The Chávez government has had since 1999 several times the amount of petrodollars the governments between 1987 and 1998 had at their disposal. Still, it has proven to be a complete failure when it comes to social housing. Rory Carroll from The Guardian wrote an excellent article on that.
Now Chávez realises this can become an issue for his next re-election in 2012. The military caudillo is thus promising a new housing programme that will solve what supposedly the IV Republic/the Spaniards/the Welser failed to do.
Below you can see the houses the government has built in Q1 of this year and how many houses it has to build in the next quarters and years in order to fulfill that promise. As you see, it really has to speed up.
The Chávez deputies at the National Assembly are saying Venezuela would need more than $150 for each oil barrel in order to "solve its problems" (not "to develop", this seems to be a very complex concept). Because the oil barrel is "only" at $110 they want to get debt Venezuela into more debt. This won't be felt for some years, but it will haunt Venezuelans after 2016.
Only in Venezuela does the general population not react in anger to such shameless statements. Why? Because Venezuelans think petrodollars are a given. Venezuelans are no more stupid than others, but they are definitely more ignorant and spoiled.
And the alternative forces are apparently incapable to show in an easy way what a failure Chavismo is.