Guest Opinion
Situation in D.C. proves troubling
Our country is going full speed into a box canyon with its current policies.
1 — Tax, borrow and spend. The mountain of debt will cause rampant inflation.
2 — Renewable energy will add little to our total supplies. Neglect of oil, gas and nuclear will leave us dependent on imports from unfriendly Middle East sources.
Warren Buffet is accepting of inflation’s inevitability. Other advisers warn against keeping your money in dollar-denominated securities. Interest rates are already up. Instead of U.S. bonds the Chinese are buying tangibles, including oil reserves in the Caribbean and Iraq.
Mr. Obama is promising lots of “green jobs” in renewable energy development. The experience in European nations is that each new green job lasts one year and comes at the expense of 2.2 other jobs.
The original premise for reducing CO2 was to prevent global warming. But lately global warming has become politically passé. In every poll of citizen concerns climate change ranks dead last. Man creates only 0.28 percent of greenhouse gas effects. The absence of temperature rises in the past decade has required changes in dire predictions.
The climate worry now has shifted to “ocean acidification.” Dissolved CO2 increases the concentration of carbonic acid in the ocean. This acid inhibits the calcification of coral and the exoskeletons of shell-fish.
Scientists tell us that sea levels have risen 120 meters in the last 20,000 years. Isn’t it rather presumptuous of us to think that present conditions are the ultimate goal of earth’s 4 billion year development? We don’t know what caused the ice age. We don’t know what ended it.
Mr. Obama is betting our country on windmills, solar cells and ethanol to the neglect of conventional energy sources. He is willing to continue burning Middle East oil when we could be using more of our own resources to move away from dependence on those unstable countries. We have large proven sources of crude oil and natural gas. We also have lots of wind and solar power sites. Decades of development will be needed for wind and solar to be significant percentages of our energy needs.
Cap and Trade is really a cap-and-tax plan. Its main purpose is to collect large sums of money for political purposes. Congressmen Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Edward Markey, D-Mass., are writing a 900-page energy bill that will detail every aspect of our energy future. Enacting this bill into law will permanently stifle the economy. It has dawned on voters and also on legislators from major industrial states that it would wreak havoc on the economy. The public appeal of cap and trade seems to be fading. Mr. Waxman, chairman of the House committee, admitted he hasn’t even read the bill! Just lately he lamely confessed that the bill is presented as the scientifically prescribed responses to the “problem” of anthropogenic climate change.
The Federal Reserve has announced that economic recovery is not yet under way. Mr. Obama on May 27 told Californians they haven’t seen anything yet. Bingo! On June 1 he stated that today’s adults will not see another prosperous economy in our lifetimes! Well, the voters can reverse government’s present destructive approach. The key is growth in small businesses. Government doesn’t have the entrepreneurs or the incentives to run wealth-creating enterprises.
Mr. Obama’s auto czar, Mr. Rattner, has run completely amuck. GM dealers are reporting that no one at GM management is even talking to them. They have no way of expressing their frustration. It’s an industry heading for a train wreck. The newly dictated CAFE Standards just brought the train wreck five years closer.
Timberland Dodge, a successful local Chrysler dealer, has just been put out of business. Their new car inventory and their repair parts stock are suddenly devalued greatly. Seventy-two employees are losing their jobs. After thriving for 81 years they are crushed like road kill under the dictator’s heel. Is that change you can believe in?
George E. Edens is a resident of Lake Oswego.