Posted on 05/19/2008 5:47:10 PM PDT by kingattax
The "energy plan" announced by the Democrats offers one thing: a significant slowdown of our economy for at least twenty years. Those who run both legislative branches of the congress, and the energy plans of both of their leading candidates for president clothe themselves in the mantle of righteousness. That the Republicans are allowing this to happen, right before our eyes, tells us much about the sad state of American politics.
From their official website, here is the summary paragraph (including the bad grammar) of the Democrat plan to solve the energy crisis:
We will create a cleaner, greener and stronger America by reducing our dependence on foreign oil, eliminating billions in subsidies for oil and gas companies and use the savings to provide consumer relief and develop energy alternatives, and investing in energy independent technology.
This is also the Democrat solution. Get it? The Democrat plan is the Democrat solution. In logic this is called petitio principii or "begging the question."
Ask yourself: which of the five components of the "plan" should happen first? "Reducing our dependence on foreign oil" is listed first. But it cannot happen first. In order to keep the economy moving ahead, some type of energy must replace foreign oil-and this energy must be tangible, readily available, and close to the market price of the energy it is replacing.
This is a crucial point and very few people seem to understand it. We cannot solve the energy crisis by talking about the creation of, say, hydrogen fuel cells for cars. We must have a fully functioning economy in the intervening thirty or forty years that it will take to "develop energy alternatives" like hydrogen fuel cells. In other words, the pressing question is not "What energy alternative will we be using in forty years?" The real question is: What energy alternative will we be using tomorrow that will allow us the economic prosperity to create future alternative energies much further down the road?
Presently, over eighty-five per cent of our energy comes from "fossil fuels." We use more than twenty million barrels of oil every day in this country. For the economy to expand and give us time to create alternative forms of energy we will need more, not less, moderately priced fossil fuels in the intervening years. Nowhere in the Democrat plan is there a strategy to provide this energy.
Make no mistake, we are entering an energy crisis. At five dollars a gallon a typical low-income family will spend nearly 20% of total income on gasoline each year. At ten dollars a gallon these people will not get to work -- especially in rural or suburban America where a car is an absolute must.
Where will the desperately needed and moderately priced energy come from? Most of the currently developed oil fields are in the hands of dictators, like Hugo Chavez and the Saudi Royal Family or in the hands of socialist governments, like Norway, Mexico, and Russia. They can afford to keep production low and prices high. Indeed, given their controlled economies, it makes absolute economic sense for them to do so. It is our job (not Saudi Arabia's) to develop new natural gas and oil resources to help stem rising energy costs.
The Democrat plan also calls for "eliminating billions in subsidies for oil and gas companies." (I could not discover when and how the federal government has provided "billions in subsides for oil and gas companies." I assume that this really means raising taxes on oil and gas companies.) How is this strategy going to provide one gallon of fuel for Americans? It certainly has not worked in the past when price controls and higher taxes have always led to long lines at the gas pumps.
The Democrats are playing a very dangerous game.[i] If we do not have a viable, recession free, economy in the short and medium term, then we will not get to a "cleaner, greener and stronger America" in the long run. We will not be able to sustain short-term economic growth that leads to long-term technological development without moderately priced energies being available throughout the process.
Republicans, if they are truly interested in America's future, had better start to point out the obvious flaws in the Democrats' "plan." Time to start drilling.
My energy platform were I to be running for Prez would be: 1. Start drilling domestically. 2. Fast track nuke plant construction 3. Build refineries I would also have the lesser goal of building the infrastructure and incentives to make electric cars (not hybrids) the norm in our cities— and that would include the nuclear plants. The more cars running on nuclear generated electricity the better.
As one who understands that, by the laws of thermodynamics, energy IS the economy (which of course politicians are incapable of understanding) put me on your bandwagon.
Although renewables (not the ethanol type) do also have a significant place.
Meanwhile in south Jersey this evening thirty year old transportation company Jevic has announced it is closing immediately with a loss of fifteen hundred jobs because of the steep rise in diesel fuel costs - and Frank Lautenberg is proudly running for reelection to the US Senate from the state by claiming that he stopped offshore drilling in NJ - hope all those out of work truckers appreciate what you did for ‘em, Frank.....
You hit the nail on the head.
Carbon credit allocations won't just apply to businesses. They will apply to individuals. And food rationing won't be far behind.
So the liberals want to downsize the great USA to what China was 20+ years ago!!
This wisdom (and practically all common sense as well) is completely lost on the liberals DimoRats in Congress who are hellbent on destroying all forms of productivity in America in the name of punishing Big Oil and Global Warming.
Something like what the Romainian dictator Choukesku did to his people and called it "Change & Hope" as well!!
That is now considered normal annual mileage out west. Has been for a few decades. Quite a few poor and lower middle class people out here end up still owing on trashed useless cars. That is partly why they are still poor and still lower middle class.
The good news is that the green-populists and Republican-wannabe-populists are gonna leave a wide open door that any fiscally minded opposition third party should be able to easily travel through.
the energy future under the democrats will be a jackboot on the neck, and a bicycle to ride to the labor camps.
IMHO
You’ve got it exactly right.
With one exception.
The socialists in power will not be subject to any such restrictions.
This is what they want.
Oh, don’t be ridiculous.
Next thing you’ll say is that we’ll be limited on the amount of water that we can use to flush...
oh... wait...
The sky is falling!!!!
You mean because we are not willing and able to conserve our own energy and the government may have to set boundaries!!? Our inability to wise up and conserve is going to allow the Democrats to control our lives. Our unwillingness to take matters into our own hands will cost us our freedom.
Look at us. Everyone is driving too big a car, living in too big a house, not using our heat conservatively, turning off lights, etc. Because it's a free country?
All I hear is “take my SUV from my cold dead hands.” What do you think you are going to accomplish with this attitude??
DEMOCRAT CONTROL.
One of the most concise and logical pieces I have read on the energy problem.
What the Rats are ignoring is that IF the problem gets bad enough, we WILL go to war and “Blood for Oil” will become a fact.
“Where will the desperately needed and moderately priced energy come from? Most of the currently developed oil fields are in the hands of dictators, like Hugo Chavez and the Saudi Royal Family .... They can afford to keep production low and prices high”
Well, the simple, logical solution is to go into those countries, depose the dictators, and take over the production facilities.
Just like we USED TO own them.
I’m serious.
- John
Call Nancy Pelosi at 202-225-4965
Harry Reid at 202-224-3542
So this boundry setting you advocate. Is Republican control of my life somehow superior? The problem is being CAUSED by government interference in energy markets. We have LOTS of domestic oil. Can’t get at it because of government. We can’t build refineries, guess why? We have hundreds of blends of gas, leading to scarcity, higher prices etc why, government. Can’t build nuclear powerplants, guess why?
Who the HELL appointed you the lifestyle police? If I want to live in a big house, and drive a big car and leave my lights on, and am willing to PAY for it, whats it to you? Damn what a sanctimonious scold. Hey, I resent your wasting energy on your computer to connect to the internet. Log off immediately!/sarc
I am a Realtor, live on a 1 mile dirt road on 80 acres. My electric bill is $100 a month and we grow 40 acres of trees, emitting huge amounts of oxygen into the atmosphere. I also have 5 acres in fruit trees and organic garden. I am so green compared to you city slickers and Al Gore its ridiculous and so I can drive my SUV to ferry around my clients comfortably and get to and from my house in 4 wheel drive.
Great attitude. Thanks for proving my point.
“Pan metron ariston”
Everything in moderation.
U.S spends 25% of the worlds energy. You are advocating to perpetuate this problem by drilling for more, and more and more.
I’m advocating self-control and responsibility to limit our consumption, not govt. intervention to set boundaries. (read my post more carefully). -these are supposedly conservative/Christian virtues...(!)
If we don’t conserve voluntarily, nanny will come in.
THat’s my point.
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