What were they thinking?

If the Democrats in Washington had just paid attention to the Democrats in Wisconsin, perhaps yesterday’s embarrassment would not have taken place.

A year ago, Governor Doyle, Senator Russ Decker and their fellow Wisconsin Democrats were attempting to ram a gas tax on oil companies via the budget system.

Just like Wisconsin Democrats a year ago, the Washington democrats decided that they would go after the oil companies and their huge profits.

Just like Wisconsin Democrats, the Washington Democrats were just barely stopped by Washington Republicans from ramming this down the throats of the American people.

It is becoming more and more difficult to understand exactly why the Democrats in either Wisconsin or Washington would insist on pursuing this type of tax.

Common sense tells us that whether in Washington or Madison, if you increase taxes on oil companies, the oil companies will increase the costs of gasoline.

Even with the governor’s saber rattling and threatening to jail oil executives if they attempted to pass on the “windfall” tax to consumers, over 80% of Wisconsinites believed the new tax would show up in their purchase of gasoline.

Who is feeding the Democrats this idea, that if they increase taxes on oil companies this will drive down the costs of fuel?

It does not make sense. Even in the liberal state of California, the people turned their back on the Democrats idea of windfall tax on oil companies.

Do the Democrats in Wisconsin or Washington believe that if they increase taxes that the oil companies would suddenly straighten up and fly right?

Would the oil companies hang their heads in woeful and embarrassed shame, recognizing their own evilness and immediately cut their profit margins?

What the Democrats fail to understand is that oil companies MUST make a profit. If they do not make a profit, they go out of business. They go out of business, Americans lose jobs, less

They have a responsibility to their shareholders to make a good profit.

Speaking of shareholders- aren’t many of the union heads investing their employees’ pension funds in oil these days?

Hopefully the Democrats will not continue to attempt to destroy the future of these employees any longer.

For heaven’s sake, this is not rocket science.

The first thing we need to stop doing is wagging our finger in disgust at the oil companies. They employ a lot of Americans. Damaging them is damaging our own economy.

The next thing we need to do is come up with an energy policy in this state and country.

We do not have an energy policy in this state or in this country. All we really have is a “stop energy” policy in this state.

Building new refineries, increasing our usage of nuclear energy and use our brains to create new sources of energy will all go to help advance the energy policies in this state.

It is time for Republicans, Democrats and Independents to come together and solve our energy crisis.

Stopping new sources of energy from being built and stopping new refineries is not the way to go.

It is time for the sun to shine on Wisconsin’s energy future.

Someone should have been paying attention to keep the Democrats in Washington for making the same mistakes that have been making for years.