Tuesday, October 25, 2011

VOA News: 'Indiana Town's Economy Benefits from Canadian Oil Boom'

Source:VOA News- Steve Kozel, being interviewed for this piece.

"Voice of America (VOA) is an American international broadcaster funded by the United States Congress. It is the largest[2][3][4] and oldest U.S. funded international broadcaster.[5][6] VOA produces digital, TV, and radio content in 47 languages which it distributes to affiliate stations around the globe. It is primarily viewed by foreign audiences, so VOA programming has an influence on public opinion abroad regarding the United States and its people.

VOA was established in 1942,[7] and the VOA charter (Public Laws 94-350 and 103-415)[8] was signed into law in 1976 by President Gerald Ford.

VOA is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and overseen by the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), an independent agency of the U.S. government.[9] Funds are appropriated annually under the budget for embassies and consulates. In 2016, VOA broadcast an estimated 1,800 hours of radio and TV programming each week to approximately 236.6 million people worldwide with about 1,050 employees and a taxpayer-funded annual budget of US$218.5 million.[10][11]

Some commentators consider Voice of America to be a form of propaganda." 

From Wikipedia 

"The town of Whiting, Indiana, is home to the largest inland oil refinery in the United States.  The energy company BP operates the Whiting Refinery, which originally was built by the Standard Oil Company in 1889.  Now with heavier crude oil piped into the facility from Canadian tar sands, the facility is getting a multi-billion dollar upgrade.  BP's investment in the refinery is an economic windfall for the small town, but environmentalists say the improvements bring increased pollution." 

From VOA News

When it comes to getting our economy going again and fully recovering from the Great Recession that we are now three years into, there are a lot of things that we need to do as a country. Like paying down our private as well as public debt which I covered last night, encouraging more consumer spending, infrastructure investment, creating a national energy policy, expanding foreign trade, which Congress did a couple of weeks ago, reforming our public schools where the Senate made some progress last week in at least getting a bill reported out of committee. 

So we have enough or more than enough well-educated workers in the future and be able to to keep more American jobs here in America where they belong b rebuilding our manufacturing industry, with the American auto industry is now recovering, which will help, and infrastructure investment, and a national energy policy would also help us rebuild our manufacturing industry, tax reform by eliminating most if not all tax loopholes and lowering tax rates and debt and deficit reduction. 

But we are not going to be able reduce our debt and deficit in the short and long-term until we get the Great Recession finally behind us, now three years into it. We are going to need a strong economy with solid economic and job growth that we sustain in order to pay down our debt and deficit, decrease our high poverty rate thats actually over 20%, but 17% officially. 

What looks like is going on in this town in Indiana, is that they are trying to get oil production there and bring in oil from Canada and sell it in Indiana. Which I fine if that creates a lot of jobs in Indiana. And is well-regulated to keep waste to a manageable level, but what we really should be doing as a country instead producing American energy in America. 

We do have the most (if not all) the natural resources in the world. We should be using them so we can create more jobs in America, we can't drill our way to energy independence. But it's a start and something we should be doing, in the safest way possible of course. But this is something that we should be doing and we should've been doing. 

America has being talking about the need to get to energy independence going all the way back to Arabian oil embargo of the early and mid 1970s. And getting OPEC off of our backs by producing our own American energy, including oil and natural gas. Eliminating those big oil subsidy's in exchange for allowing American oil company's to drill for more American oil. And using some of those resources through leases and taxes to finance a National Infrastructure Bank. And finally getting some infrastructure investment back going in America. 

There's so much work that we need to do as a country to get the Great Recession behind us and finally get our economy going again. And with this political climate with both parties seemingly more interested in having all of the power in the Federal Government than rebuilding our economy, that makes it very difficult to make that happen. But its not about resources thats why our economy isn't working but getting around to finally using our resources to put people back to work.

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