(photo by Lee Bey)
The three presidential candidates are still pussyfooting around the energy issue. Senators Hillary Clinton and John McCain want to suspend the 18.4 cents-per-gallon federal fuel tax; Clinton thinks the oil companies should pay the tax, rather than consumers (She does know the oil companies will only raise the price of gas to pay for the tax? Doesn't she?)
Sen. Barack Obama considers the proposal a joke (although when he was a state senator, he backed a move eight years ago to suspend Illinois' gas tax.) But Obama offers nothing really concrete as a counterproposal. This should be THE issue for a candidate like him, being for change and all. But his response so far as been the typical recital of "alternative energy, bio-fuel, renewable energy" buzzwords, with nothing concrete anchoring them.
If we had three candidates this soft on terrorism, this country would call for their hides.
Let me just say this: getting rid of the federal gas tax is foolish. The tax raises about $30 billion a year, with most of it going to highway maintenance and construction but 15 percent of the amount goes to urban mass transit. So taking those dollars away only to allow people to drive more...that seems a touch loony.
Yet, what candidate will have the barrels, if you will, to tell America the truth. I wish a candidate would give an address and just spell it out...
My fellow Americans. We face the biggest threat yet to our liberty and freedom. The threat I speak of now does not come from Al Queda, or the insurgency in the Middle East, or some foreign invader yet-to-be. My friends, the danger is from within.
After the fuel crisis of the 1970s ended, this country began again treating cheap oil as our birthright. And for 35 years when we should have made our cars significantly more fuel efficient, in the name of cheap oil, we refused.
When we should have invested trillions more in mass transit and freight rail while demanding a true national passenger rail system, in the name of cheap oil, we refused.
And when we should have created disincentives to building sprawled out, car-dependent suburbs, we refused. And now, even as fuel prices cause the cost of food to rise, I remind you that much of suburbia rests on close-in land where food was once grown. We could have protected that land, but we refused.
But now..we must dig ourselves out of this hole, or risk being buried in it. To do so will take more than a speech and the promise of commitment. It will mean a radical re-thinking of where and how we live, work and play as Americans. We are not talking about a lesser America, but one in which we can still enjoy or freedoms without putting ourselves in financial bondage and ultimate ruin.
This mighty country spent the modern-day equivalent of $5 trillion over four years to fight in World War II. The enemy we now face is no less a menace than the one we faced them. We are now spending $12 billion a month to wage war in the Middle East. The enemy we face now is no less a threat than the once we face there.
At this point, the candidate would announce his or her plan. I have a few ideas, but sheesh, I gave them the speech, do I have to give them the idea, too?
