The White House can’t seem to pick one topic on which they would prefer to look the most ridiculous. It appears that they are trying to keep us from looking at any one of their failures too closely by overwhelming us with the sheer volume of their short bus worthy actions.

Their most current dumb assed, half-corrupt move pertains to a topic that isn’t likely to shock many of us, oil. I’m going into one of those “Looney Toons” style conniption fits where Yosemite Sam is so mad he can’t get the words out just thinking about how to tell you of this fountain of Good Ol’ Boy horse sh*t.

(Deep breathes)…. The Bush administration is cutting back on the auditing of royalties paid by oil companies for oil drilled on federal land. Yeah, a little confusing, I know. I’ll explain what this means before crapping all over it.

Oil companies pay a certain percentage of the sales money made on oil drilled on federal land to the federal government. Basically, “you pay us for the oil you get off of our land”. Surprisingly enough, the oil companies can’t be trusted to pay up with out some oversight, so the Government employs auditors to provide just such a watchful eye. G-Dub and his yahoo friends plan on cutting back on the auditors that keep the oil Baron’s from robbing us of even more money.

I’m beginning to wonder if following the antics of our President isn’t going to drive me to an early grave. Are we supposed to have forgotten that the Bush family made a large portion of their fortune in the oil fields? How many of daddies friends are going to have an easier time bilking the Government out of millions with George's latest “brilliant” idea.

A few more details are in order. The President’s plan entails spending more money on something called “compliance review”. This sh*it is great. “Compliance review” means they take a closer look at the forms submitted by oil companies with out ever checking to see if the information on the forms is true… Do I even need to say anything else about that? Apparently King George doesn’t believe in oversight for anybody.

"Under the compliance review system, if you fill out your fraudulent form correctly, you can get away with the fraud," Said Yuseff Robb, a spokesman for the California state controller. "We know we can't trust companies to do what's right without regular auditing."

All of this garbage is being done under the guise of "fiscal savings". It takes about two seconds to see that this pile of crap idea is going to cost the Government waaay more money than we save. California claims that their auditors usually recover THREE TIMES as much money from underpayments than the process of auditing actually costs. (3x is a bunch) By some freak of nature we some how ended up with a piece of our government that brings in more money than it spends and the Prez wants to cut it’s funding. Yeah, I know, what did I expect? (I know that the IRS brings in more money then they spend but come one, F*ck them)

The Mineral Management Service (a section of the Department of the Interior) has said that they can now do more audits with fewer people. I’m not sure how many of you are familiar with the term “job loading” but that’s what this is and it is definately bad news. Very very basically, it means that you heap more responsibilities on a given job description (i.e. do more work at the same position and same pay). Does this EVER increase efficiency? Sh*t no! How could it?

Here’s a perfect example of why this current chunk of Bushie Government won’t work. State auditors in North Dakota found that the Department of the Interior was not collecting royalties from a bankrupt company that was continuing to drill and sell oil until after the state auditors informed the Federal Government of it. Every aspect of this situation illustrates why the new program the President proposes is an awful idea. A.) G-Dub’s proposal will make it easier for oil companies to lie to the Government (via fraudulent paper work) in cases like these. B.) There will be fewer federal auditors to catch this kind of fraud (which in this case they obviously couldn’t do anyway). And C.) Funding will be cut to state auditors, who were the people that actually DID wind up busting the oil company.

I don’t know whether this is another case of Presidential stupidity that borders on the retarded or once again, a case of George making life easier on his ultra-rich buddies, but either way, it seems obvious to me that these cuts should be a definite "stop, do not pass go" kind of a situation.

For the first time in a little while I will answer my “Jerk Phone”. (What? Did you think they stopped calling just because I haven’t told you about it?) They’re a little miffed at me for dodging their calls. It seems that their shelves are almost empty due to our Federal Government’s constant need for new jerks to run things in Washington. Well, I’m glad to oblige their jerkronomic needs. Hey oil Baron Bush, The jerk store called. They ran out of you.

Moody