one of many reasons that this plan is a terrible plan. The other, which I alluded to earlier, is that it will create government involvement in the energy sector of our economy, which is just wrong. Here is a good example of how that is wrong. Here in Alaska, we cannot get at all the oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge because the government in Washington, D.C. won't let us. That's bureaucracy for you!!!
But also here in Alaska, we are working with the private sector to create the biggest natural gas pipeline that I have ever seen. It will be 3,000 miles long. At one end, gas produced here in Alaska will go in. At the other end, it will come into your homes and burn cleaner than oil. That's how the government can work for you.
And it will also create jobs as well.
In conclusion, we should not cap and tax our energy, or trade it away. We should make more energy here, with oil, with nuclear, and with coal, whose technology is continuously making it into a cleaner energy source.
We can be strategic and have better energy -- and more of it!!! Just not if we cap and trade or tax like President Barack Obama would have us do.
Thank you.