Think the price of a gallon of gasoline is determined by free market forces? Think again. You’re way off.
Just ask President Reagan’s National Security Adviser Robert “Bud” McFarlane. Writing in the Washington Times this week, McFarlane made a point of singling out our ludicrous dependence on foreign oil:
Yet this year, we will send $400 billion overseas to buy oil whose price is set by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). In addition, we also will spend an additional $150 billion (about one-third of the Pentagon’s budget) to keep this nonsensical arrangement working.
As McFarlane notes, our addiction to oil from the Middle East costs a considerable portion of the Pentagon’s budget. It also costs lives:
Think how many soldiers’ lives could be saved and jobs created at home if we solved this problem. In sum, for the past 40 years, our country has endured this outrageous national security, economic and environmental problem, all the while whistling past the graveyard, hoping that we will muddle through somehow. And the outrage is on course to persist into the future as far as the eye can see.
Read more HERE.