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September 26, 2000

Oaxaca Journal

Al Gore’s $1.5 billion
campaign contribution

By Fernando Oaxaca
HispanicVista.com

Sometime before last Thursday, September 21, Al Gore talked to his padrino, Bill Clinton, about his growing political problem —outrageous gasoline prices and the probable heating oil shortage in the Northeast. Polls were
plunging, Democrat senators like Schumer of New York and Dodd of Connecticut were screaming that voters were tired of two dollar gasoline and the prospect loomed of sky-high heating oil prices this winter.

Big Al now had to respond. Governor George W. Bush also turned up the heat by reminding Americans that much of the problem resulted from the lack of a Gore/Clinton energy policy. A besieged Gore found no immediate exit and committed to the media that his new energy policy would be announced on Thursday, September 21.

But he had to get a Clinton clearance and agreement with his next promise to voters — and it was only 49 days before the election! The flap could hurt Hillary too as she struggled to convince New Yorkers that she understood
their pain —.and had influence in Washington!

The new policy? It was to ask Bill if he could help. Al knew the OPEC folks were intransigent about reducing oil prices or increasing production. Could we perhaps steal some oil from our own emergency supply? The answer from Big Bill? No problem. Besides, Bill had two campaigns to help!

Mr. Clinton ordered the spigots turned on. He would hit the SPR, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, to the tune of 30,000,000 barrels to start, just like he and AL and Hillary had agreed. Cost? $1,080,000,000, over a billion dollars at last week’s oil prices of $36+ per barrel. It was said
that it would be replaced by the refiners — later. Sure.

For good measure, and knowing that the daily injection of 1 million barrels or 5 percent of the national daily use, for one month into the inventory, was next to useless in cutting prices, Clinton also threw in around $450,000,000 for poor family relief on fuel bills. It did not matter that Big Al had told the American public on Thursday that his plan would help reduce prices. And no matter that from Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan to Clinton’s own Treasury
Secretary, Larry Summers, these actions had been publicly derided as crassly political or technically ineffective steps by our government. Some even reminded the President of the national security impact or a possible effect
on the national economy.

Undeterred, Bill Clinton announced the deal on Friday and put poor old Bill Richardson in front of the skeptical media to defend the action and justify its obvious political stench. The media had Richardson for lunch.

But here is the real impact. This generosity of fuel cost relief with our tax dollars, along with the billion dollars in crude oil value from the SPR drain, means that Vice President Gore has received $1.5 billion in what is, in effect, the largest campaign contribution in the history of the world — and it was done in broad daylight!

Will Gore give equally deserving Latinos and other car-dependent commuters in the West who are putting out $40 to $50/month extra for gasoline, some wallet relief like he did for the bus-riding poor in the East? After all,
pandering with tax dollars is his specialty!

Is this the same Al Gore who joined gleefully with the Sierra Club and the Environmental Defense Fund when the brilliant concept of the BTU tax emerged from Gore-Clinton in 1993? At the time there was a Clinton-Gore attempt to
reduce their first year’s budget deficit and simultaneously respond to the United Nations cry for curing global warming.

These two guys, Bill and Al, accustomed to free government transportation for years in Arkansas, Tennessee and Washington, incredibly, proposed taxing
the energy content (in BTU's) of all fuels and thus discourage their use by increasing cost. This would reduce pollution (especially greenhouse gases; an Al Gore obsession, along with global warming) and contribute to deficit reduction.

Thankfully, public outcry and a wiser Congress killed this dumb idea to raise $22 billion a year from rich and poor consumers alike, as well as from industry, costing jobs and productivity.

What does all this mean in the year 2000? It confirms that the pattern begun after the 1992 election continues in that Al Gore loves government intervention, no matter the cost, to gain political advantage. It says that he will propose anything that he can get away with, if it helps politically. His latest non-truth — that he kicked off the petroleum reserve idea in 1975 a time before he was even in office — beyond its shamelessness — again follows
a pattern of dissembling and our repeated need to doubt his credibility.

Meanwhile, Governor George W. Bush keeps charging forward in his campaign to bring about change in Washington without dependence on deception. This week he will focus again on the need to repair the years of Gore-Clinton neglect that has allowed poor and minority children to remain in unresponsive schools.

He continues to promote local control of student achievement testing, teacher improvement and development of basic skills in children — without Washington micro-management. He knows there must be an end to control of federal education programs by faceless bureaucrats beholden to the NEA and similar special interest groups, rather than focused on results.

Governor Bush trusts the American people and after November 7, the people will find that they can trust him, as have the 25 million people of Texas. The fundamental flaw in Al Gore is embodied in that word — trust. Bill
Bradley realized it in the primary season this year but it happened too late to help his ill-fated campaign.

But it is not too late for America. We cannot afford another President whose fundamental probity is second to naked political ambition.

In less than six weeks, this nation will choose a new leader who has not memorized the Congressional Record, who has not spent a most unproductive eight years in the White House and who has no chains on him from labor union
bosses, trial lawyers, Hollywood libertines and smut purveyors or blind protectors of the environment. And this new leader will not be outside, begging, with his nose against the window, as OPEC meets late this week in
Venezuela.

This new leader will not use the Federal Treasury for campaign contributions. And, above all, he will be someone who does not lie or distort to get votes, who will restore trust in the White House and who is a true partner with the taxpayer — to assure freedom, welfare, justice and
security for all our citizens. And he currently lives in Texas!

Fernando Oaxaca is a member of a California steering committee to elect George W. Bush for president. He is also a member of the board and an investor in HispanicVista.com.