Back To The '70s?

Oil Shock: When it comes to energy policy, Democrats always talk a good game. But look at their actual record while in control of Congress in the last year and a half. It's been nothing short of disastrous.

"Democrats have a common-sense plan to help bring down skyrocketing gas prices by cracking down on price-gouging; rolling back the billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies, tax breaks and royalty relief given to big oil and gas companies; and increasing production of alternative fuels," Pelosi wrote back in April 2006, as part of her efforts to convince Americans to elect Democrats.

How's that working for you? As the chart below shows, the cost of energy — measured by the price of West Texas Intermediate crude — is up more than 70%.

Under Pelosi's "common-sense plan," Congress has achieved nothing. Actually, less than nothing, considering that what little has been done has hurt, rather than helped the U.S. to become more self-sufficient. This year alone, we'll spend $431 billion to buy 3.7 billion barrels of imported oil to run our economy. And in so doing, we are enriching some of the world's most unsavory regimes.

Ironically, we have plenty of oil — at least 10 billion barrels in Alaska's National Wildlife Reserve, 30 billion or so offshore and a whopping 1.2 trillion in Rocky Mountain oil-shale. But Democrats' extreme green ideology keeps us from drilling for it.

What we're witnessing here is a repeat of the economic conditions of the 1970s -- complete with all of the ancillary issues that seemed to be unrelated but were actually very much a part of the whole landscape. The parallels are actually quite striking.

Late 1960s: Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" programs result in massive Federal entitlement obligations even as the nation is involved in a costly military campaign in Vietnam.
Early 2000s: The Bush administration will be remembered as a period that saw the largest increase in discretionary and entitlement spending in U.S. history, including a new Medicare prescription drug benefit whose estimated costs are obsolete even before it is signed into law. This occurs even as the U.S. is involved in costly military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

1973: The nation's first "energy crisis" unfolds. I use quotes around this term because it wasn't really an energy crisis at all . . . it was a financial crisis that was rooted in the devaluation of the U.S. dollar as foreign investors and foreign commodity producers recognized the idiocy of the Great Society / Vietnam paradigm and understood that the U.S. government had every intention of paying for such idiocy by inflating the U.S. dollar.
2005-08: The nation is mired in another "energy crisis" that is really no more an energy crisis than the previous ones (1973 and 1979). Again, this "energy crisis" is nothing more than the natural consequence of a debased currency that is directly attributable to delusional economic policy (waging costly military campaigns even as domestic spending spirals out of control).

1970s: "Global cooling" hysteria drives the environmentalist movement in this era, in which excessive government regulation is seen as a necessary measure to help ward off an environmental catastrophe. The real motivation behind this silliness is the desire on the part of government to diminish the nation's standard of living in a manner that makes it seem like a necessary/noble thing to do.
2000s: "Global warming" becomes the latest nonsensical environmental fad -- complete with all of the ignorant celebrity endorsements and abject hypocrisy associated with it. The real motivation behind this silliness is the desire on the part of government to diminish the nation's standard of living in a manner that makes it seem like a necessary/noble thing to do.

Late 1970s: The costs of these delusional economic policies are ultimately paid through massive inflation of the U.S. dollar.
Late 2000s: The costs of these delusional economic policies are ultimately paid through massive inflation of the U.S. dollar.

Anyone else see a trend here?

I am old enough to remember the gas shortage of the 1970’s.

They only sold to you depending on your license plate and the day of the week. It was an odd/even sort of thing. Cars were lined up around the block at every gas station and there was a huge debate over whether you burned more gas if left the engine running while waiting to shut it off/on.

It was awful.

And now ... my SO delivers fuel for a living. There is not one night where he does not get yelled at by some motorist that thinks he has more to do with it than just pick it up and move it around.

The IBD editorial is spot on. We used to get this level of quality, clarity, and insight from th WSJ. What’s happened to the Journal?

This is a wholly artificial crisis. The second we credibly announce the aggressive pursuit of domestic energy from ANWR, western shale oil, and other sources, the futures market will start driving prices down.

Unfortunately most people don’t understand and without a voice on the right to explain it, too many are swayed by the enviromarxist rhetoric of the left and MSM. They make Exxon the bogeyman and yell at your son.

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