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With gas prices rising there is a growing frustration with Congress because of their lack of action. What would help reduce energy prices? Production - basic supply and demand dictates that if supply increases then prices drop. There is debate about where drilling is appropriate, but cutting off all sources of new drilling makes the U.S. more dependent on foreign oil. The Democratic Congress has essentially blocked new drilling or delivery on new sources of oil. Even if Anwar and the Everglades are taken off the table due to environmental concerns, blocking all new drilling clearly restricts supply and increases prices.
Energy production could also be assisted with the use of alternate energy sources. Ethanol has promise, and Brazil has a large supply available for export at reasonable prices. However, ethanol subsidies take this form of alternative energy off the table. The rules stating that ethanol must be corn based limits ethanol’s potential. From grasses to sugar, ethanol can be developed from numerous natural sources. It has even been argued that deforestation could be reduced if tree based ethanol was a viable product. However, ethanol subsidies create a myopic focus on corn, ignoring the potential for alternatives, and manipulating the market in a way that ensures ethanol’s failure. Secondly, the high tax on Brazil’s ethanol prevents a less expensive energy source from entering this country cutting off another valuable energy supply.
Finally, nuclear has potential as a clean fuel source. Several environmental groups are starting to view nuclear as the energy of the future. While some have safety concerns, it is clean and nuclear plants have made advancements over the years and can be run safely.
So why the frustration with Congress? Because they are ignoring these sources of energy. The Democrats are against drilling and against nuclear energy, and they support corn based ethanol subsidies and the ethanol import taxes. The trouble in the economy has been caused mainly by high energy costs, and the Democrats are more interested in a windfall profits tax, which has not been proven effective, and ignore the need for supply. The increased enery costs hurt the middle and working class the most, as it acts essentially as a tax increase. The Democrats say these are the people they are most interested in looking out for, but that is not reflected in their energy policy.
*Clarification - Ethanol subsidies do not disallow use of other forms of ethanol. It’s an import tarriff that makes Brazilian ethanol economically unfeasible.
Energy: Supply and Demand Ignored
Tags: alternative energy, drilling, drilling for oil, energy, energy policy, middle class, supply demand
June 16th, 2008
In what will surely be our perpetual effort to prognosticate the outcome of the present presidential campaign, the commentariat will and already has looked into our republic’s history to discern which one of those elections of yesteryear most resembles this one. In one blog post alone two separate elections were mentioned—1968 and 1980.1 If you ask me—and even if you do not—2008 is or looks to be 1976 redux. Witness the parallels:
—The last time the Republican Party was as unpopular as it is now was in the course and aftermath of Watergate and President Ford’s (correct but unpopular) pardon of President Nixon. What year was the first presidential election following this period of darkness? 1976
—The Republican Candidate that year—President Ford—was a relative moderate who had made a career in the halls of Congress and had earned a reputation for his principle and personal integrity. The same could describe Sen. McCain.
—That year a little known governor from Georgia came from nowhere to capture the Democratic nomination on the strength of his personal charm and his evangelicalism for a new type of politics. Remind you of anyone?
—Examine the politics and worldview of President Carter and Sen. Obama and you will see that they are disconcertingly liberal and hopeless.
—By the time of the Republican convention that summer that southern governor—Jimmy Carter—had stretched his lead over President Ford in the polls to a whopping thirty points. It won’t be thirty points this time, but after finally securing the Democratic nomination in ‘08 Sen. Obama will, and already has, garnered a lead of five to ten points—at minimum—over Sen. McCain.
Then-Gov. Carter’s thirty point August lead was made of vapor however, for as the campaign progressed into the fall and Americans increasingly came to scrutinize their two choices his lead in the polls gradually dissipated, leaving him with a scant two point victory on election day.
There is reason to believe the same might be the case with Sen. Obama, if for no other reason than the fact that we have seen this same phenomenon with him already. There were two or three points in the late primary campaign where Sen. Obama was on the cusp of knocking Sen. Clinton out only to be thwarted by increased scrutiny which penetrated beneath the veneer (and the foundation for his success) of his pleasing rhetoric. By the end he was essentially panting as he crossed the finished line.
What’s more, as Peter Wehner writes, “Barack Obama will be the focal point of this election. If Americans find him to be an acceptable choice for president, he will probably win, given all the factors that are working in his favor. But if the doubts that have persisted about him begin to grow and metastasize – if large numbers of Americans come to believe that the Obama appeal is, at its core, a mirage – then McCain has a real chance to prevail. And if he does, the Democratic party and liberalism will have a nervous breakdown unlike any we have seen.”
Sen. Obama has to preserve his facade to win. If American voters look beneath the word and focus on man and deed his decided liberalism, inexperience, dearth of previous accomplishment, and basically repulsive associations will only hinder his candidacy. As one intelligent e-mailer put it to Rich Lowry, “In approach-avoidance choice conflicts, ultimately the negative elements carry increasingly disproportionate weight as the time of decision draws nearer causing a tendency to favor the safer alternative. Given the negatives Obama has accumulated thus far, with more likely to come, I would predict a strong move to McCain in late October.”
Of course if 2008 truly is 1976 reincarnate it will ultimately be to Sen. Obama’s favor. President Carter only won by two points that year, but he ultimately won by two points. The disadvantages of his opponent and his inverse advantages were a wave just large enough to carry him to shore. It is at least even odds that the same will hold true for Sen. Obama thirty-two years later. If this is indeed to be then let us hope and pray the historical parallel ends with the election, for no one wants to go through another Carter administration.
June 13th, 2008
YouTube Clip of Susan Rice’s Statement
Unfortunately, Susan Rice’s statement regarding the Kennedy Khrushchev meeting, “Thank God he did because if he hadn’t we would have not been able to resolve the Cuban Missile Crisis” is completely false. In fact historians agree that this meeting fueled the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The Weekly Standand, in detailing the Kennedy Khrushchev meeting, quotes NYT columnist James Reston who interviewed President Kennedy right after his meeting with Khrushchev,
“Reston reported that Kennedy said just enough for Reston to conclude that Khrushchev “had studied the events of the Bay of Pigs” and that he had “decided that he was dealing with an inexperienced young leader who could be intimidated and blackmailed.” Kennedy said to Reston that Khrushchev had “just beat [the] hell out of me” and that he had presented Kennedy with a terrible problem: “If he thinks I’m inexperienced and have no guts, until we remove those ideas we won’t get anywhere with him. So we have to act.”
Kennedy responded to the meeting with a congressional request for a dramatic increase in defense spending, and a significant increase in the size of the military. Khrushchev responded to Kennedy’s actions with above ground nuclear testing and erecting the Berlin Wall. The tensions between the US and Soviet Union dramatically increased due to the Kennedy Khrushchev meeting; the Cuban Missile Crisis followed.
Susan Rice’s statement is simply false. There is no historical record of the Kennedy Khrushchev meeting being at all helpful in resolving the Cuban Missile Crisis and actually the exact opposite true that an inexperienced leader was bullied into an arms race.
First Published at Purple People Vote
Tags: cuban missile crisis, experience, foreign policy, john lehman, Obama, obama advisor, obama foreign policy, susan rice
June 11th, 2008
Hope all of you loyal readers are having an enjoyable and pleasant weekend thus far.
Yesterday Sen. Clinton officially suspended her campaign for President in a speech before supporters in Washington D.C., thus ending the primary that at times seemed like it never could end. Mark Hemmingway reports that a number of Clinton supporters in attendance were not too pleased at the name of Sen. Obama, only further indicating that one of the major storylines in this presidential campaign will be if, when, and to what degree erstwhile supporters of Sen. Clinton get aboard the Barack Obama Hope-and-Change Express.
For his part, Dick Morris posits some conspiratorial and hard to take seriously theories regarding why Sen. Clinton, though endorsing Sen. Obama, has not released her convention delegates to him.
Professor of American Politics Michael Barone analyzes the dynamics and potential result of the now official McCain-Obama matchup. As always with Mr. Barone it is well-worth your read.
Politico.com’s Mike Allen has the low-down from the McCain campaign.
Finally, if you haven’t done so already, make sure to stop by the recently relaunched John McCain 2008 website and look around. Throw the campaign a buck or two as well if you’d like.
June 8th, 2008
As this video indicates, Sen. Obama and his primary surrogate continue to demonstrate an absolute dearth of judgment to lead, this time in regards to Iraq. Sen. Obama clung to the liberal fantasy that an influx of troop strength into Iraq could not have dramatic effect in altering the dynamics on the ground as the surge was announced and he continues to cling to the fantasy that that influx still has not had a dramatic effect and has essentially seized an American victory in Iraq from the jaws of defeat. Well in fact it has. As Rich Lowry (who, unlike Sen. Obama, has made multiple trips to Iraq) writes today:
It’s more and more clear that opponents of the war made a colossal strategic misjudgment in opposing the surge. Obama says the surge is a “tactical victory imposed upon a huge strategic blunder.” This is the wrong way to look at it. We suffered from tactical blunders prior to 2006 that Obama and Co. wanted to transform into a massive strategic defeat by hastily exiting Iraq and letting the country collapse in our absence. The surge saved us from that fate and now we can contemplate three strategic victories in Iraq: 1) Having removed Saddam Hussein and his threat to the region (obviously already accomplished); 2) Defeating al Qaeda in the Arab heartland in a blow to the terror group’s prestige and ideology world-wide (this outcome now seems quite likely); 3) Establishing a stable, imperfectly democratic ally of the United States in a hugely important region of the world (still up in the air, but seems more likely every day).
In his continual lambasting of Sen. McCain and President Bush over their failures in judgment regarding Iraq (alleged in the former instance, legitimate in many cases regarding the latter), Sen. Obama only demonstrates his own complete misunderstanding and misjudgment regarding our involvement in that theater. Couple that with his identical state of befuddlement regarding Iran and it is a bit disconcerting that he stands a better than even chance at being our next commander-in-chief.
Barack Obama, judgment to lead? Not even close.
June 3rd, 2008
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