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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cogito who wrote (78840)	8/3/2006 3:44:48 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

As for getting the nation off of oil, the least a real leader would do is to actually try to lead us in that direction, instead of working to perpetuate the status quo by encouraging drilling in enironmentally sensitive areas, among other things. I don't want "real leadership" of that kind. I don't want much of any energy policy with the government making energy use decisions. I'd look for environmental protection, some basic research, but generally no large subsidies, or other intervention in to the market. Minor pushes from the government won't do much harm, but they also wont do much good. If the government pushes hard enough to make a dramatic change then you have all the normal problems you have with central planning. I'm not claiming it would be the USSR all over again. It might be implemented in a softer way, less mandates, and smaller penalties for violating the mandates (no gulags). Also the plans would be less comprehensive. They would cover less of the economy and so they would be less harmful, but still making more and more economic decisions through the political and regulatory process is not a direction we should go in. One thing I think we could both support is removing the subsidies that go to the oil industry. I don't want the government intervening against them, but I sure as hell don't want the government intervening for them. There are probably other areas of common ground that we could find. It might be more interesting looking for them, rather than hashing out our disagreements.