BY DAVE PARRO
As anyone on Bill Foster's mailing list knows, our new congressman is certainly keeping busy. We get a press release every time he shakes hands with voters at the local Jewel.
But many of his announcements have been newsworthy, like today's press conference with Sen. Dick Durbin about suing OPEC and suspending shipments to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Earlier this week, he proposed a national fund to help military families.
It's fun to watch Foster jump right in. But given the short turnaround before his next election, is he actually making a difference so soon, or is he just in full campaign mode already?
Dennis Hastert held the 14th Congressional District seat for so long that we aren't used to being represented by a freshman congressman eager to make his mark. It's refreshing, even if some of his press releases overstate his impact.
With Hastert's rise to power, he became further removed from the people of his district. Another reason we heard from him so rarely at the end is that he had little left to prove after two decades of service.
But Foster has plenty to prove. While he has voted along party lines on many bills, he voted against the Democratic budget, saying, "I simply cannot support a bill that contains a massive tax increase of $683 billion, the largest hike in the history of our country." The press release claimed his vote proves he is an independent voice in Washington.
It may be too soon to conclude that or anything about Foster, but at least he's keeping constituents informed about how he's voting and spending his time. That should give voters a lot to judge him on during his November rematch with Jim Oberweis.
I'm still wondering when people will realize that not pumping 700,000 barrels of oil into a reserve will do NOTHING to help the cost of oil when Americans consume almost 20 TIMES the amount of oil daily. I'm also wondering why no one is asking Rep. Foster how getting trial lawyers involved in a cartel that supplies less than half the nation's oil will have any real impact, especially in the short-term, on helping Americans alleviate the heavy burden today's gas prices have on us.
Personally, I find this entire situation laughable. Here we have folks calling on other nations to drill in new areas, open up new oil fields, and increase production capacity. Yet, in our own nation, we will not drill off the coast of California, Florida, or in ANWR. We haven’t built a new refinery in the last 35 years. How about that for hypocrisy!
I heard the analogy the other day that states if a 4’ x 6’ table was ANWR the amount of land we would disrupt, for drilling and transportation, would be the size of a dime!
I think these analogies really put this matter into perspective.
Here's an observation, given we will eventually (and perhaps in the rather near term future) reach what has been called the 'peak oil' thresholds, is it not more relevant this country has chosen to refrain from instituting conservation measures, along with developing a diverse range alternative fuels/energy programs?
Sucking the wells dry and exploiting every last drop of oil and other energy sources hardly seems like a viable solution or coherent policy.
There is no 'magic bullet' or quick fix.
What do you expect from Hastert? First this, and then he decides to join the "transgendered" lobbying firm of Dickstein and Shapiro. No wonder the McCain team cried a collective "good grief"
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2008/05/dennis-hastert-joins-law-firm-that.html