“We need an energy policy that is centered around energy independence,” Senator Joe Manchin said in a feature story in the August-September 2011 issue of Corridor Magazine.
“We should not depend on foreign oil produced off the continent that holds us hostage and uses the money against us that we transfer by buying their product,” Manchin asserted.
Energy independence has been a hot issue for years now. Political candidates talk about the issue, public relations campaigns for coal and natural gas companies use the message, but not until this weekend did I learn that Ohio is paying hundreds of millions of US dollars each year to a Grecian company to run their lottery computers. West Virginia uses a company in Italy for their lottery computer services.
Not only do we need to invest in DOMESTIC sources of energy, we must invest those millions and billions not into foreign lottery computer systems, but into companies in the United States. Think of how many jobs could be created if Ohio and West Virginia reinvested that money in their own states, or even just in the United States!
While I realize I probably do not know the whole story about the lottery funds, this stiletto-clad West Virginian is appalled. Why would anyone want to invest in Greece right now? It’s chaos over there!
Please do not argue the point that Ohio is helping aid the Grecian economy. I earned an A from UNC at Greensboro in all three of my Economics classes, and let me tell you that it’s imperative the United States invests in itself when and where it can, especially after what the stock market just did.
Yes, I understand we must maintain our relationship with Greece, but before you can help someone else, you must help yourself first.
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