The One Thing Republicans Won in the Budget

Friday - December 18, 2015

RUSH:  Okay, folks, look at me.  There is something the Republicans got in the budget.  I have been remiss.  I've known it.  I have failed to mention it.  It's a pretty big thing, in fact, I failed to mention it because my focus was on what they gave away and why, in my analysis today.  But the thing that they got, and it cost them everything else for the most part, this budget permits American oil companies to export oil.  The environmentalist wackos and a number of other Democrats were trying to shut that down, to save the planet, to penalize Big Oil, to encourage and move on to so-called clean energy and renewables and that sort of thing. 

The fact that the United States will now continue to be able to export oil is obviously a good thing.  Oil is the fuel of the engine of freedom, free flow of oil at market prices.  So this will be good for our economy.  It will be good for anti-terrorism.  It will provide customers around the world with a place to go for oil other than just Putin or the Saudis or the Iranians.  But there's a potential downside to this, and you won't know anything about it until next November or mid-October, late October. 

You can make book on the fact that before next year's presidential election, gasoline prices and oil prices will rise, because that's what they do, particularly from what are inordinately low prices now.  And as those prices rise, and as the cost of gasoline increases, as we approach the election next November, what will happen is that Chuck Schumer and all the Democrats out celebrating this budget today and claiming total victory, will go to the nearest camera and microphone and claim it's all because the Republicans demanded it in the last budget deal, because they're in the pockets of Big Oil. 

So even this Republican insistence or assertion that ends up being good for the country will end up being used against them where they will be labeled as traditional Big Oil supporters, in the pocket of Big Oil and responsible for higher gas prices next November.