The Energy Crisis

As Hillary Clinton gears up to go on yet another pyrrich and vainglorious attack against Barack Obama over his non-support for a gas tax holiday, many journalists and even tempered economist are calling a spade a spade. One news paper in California calls it a bad idea "no matter whos it is."

CNBC even quotes Jerry Taylor of the Libertarian CATO institute as saying:

“If supply is fixed, it is very, very unlikely that the gasoline tax cut is going to produce lower prices at the pump,” says Jerry Taylor, senior fellow at the CATO Institute Not only that, but the Treasury would lose an estimated $10 billion in tax revenue over the three months, Taylor adds. Where would it go? To the oil and gas companies. “There is nothing necessarily wrong with that--I’m a libertarian," says Taylor. "But it would be rather odd to see Hillary Clinton champion a policy whose net effect it to take money from the taxpayers and give it to Exxon
Mobil."

Thomas Friedman of the NYTimes goes beyond this current mini-crisis which has these two politicians pandering to say this is a time for recalculated long term goals saying of both Clinton and McCain "The McCain-Clinton proposal is a reminder to me that the biggest energy crisis we have in our country today is the energy to be serious — the energy to do big things in a sustained, focused and intelligent way. We are in the midst of a national political brownout."


The only question is now if this generation of Americans can suck it up and endure, perhaps getting rid of those gas guzzling SUVs and stop trying to keep up with the Smiths. Is there enough gumption left in the American people to weather this storm and tighten the belt? Apparently the polls say no as the more these two candidates pander with these quick fixes the higher their numbers climb in the polls. Here's hoping the folks in North Carolina and Indiana as well as the rest of the country take note.

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