The United States is poking a thumb in OPEC’s eye. It feels good.

The oil producing countries of OPEC humiliated this country in 1973-74. They stopped selling oil to us. They did so because we sold weapons to Israel — for its war against Syria and Egypt.

Led by the Saudis, the cartel quadrupled the price of oil. This wreaked all sorts of havoc in this country and the world. Some believe it helped cause our stock market to crash.

There were two or more sides to the issue. What hurt was that OPEC nations used oil as a weapon. They showed no mercy. They shrugged as their high prices caused turmoil in Europe and America. And we could do little about it, because we had allowed our own oil production to fall. And we had allowed ourselves to be dependent upon importing oil from the OPEC countries. They turned out to be not dependable. They humiliated America. They made us beg, on the world stage.

The shoe is on the other foot these days. American ingenuity has discovered and brought vast quantities of oil and natural gas to the market. The abundance is enough to heavily influence oil prices that OPEC used to control. Our frackers have de-fanged OPEC.

The Saudis recently tried to counter this. They tried to control prices again — to drive our frackers out of business. More American ingenuity to the rescue. The fracking industry can now throttle back and rev up at speeds that were impossible a few years ago.

American frackers consolidated. They survived. They found ways to remain profitable at the low prices the Saudis jiggered to hurt this country. As soon as prices rose a bit they ramped up their production. In other words, they humiliated the Saudis and OPEC. Those countries deserved a bit of humiliation. They declared themselves to be virtually our enemies those many years ago.

This has been American entrepreneurial genius at its best. In a mere eight years, our oil producers nearly doubled their production. Their output continues to grow.

And so, we are no longer dependent on OPEC. We compete with OPEC. We are now exporting up to 2 million barrels of oil a day. China is a major customer. We are shipping natural gas to Europe. This forces Russia to lower its prices. It keeps Russia from using its gas and oil as weapons there.

History will show that this miracle came from our capitalism. (In socialist Venezuela, oil production is shrinking.) History will also show that the Obama administration tried to thwart the American oil miracle. The Trump administration is working hard to encourage it — by reversing many of the Obama energy policies.

History will also treat the pessimists poorly. For decades, they declared we had reached peak oil and gas. President Jimmy Carter led pessimists when he declared the world was simply and rapidly running out of oil and gas. The green activists fed him bunk and he chastised Americans with that bunk.

Carter and the greens ridiculed optimists. They scoffed at those who said the world had abundant oil and gas, waiting to be discovered. They predicted famine and economic collapse as the supplies of oil and gas shrunk.

Right. Our natural gas reserves have “shrunk” so much we only have about 93- years-worth in known reserves today. And our known reserves of oil keep growing.

Meanwhile, we keep finding ways to do more using less energy. The result? Doomsday — when we will run short of oil and gas — has been pushed out many years. Way beyond your lifetime. Enough years that there is no question earthlings will develop replacements by then.

Our frackers have reduced the chances of us going to war in the Middle East. Back when OPEC was humiliating us, we needed to protect their countries. Because they ran our oil lifeline. That era has passed. And not before time.

From Tom…as in Morgan.                 

Tom Morgan writes about political, financial, and other subjects from his home in upstate New York. You can write to Tom at tomasinmorgan@yahoo.com. You can read more of his writing at tomasinmorgan.com

You could choose any number of marquee dilemmas to illustrate how broken Congressional politics has become. Guns, Russian interference, climate change — Americans want progress on all of them and get little from Capitol Hill. But to my mind, nothing illustrates the dire state of our politics better than how we act on the federal budget.

The budget is our operating system; it determines what the government does. Yet, we are saddled these days with an irresponsible process that produces irresponsible budgets. Congressional leaders have managed to push both the experts and the vast majority of their own members out of the loop. We pay an enormous price for this.

Federal departments and agencies cannot plan effectively. People, businesses, and organizations that receive federal money cannot plan ahead — eroding their confidence in the system. And year after year, we fail to face up to the problems confronting us, such as an aging population, the security of our nation, our inability to deal with the changing speed and technology of warfare, rising health-care costs, slow wage and productivity growth, natural disasters, and huge increases in the national debt. Punting on the budget means that the meaningful solutions we need don’t get crafted.

Why have we set aside a process that was developed over more than two centuries and that for many decades enabled the government to do what it ought and to pay for it responsibly? Extreme partisanship bears much blame. We don’t work together to solve problems; respectful deliberation and civil discourse have come to a halt. I don’t think the president and the Congress can function effectively unless they work across partisan, ideological, and geographic divisions to restore compromise and negotiation to a central role in governing.

That’s because the budget is where all our differences on the major issues come to a focus. It’s where our political leaders establish priorities, debate them, and ought to resolve them. There is no more crucial test of the ability to govern.

So, we’ve set aside a process that worked reasonably well and substituted a process that falls short in every way. Congress is now basically populated by politicians who have never experienced a good process — let alone developed the skills to make it work. What may be most worrisome is that few people on Capitol Hill seem to care about this.

But if they don’t, you should. And you should let them know that you do.          

Lee Hamilton is a senior advisor for the Indiana University (IU) Center on Representative Government, distinguished scholar at the IU School of Global and International Studies, and professor of practice at the IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Hamilton, a Democrat, was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 34 years, representing a district in south central Indiana.