Speaking of Hubris, Congress Seems to Have Plenty

There’s been a lot of grouching lately about how Congress isn’t focusing on the “important things”, such as the the federal budget, the general economic slump in the USSA, and the wars it allowed the president to start. Given the mediocrity with which they’ve handled these issues—which are by and large the inevitable result of bloated state government—isn’t better that they focus their time on such ponderous matters as obstetric fistula, congratulating Israel for being around for 60 years, a national bicycling strategy, “celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of Mother’s Day”, Frank Sinatra Day, steroid use in baseball, and spying in football? The way I see it, the more time they spend on such idiocies means there’s less time for the Congressmen to steal away our time and money. Alas and alack, however, one has gotten a grand idea for addressing the steep oil price increases of late.

House passes bill to sue OPEC over oil prices. Check it out:

The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation on Tuesday allowing the Justice Department to sue OPEC members for limiting oil supplies and working together to set crude prices, but the White House threatened to veto the measure.

The bill would subject OPEC oil producers, including Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela, to the same antitrust laws that U.S. companies must follow.

The measure passed in a 324-84 vote, a big enough margin to override a presidential veto.

The legislation also creates a Justice Department task force to aggressively investigate gasoline price gouging and energy market manipulation.

"This bill guarantees that oil prices will reflect supply and demand economic rules, instead of wildly speculative and perhaps illegal activities," said Democratic Rep. Steve Kagen of Wisconsin, who sponsored the legislation.

Where should one start with this idiotic mess? The idea that a law can guarantee anything—outside of unintended consequences—is laughable. Does Kagen not understand that the fluctuating value of fiat currency, such as USSA Federal Reserve Notes, influences prices? Has he not noticed that the USSA FRN is swirling deeper and deeper in the fiat toilet? [And, as an aside, let it be noted that here is yet another Wisconsin politicrat following an apparently long, glorious Badger tradition of lunacy.]

According to this gov page, Kagen is going after the wrong countries. The top petroleum supplier to the USSA is Canada, at 2,353,000 barrels/day. All OPEC countries combined import just 733,000 barrels/day. (The pattern is similar for crude imports, which are also given on that page.) So is the federal government going to strike where it might matter [stop laughing!], and further antagonize our former friend to the (great white) north? [Speaking of, here’s a much-needed levity break (YouTube link).]

It shouldn’t matter, however, because no foreign country should care one bit about any other nation’s rulers’ efforts to hold it to their laws. The overweening arrogance of nearly all Amerikan politicians is sickening to observe. Even if this bill goes nowhere, the simple fact that such a totally stupid idea was brought up in Congress, let along taken seriously, will almost certainly have negative repercussions. Thanks, Steve Kagen.