The conservative/Tea Party movement has finally found something they actually believe the federal government should do. They should shelter BP and pay some of the costs of Gulf of Mexico disaster.
Giving the opening statement for Republicans at today’s BP hearing, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.), the ranking member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, vigorously defended the company in the wake of Wednesday’s compromise on an escrow fund to pay for damages from its broken oil well in the Gulf of Mexico.
“It is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown,” said Barton, “in this case a $20 billion shakedown.”
Barton, who holds a safe seat in Texas, is saying what the leading edge of tea partyers and conservatives are saying — no matter whether it’s good politics, his first worry about the response to the disaster is that it will empower the federal government. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said this to me on Tuesday, and Dick Armey said it to me yesterday when I told him about the $20 billion compromise.
They’re still upset that Obama rescued the auto industry and, thus, the ‘way of life’ for the people of the Great Lakes. They hoped to crush the unionized auto workers. They spewed a bunch of nonsense about Obama taking over private industries and they inhaled their own fumes. Now they claim Obama is taking over the oil industry when, in actuality, he is declining to do so. In reality, they’re mad he’s not bailing BP out.
