Another year, another Fancy Farm picnic is in the books. After Democratic leaders in the U.S. Senate and House adjourned Congress on Friday without allowing a single vote on expanding domestic energy production, the energy issue was central to the speeches of both Senators Mitch McConnell and Jim Bunning. Enjoy these excerpts from their remarks.
Senator McConnell Speech Excerpts at Fancy Farm
- “…liberals love high gas prices. They’ve always wanted them, and now they have them. Barack Obama doesn’t care if you’re paying four dollars a gallon for gasoline. He’s only sorry it went up so fast that you noticed. This is what he said, quote: ‘I think I would have preferred a gradual adjustment.’ At least Bill Clinton offered to feel your pain. Barack Obama wants to increase your pain.”
- “Most cars already come with a radio or CD player. But if Democrats get their way, they’ll come with a mast and sails.”
- “America’s energy crisis is real. But for every American problem, there’s an American solution. Democrats just need to get out of the way and let us get to work.”
Senator Jim Bunning Speech Excerpts at Fancy Farm
- “Harry Reid. Al Gore. Barack Obama. Nancy Pelosi. They have many things in common. And one is they all want to destroy Kentucky’s coal industry. And there is one man here who seeks to join them: Bruce Lunsford. He seeks to join a legion of environmental wackos in Washington D.C. that take their orders from the Sierra Club. They say there is no such thing as clean coal, and no place for coal in our energy policy. And Bruce Lunsford stands shoulder to shoulder with them in his campaign.
- “THANKS BRUCE.” Thanks for helping add to the burden of Kentucky’s families. Gas is close to four dollars a gallon. And your best ideas are to make us more dependent on the Middle East, and to raise our taxes. I wish Barack Obama were here today, seeing as how you have actually done what he wants to do – force an increase in the price of gas on every single person in this crowd. Perhaps, Bruce, you can drop by his place to discuss this the next time you go home to Chicago.
Press Notes
If you can believe it, this paragraph came out of The New York Times Monday morning, after Democratic leaders adjourned this U.S. Senate after doing nothing to alleviate high gas prices:
The most vivid symbol of the Senate’s ineptitude was the majority leader, Harry Reid, who tried to make the best of a terrible two weeks by asking his opposite number, Mitch McConnell, to join him in an “energy summit” in Las Vegas. From one perspective, given the farce we have just witnessed, it makes sense to move the debate over energy policy as far from Washington as possible, even to an environment as distant from reality as Las Vegas. But Mr. Reid has to know how silly this looks and what it really says about the Senate’s capacity for action.
– The New York Times, August 4, 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/04/opinion/04mon1.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin
Did you see Speaker Nancy Pelosi trying to dance around the issue of allowing a vote on expanded drilling in the U.S. House? Click here for the video, and prepare to be outraged: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeUx6o9qpYY
Larry Kudlow picked up on what we’re hearing out on the trail – the Republican Party is on the right side of the biggest issue facing voters: “As Sen. John McCain and the GOP leadership nationalize the drill, drill, drill message, the Republican party might conceivably be riding a summer political rally. The question of offshore drilling, along with expanded domestic energy production, has suddenly become the biggest political and economic wedge issue of this election. Is there a Republican tsunami in the making?” Read the entire article here: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Yjc3YzNkMWY2ZmMxY2M2MmQzZWRlNzE4MDA3ZWJkMjc
“Making a Huge Difference”
Bruce Lunsford made a rather shocking admission recently and we caught it on video. As you know, Lunsford is responsible for giving Kentucky an automatically increasing gas tax. We know that Lunsford’s tax has added 12.1-cents to the price of gas in this state. We caught Bruce Lunsford admitting that amount of money makes a “huge difference” to drivers! See the tape here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHRWwSK02BE
According to the Courier-Journal: “Lunsford, as [Gov.] Brown's chief legislative liaison, did push for a change in the gas tax formula. At the time the tax was 9 cents a gallon; since then the price of gas has more than tripled, with the tax rising to 21.1 cents per gallon.” That’s an increase of 12.1 cents per gallon, twice the Lunsford threshold of what constitutes a “huge difference.”
If six-cents makes a ‘huge difference,’ then Lunsford is finally admitting his automatic gas tax increases are hurting Kentucky families. We were surprised when he bragged about raising taxes in the first place. His tax increase doubles what he considers the threshold for making a “huge difference” in the price of gasoline!
Even Courier-Journal columnist David Hawpe was forced to admit over the weekend that because of Bruce Lunsford’s work, Kentucky’s gas tax has gone up 134-percent! Lunsford’s record on gas taxes is clear and consistent. He still supports higher gas taxes, he admits that when they go up families feel the pain, and he does not care what these taxes do to the cost of gas at the pump.
Days Until Election Victory: 92
