Sunday, October 02, 2005
Yeah, Uh...Good Luck With That
Bush to "Focus"
I don't know if this is good news, but the "Post".... is reporting that President Bush will be 'focusing' on just three major issues this fall; Katrina recovery, the Iraq War, and energy prices. At least he likes I challenge, and I can respect that, I guess.
The truth is that all three of these seem to be no-win situations. Katrina recovery, although requiring federal dollars, is likely to be plagued with shady deals due to FEMA and other federal agencies over-compensating for their initial failures - lots of bad government contracts, fraud, etc. Iraq, where do I begin with this mess. Elephant was a reluctant supporter of the war, but I support wars that are fought to win, and we never went in with enough troops to do the job right. (Why, pray-tell did it take 500,000 troops to liberate Kuwait, but only 120,000 to liberate Iraq?)...Now things in Iraq, at least from my limited view look more like the heart of darkness (gore for porn?!) than a war we could be proud of...If there is such a thing.
Gas and energy prices will be a huge issue this winter. As a consumer of mass transit the former doesn't directly impact me as much as the latter. Natural gas for home heating could be as much as double last years prices (which were nearly 300% of 2000 prices). That's got me concerned. Last year during January it cost me $400 to heat me house, this year that could climb to $600 or $800 dollars...A MONTH! (Thank goodness we in DC only really need heat for three months.) I'm a lawyer, so I make good $, not great, but good and if this will be a concern for me, it will likely to a major problem for the rest of us. I can't imagine a family of four, making $60,000 a year (which is good money) paying $3/gal for gas and a bazillion dollars a month for heating...it's going to be tough. Anyway, my point is that there is very little the president can do in the short term to bring these prices down. He can relax the Clean Air Act so we can build more refineries in the U.S. (we haven't built any since 1976) that would help with gasoline supplies. We could also adopt a uniform clean gasoline mixture for summer. Currently there is something like four different formulations (California, Midwest, Northeast, ect.) which compound supply and price problems. But any way you slice it, getting a grip on high energy costs will take some time.
So, good for President "Bush" for being focused....but I'm not expecting anything different that the same malaise we've had for the last four years.
I don't know if this is good news, but the "Post".... is reporting that President Bush will be 'focusing' on just three major issues this fall; Katrina recovery, the Iraq War, and energy prices. At least he likes I challenge, and I can respect that, I guess.
The truth is that all three of these seem to be no-win situations. Katrina recovery, although requiring federal dollars, is likely to be plagued with shady deals due to FEMA and other federal agencies over-compensating for their initial failures - lots of bad government contracts, fraud, etc. Iraq, where do I begin with this mess. Elephant was a reluctant supporter of the war, but I support wars that are fought to win, and we never went in with enough troops to do the job right. (Why, pray-tell did it take 500,000 troops to liberate Kuwait, but only 120,000 to liberate Iraq?)...Now things in Iraq, at least from my limited view look more like the heart of darkness (gore for porn?!) than a war we could be proud of...If there is such a thing.
Gas and energy prices will be a huge issue this winter. As a consumer of mass transit the former doesn't directly impact me as much as the latter. Natural gas for home heating could be as much as double last years prices (which were nearly 300% of 2000 prices). That's got me concerned. Last year during January it cost me $400 to heat me house, this year that could climb to $600 or $800 dollars...A MONTH! (Thank goodness we in DC only really need heat for three months.) I'm a lawyer, so I make good $, not great, but good and if this will be a concern for me, it will likely to a major problem for the rest of us. I can't imagine a family of four, making $60,000 a year (which is good money) paying $3/gal for gas and a bazillion dollars a month for heating...it's going to be tough. Anyway, my point is that there is very little the president can do in the short term to bring these prices down. He can relax the Clean Air Act so we can build more refineries in the U.S. (we haven't built any since 1976) that would help with gasoline supplies. We could also adopt a uniform clean gasoline mixture for summer. Currently there is something like four different formulations (California, Midwest, Northeast, ect.) which compound supply and price problems. But any way you slice it, getting a grip on high energy costs will take some time.
So, good for President "Bush" for being focused....but I'm not expecting anything different that the same malaise we've had for the last four years.
