[g2:1576 class=”right”]Convert old military bases into refineries? No, it isn’t a “Saturday Night Live” sketch, but an actual Presidential news conference:
Q If I could get back to the economy. The GDP numbers today show that our economy is increasingly relying on U.S. exports to keep growing. How important is a competitive dollar in keeping U.S. exports strong?THE PRESIDENT: We believe in a strong dollar policy, and we believe that — and I believe that our economy has got the fundamentals in place for us to be a — is to grow and continue growing more robustly, hopefully, than we’re growing now. And the dollar, the value of the dollar will be reflected in the ability for our economy to be — to grow economically. And so we’re still for a strong dollar.
Q Can I follow up on that, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: Maybe.
Q The —
THE PRESIDENT: I guess you are — I haven’t said yes. (Laughter.)
Q What’s your advice to the average American who is hurting now, facing the prospect of $4 a gallon gasoline, a lot of people facing —
THE PRESIDENT: Wait, what did you just say? You’re predicting $4 a gallon gasoline?
Q A number of analysts are predicting —THE PRESIDENT: Oh, yeah?
Q — $4 a gallon gasoline this spring when they reformulate.
THE PRESIDENT: That’s interesting. I hadn’t heard that.
Q Yes, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. I know it’s high now.
Q And the other economic problems facing people. Beyond your concern that you stated here, and your expectations for these stimulus checks, what kind of hope can you offer to people who are in dire straits?
THE PRESIDENT: Permanent tax — keep the tax cuts permanent, for starters. There’s a lot of economic uncertainty. You just said that. You just said the price of gasoline may be up to $4 a gallon — or some expert told you that — and that creates a lot of uncertainty if you’re out there wondering whether or not — you know, what your life is going to be like and you’re looking at $4 a gallon, that’s uncertain. And when you couple with the idea that taxes may be going up in a couple of years, that’s double uncertainty. And therefore one way to deal with uncertainty is for Congress to make the tax cuts permanent.
Secondly, it’s — people got to understand that our energy policy needs to be focused on a lot of things — one, renewables, which is fine, which I strongly support, as you know; two, conservation. But we need to be finding more oil and gas at home if we’re worried about becoming dependent on oil overseas. And this — I view it as a transitory period to new technologies that will change the way we live, but we haven’t built a refinery in a long time. We’re expanding refineries, but we haven’t built a refinery in a long time. I strongly suggested to the Congress that we build refineries on old military bases, but, no, it didn’t pass. But if you’ve got less supply of something, as demand continues to stay steady or grow, your price is going to go up.
Secondly, on oil, we — the more oil we find at home, the better off we’re going to be in terms of the short-run. And yet our policy is, you know, let us not explore robustly in places like ANWR. And there are environmental concerns, and I understand that. I also know there’s technologies that should mitigate these environmental concerns. They got a bill up there in Congress now. Their attitude is, let’s tax oil companies. Well, all that’s going to do is make the price even higher. We ought to be encouraging investment in oil and gas close to home if we’re trying to mitigate the problems we face right now.
And so, yes, there’s a lot of uncertainty, and I’m concerned about the uncertainty. Hopefully this pro-growth package will help — this, one hundred — I think it’s $147 billion that will be going out the door, starting electronically in the first week of May, and through check in the second week of May. And the idea is to help our consumers deal with the uncertainty you’re talking about. But, yes, no question about it, it’s a difficult period.
Click for full White House transcript.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHtR4m9Puc8