With the financial crisis and bailout bill, our energy problems have been pushed off the front page. But they’re not gone. We still need energy to run our cars, homes, businesses, you name it.

So, I wanted to address a goofy argument that has been made a lot about drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, way up north in Alaska. Some say that we shouldn’t drill because it won’t do anything at all to help lower the price of gas now.

We’re continually told that it will take seven to ten years for the oil found there to be pumped out, processed and pumped into our cars as gasoline.

Not shocking. It’s true. Most things do take some length of time to fully accomplish.

Say you order an appliance. It’s days before delivery. Have an idea for a book? It takes time to write, edit, and publish it. You’ll have to wait to get your first copy.

You know, the price of food is up, too, in part because of America’s stupid ethanol policy, which we’ve talked about before. Apply the logic of anti-drilling advocates and we won’t plant crops anymore because, after all, no food pops into existence ex nihilo, instantaneously. It takes months before harvest. Even longer for the food to trundle off to market.

So, why plant? Why drill? Why buy that book, knowing that you can’t read it until you get home?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Before closing Congress in order to block a vote to allow more domestic oil drilling, Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters, “I’m trying to save the planet.”

Funny, Pelosi hasn’t stopped using oil but wants to stop drilling for it.

Some time after Congress’s 35-day vacation, she hopes to find a renewable energy source.

There’s that audacity. Or insanity. You pick.

Presidential candidates, meanwhile, get no vacation. They’re busy producing new energy plans.

Lots of folks, Obama included, blame the oil companies. Not me. They don’t owe me fuel. Just because we don’t like the price of gas doesn’t mean we’re allowed to fill up and drive away without paying. Yet that seems to be the spark plug of Barack Obama’s latest. He’d offer a $1,000 tax credit to taxpayers to be paid for with a windfall profits tax on oil companies. That is, rob Exxon to pay Paul.

McCain says drill, drill, drill. And Obama has already started to cave on many energy stands, though both he and McCain continue to oppose drilling where we know there’s oil, in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Beware of politicians with plans. Let markets react. Let the private sector do its job.

As for more drilling on government lands, like up in desolate ANWR? Why not let voters decide? Put it on the ballot this November.

Now that would provide a paradigm’s worth of difference.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.