Recently, he called upon the principle of States Rights in advocating drilling for oil off the coasts of California and Florida.

But, isn’t he violating this principle at the same time he’s invoking it?

Debra J. Saunders made a good point in the SF Chronicle:

Why does McCain believe in states’ rights for Californians and Floridians, but not Alaskans, who support drilling in ANWR? I asked Holtz-Eakin. His answer: Some places are simply too “special.”

And, some places just don’t have the votes to make much of a difference – so why pander to them, right?

The important point here is that McCain, once again, isn’t talking about States’ Rights at all.  He’s talking about power.  More power for the federal government, and more power for him.

What?

Well, it’s quite simple.  McCain isn’t calling for the States to have a right to make their own environmental regulation at all.  He just sees a political reality – that prices for gas are high – and he’s working to exploit that for votes.

His plan is all about “Washington offering financial incentives to get coastal states to agree to new offshore exploration.”

Think about that for just a moment.

What McCain calls “states rights” is, in fact, just the opposite.  He’s advocating taking money from some states, and giving it to others.  Or, more practically, he’s going to take your tax money, and give it to some huge corporation to do business in California and Florida.

That’s not even close to being states rights.

Taking money from one group and giving to another.  If he weren’t a politician, wouldn’t we say that he was advocating stealing?

A States Rights/10th Amendment viewpoint would be much different.  Each state could determine the policies that were best for their own areas…and would be held responsible for the outcome of their action(s).

This does not mean that they’d suddenly be entitled to your money, or the money of people in any other state.

Once again, McCain clearly misses the point, and is only pandering for more votes and more power.

Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday introduced a bill that would rescind billions of dollars worth of tax incentives extended to U.S. energy companies and put the money into a fund earmarked for renewable energy.

Sponsors of the Creating Long-term Energy Alternatives for the Nation Act, or CLEAN, said it will save U.S. taxpayers about $13 billion over an unspecified number of years, but industry groups said it could hinder U.S. oil companies’ ability to find and develop new energy sources.

Going after “Big Oil” is a top priority of the House of Representatives’ Democratic leadership, which says oil companies have earned record profits at the expense of U.S. motorists paying high gasoline prices.

Although the politicians on both sides of the aisle would like us to think that it’s in their Constitutional authority to engage in subsidies, energy research and the like, we challenge everyone to find one word in the Constitution that authorizes such activity.

The title here is interesting, and may even mislead. While it’s quite good for politicians to “go after” subsidies (and hopefully end them) – it doesn’t do any good at all if they just take that subsidy and give it to someone else.

That’s just what’s happening here. The politicians, acting like a mafia cartel once again, are taking money from one group, and giving it to another. All the while, they continue extracting your tax money for these and other unconstitutional ventures.

They claim this program will “save $13 billion” But remember, virtually every time the government starts a new program, it ends up costing much much more than they advertised in the beginning.

If they told us the truth about these things, the war in Iraq would be paid for by Iraqi oil, the income tax never would’ve gone above 6%, Social Security tax would only be 2%, and on and on, and on.

What really needs to happen is for “we the people” to “go after” big government.