We should drill for oil on our own soil

Tom Keller, Henderson

Thursday, Aug. 18, 2011 | 2 a.m.

I agree with Andy Amid, who says in his Tuesday letter to the editor that economic recovery will be very difficult with our lopsided trade deficits. Stopping job-outsourcing will require cutting trade deficits.

Nobody wants to talk about it, but by far the largest single item in the trade deficit is oil. Instead of punishing the oil companies for making a profit, we need to change our approach and open up domestic drilling so they can spend their money on investment and jobs. There is nothing that would result in more jobs than bringing the $400 billion a year we spend on foreign oil back to this country. And it would not cost one dollar in government subsidies.

The politicians are pushing to tax the rich and punish the oil companies, while spending our money on alternative energy and immature technologies that produce few jobs and add significant amounts to the national debt. What we need is the political will to put people to work in private industry using the biggest economic resource we have.