Obama, Romney on 3 big issues

Orange County Register (CA) ^ | Nov. 2, 2012 Updated: 5:31 p.m. | THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Editor's note: On this final weekend before the presidential election, Register editorial writers Mark Landsbaum, Joseph Perkins and Rory Cohen selected three areas – energy, entitlements and the Middle East – that the next president of the United States, Barack Obama or Mitt Romney, ought to further ponder.

Energy drives voters

Illustration by Amy Ning, for the Register

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Voters have had ample opportunity to evaluate the viability of President Barack Obama's green vision, which is devoid of fossil fuels and their unpleasant environmental consequences. With wind and solar providing barely 3.6 percent of the nation's energy, but generating much of the highest-profile business failures (think Solyndra), voters today may be less inclined to buy the argument than in 2008.

They may properly ask, what have the billions in subsidies, guaranteed loans and taxpayer sacrifices bought us?

Despite Obama's restrictions on oil drilling offshore and on federal land, U.S. production of oil and natural gas have boomed, thanks to technological innovation and the private sector, creating not just jobs and affordable energy, but economic blessings up and down the food chain of suppliers and customers.

"Businesses that serve the oil industry, such as steel companies that supply drilling pipe and railroads that transport oil, aren't the only ones benefitting," the Associated Press reports. "Homebuilders, auto dealers and retailers in energy-producing states are also getting a lift."