Tuesday, February 08, 2005

Real Debits, Imaginary Credits

In addition to ignoring, once again, the cost of military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, Bush's 2006 budget assumes that there there will be substantial oil revenue from drilling in ANWR:

The 2006 budget released by the White House on Monday once again assumes that oil companies will be allowed to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, banking that the companies will contribute $1.2 billion to both the national and the state treasuries in two years....

ANWR wouldn't even be a drop in the bucket of the $2.3 trillion budget for 2006, since no revenues are foreseen until the next fiscal year. Oil lease payments for 2007 were projected at $2.4 billion, split 50-50 between Alaska and the federal government.
In other words, we'll get enough oil for a month or so, and enough money to cover our costs in Iraq for a couple of weeks? And all we have to do is destroy a wildlife refuge?

What's not to like?

1 comment:

Wayne Hughes said...

As usual with this unbelievably incompetent and wicked administration, it seems to be destruction for the sake of destruction.

There was a New Yorker article about a year ago on ANWR, and drilling in Alaska - they confirmed your quote of a miniscule amount of oil. They also said that oil companies are becoming less and less thrilled about drilling in Alaska - the permafrost permits heavy equipment only 100 days a year now, instead of the 200 days a year just a few years ago.

And that's another thing we can pin on this loathsome and irresponsible administation. Was there ever one so incapable?