Bush comes out of retirement to call for more drilling to lower prices, his own economist calls "bullshit"
The current wisdom is that any extra oil found by drilling at home would be immediately offset by OPEC cutting their production by the same amount.
President George W. Bush stepped away from the ranch yesterday to “opine on the issues of the day” with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. First up, a lesson on Texas tea. Bush suggested Americans try to “understand how supply and demand works” and realize that offshore drilling is key solution to rising gas prices. “If you restrict supplies of crude, the price of oil is going to go up and it affects gasoline,” he said.
But, in what is becoming an unfortunate pattern for the ex-president, his own former administration official disagrees. Doug Holtz-Eakin, the White House’s Chief Economist under Bush, joined MSNBC’s Chris Matthews Tuesday to discuss the problem of rising gas prices. When asked whether the conservative “dig, drill” mantra would actually lead to lower gas prices, Holtz-Eakin — who was also the chief economic adviser for Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) 2008 presidential campaign — offered a simple answer: “no“.
