Spending Our Tax $$ on Brazil's Offshore Drilling

We can't afford $3 billion to get our space program out of the existential ditch ...

... but we can afford $2 billion to Brazil so that it's government-run energy company, Petrobas, can do offshore drilling and create jobs using Brazil's natural resources.

According to Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska, this further illustrates the absurdity of the energy policy that is the Obama administration:

For years, states rich with an abundance of oil and natural gas have been begging Washington, DC politicians for the right to develop their own natural resources on federal lands and off shore. Such development would mean good paying jobs here in the United States (with health benefits) and the resulting royalties and taxes would provide money for federal coffers that would potentially off-set the need for higher income taxes, reduce the federal debt and deficits, or even help fund a trillion dollar health care plan if one were so inclined to support such a plan.

So why is it that during these tough times, when we have great needs at home, the Obama White House is prepared to send more than two billion of your hard-earned tax dollars to Brazil so that the nation's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, can drill off shore and create jobs developing its own resources? That's all Americans want; but such rational energy development has been continually thwarted by rabid environmentalists, faceless bureaucrats and a seemingly endless parade of lawsuits aimed at shutting down new energy projects.

[SNIP]

We deserve the opportunity to develop our resources no less than the Brazilians.

Where, in the U.S. Constitution, is the federal government empowered (or even encouraged) to finance the energy needs of other nations?

Of course, I could ask the same thing of the space program. You might be able to make a national defense argument, but not the way we're heading.