Did you read my column today, which for some reason didn’t show up on the Web (I’ll see if I can fix that)? Did it make you want to join the Energy Party? Did it make you want to tell me what the party ought to be doing? Did it make you want to tell me off? Nobody else around here is shy; why should you be?
Whatever your reaction, here’s the place to let me, and the world know about it. Let’s hear it.
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I agree with your ‘energy saving’ editorial in general. However I have a few suggestions to make. On the gas tax, set it just above current prices, then have a 5% or so increase each year. That way there would be little or no economic drawbacks. It would be easier to get enacted and would accomplish what you ant. Another desirable result of the gas tax will be to be sure that economic incentives for alternative fuels remain in place. I am sure that you recall hat the efforts to develop a large ethanol industry died in the 70’s when the oil price went down. The Arab oil interests will drop the price if alternative fuels seem poised to displace their oil! Instead of lowering the speed limit, ENFORCE the ones we have. You can hardly drive the limit without the risk of being rear-ended! I am convinced that every additional police officer that is hired to enforce the speed limits would pay all of the costs of hiring, training and equipping him in the first year if he conscientiously ticketed anyone exceeding the current limits by more than 7 MPH.
Brad,
Since gas station owners know the government will ratchet the price of gas up to $4, won’t they just set the price there and rake in the profits?
I also agree with your ‘energy saving’editorial, especially with respect to drilling for oil in the ANWR region along with exploring for oil off our coast and any other coast for that matter. If we can place a man on the moon we sure as hell ought to be able to drill safely in our own back yard if necessary. The situation at our southern border in a national disgrace. I’m 79 years old and I have been listening to the bull coming from both major parties for much to long. All members of congress should be allowed only one term in congress and have their retirement income taken away from them.
Always enjoy your column. Like the current photo much better than the one with the gray beard. Regards to your Mama. I was a good friend of your grandfather Doc Collins.
Brad, your idea for enforcing a new 55 mph speed limit is laughable. You support this attrocious war in Iraq that drains resources away from law enforcement efforts. Until you recognize how costly this war is to our national welfare you should simply accept the fact that we don’t have the resources to enforce the current speed limit, let alone something as unpopular as the 55.
This highlights one of the points those of us in the reality based community have been trying to make. That is, much of the cost of the Iraq war is indirect. We spend huge amounts of money on this effort, not to mention the human resources that are squandered. That money has to come from somewhere. Ultimately it comes from public services elsewhere. Join us in the world of reality Brad and simply acknowledge that Iraq renders any chance of actually enforcing new laws untenable.
We two retirees would like to get behind your Energy Party ideas with maybe an additional tax on excess oil company profits. That may not be “the American way”, but then their obscene profits in light of the cost to our young men and women in the armed services, and this country, isn’t exactly “the American way” either.
Whatcha gonna do with all these good ideas (and bad) that folks are submitting, Mr. Bwarthen? Got a party convention planned?
One term in Congress and retirement income taken away sounds great, R. Ginn. But, how to do it?
While You Pass,I’m Saving Gas
On another subject, Arial hit rock bottom with his cartoon today (2/6).
I’m sure that portraying the Dem presidential candidates as raising a white flag drew giggles from those, like Brad, who think that Iraq has (or ever had) any relevance to our battle with Osama bin Laden.
Those of us in reality understand that sacrificing lives and billions of dollars in a futile effort to keep the peace in a multi-sided civil war around the world is a fool’s errand.
Arial has drunk the purple kool-aid. This isn’t a replay of the John Wayne WWII epics. We’re NOT fighting a new version of the Nazis as the simpletons on the right would have you believe. Iraq is NOT analgous to Okinawa.
We WERE fighting a tiny popular movement of Muslim fundie terrorists. Now, after three years of ever-worsening chaos in Iraq, we’re facing a world-wide public relations disaster among millions of Muslims. They’ve been radicalized by the bloodbath in Iraq.
Leaving the Iraqis to sort out their own country is a bad choice– but it’s the best choice that Bush has left us with. If Brad and Arial think that we have any other choice then they need to look at the $300+ BILLION budget proposal for the war ALONE that Bush sent to Congress yesterday.
RTH, you have the same problem that I do. That is, I just can’t put aside my outrage over this collosal disaster of a war long enough to thoughfully address other issues.
Then again, many important issues of the day are affected by the Iraqi debacle. Take energy. There is plenty of oil in Iraq but thanks to this war much of it is off the market. And the healthcare issues are likewise affected by Iraq since the chaos there adds significantly to the injured and sick we must now care for.
Just think what $300b could do for our highways or poverty or health care or education. What a waste of money. And for what? To create an international environment that makes us LESS secure.
Hey Brad,
It’s getting better over here.
4 posts actually made it before this thread was hijacked with more anti-war diatribes.
bud, even if we weren’t being bled dry by the Iraq occupation this administration wouldn’t have addressed the “addiction” to oil.
Bush/Cheney would NEVER start an Apollo-style project to put their funders out of business. Scarface would sooner start a drug treatment program and expand the DEA. The libertarian/conservative funders would go nuts if their boys proposed a huge government-private program to move us off of petroleum.
And, that’s what it’s going to take. We can’t drill our way out of dependence on foreign oil.
Actually, Bush’s first budget in 2001 proposed spending 10 TIMES as much as ever before on solar, geothermal and wind energy research, but the Democrats fought tooth and nail in committee to remove the funds, because they don’t want solutions; they want issues and pork.
Tom Daschle pushed tax subsidies to the very inefficient and unceconomical ethanol, just coincidentally helping his state and his wife, the No.1 lobbyist in Washington (airlines and trucking),
Ethanol works well in Brazil where they have an abundance of sugar cane. I’m personally a bit skeptical that it can make more than a minimal impact here. However, if gasoline gets expensive enough it could have a small impact. If we use enough sources we should be able to make a huge dent in our import situation. Wind turbines (both large and small), nuclear, conservation, ethanol, bicycles, walking, solar, bio-diesel individually may not make much difference but together we should be able to cut imports at least 50%.
Bud,glad to hear you bring up energy alternatives.I’ve been using as little gasoline as I possibly can for several years.I rarely drive on weekends.I use public transportation as often as possible.Most weekends I walk/jog wherever I’m going.It takes me about a year to put 3,000 miles on my car.
Here’s a hopeful slogan:
The Stone Age Didn’t End Because They Ran Out of Stones.
Bill, it drives me crazy watching people walk to the parking garage, get in their car, drive 2 blocks to Wendy’s or Subway then bring it back to the office and eat at their desk. I walk to the same places even if it’s raining. The hassle with parking outweighs the weather issues. We must waste millions of gallons of gasoline on frivolous driving like that.
Hi Brad, Sign me up! I’m shocked that someone had the gall to suggest banning SUVs here in SC! I thought I was the only one that felt Hummer drivers might as well donate guns to al Qaida and the like. Do you think we might be able to persuade Tom Freeman to be our party’s presidental candidate?
Since it takes almost 2 gallons of farm fuel to produce one gallon of ethanol, it is not a very smart way to “save energy” or use less oil. That’s why it has no place in the market, without massive subsidies transferring tax dollars from smarter people to the farmers and drivers of feel-good econo box vehicles.
There was a piece in THE WALL STREET JOURNAL yesterday about how more and more economists are coming round to the idea that trying to micromanage the mix of fuels Americans use is foolish. Levy a tax on all types of carbon-based fuel use and let the marketplace sort it out.
Any “economist” who believes in central planning of the economy, and micromanaging behavior with a myriad of taxes and regulations, has no grasp of basic economic principles.