"President Bush said today that he will not call on Americans to conserve gasoline despite the rising price of oil, saying consumers are "smart enough" to figure out for themselves that they should drive less."
What happened here was that a "reporter" from the "anti-American, despicable Associated Press" (official, complete name) asked President Bush one of those stupid questions (news conference): "Are you going to tell the American people to conserve energy by driving less, at lower speeds, and doing things like set thermostats to conserve"? (or words to that effect).
Why is President Bush only half right? Well, he is totally right on what he said. The President and the Federal Government has no business demanding that individual people conserve energy in certain ways. This is a matter of FREEDOM, and of respecting the intelligence of people. With gasoline over $4 a gallon, it is ridiculous to suggest that people are not looking for ways to conserve. They have a RIGHT to choose their own priorities, and how best to conserve.
What makes President Bush only half right, and the AP question totally wrong (nothing new), is the idea that the Federal Government should FIRSTA look for ways to coerce OTHERS into doing something. That is the "central planning", Big Government mentality that totally dominates the AP, and infects even president Bush to too great a degree (despite his good answer here).
Here is the RIGHT QUESTION: "Mr. President, what is the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT doing to conserve ITS use of gasoline and energy? Have you ORDERED the Federal Government agencies to cut their gasoline usage, and their energy usage?" You won't ever see a question like that from the AP, or any mainstream "journalist". yet, that is the FIRST question that should be asked. The Federal Government CONTROLS its OWN usse of gasoline and energy. BEFORE asking anyone else to do someting, should the Federal Government not set an example by doing what IT can do? To me, this is elementary, but no one else seems to be asking that question. And the SAME point could be made about state and local governments. Especially with regard to the Federal Government, which does not have the same type of budgetary restraints of the average person, and because of its SIZE, aggressive conservation actions could make a difference--definitely setting an example for other governments, employers, and individual people.
In my "CAN DO" entries on gasoline prices I have rightly ridiculed the idea that there is "nothing" that can be done to reduce gasoline prices. In addition to DEVELOPING OUR DOMESTIC OIL RESOURCES, there IS something "we" (or rather the Federal Bovernment) can do IMMEDIATELY.
As I have said, think of the effect if President Bush issued an Executive Order for the ENTIRE Federal Government (outside of combat zones) to REDUCE its use of gasoline by at least 20% in 30 days. The President could ORDER every department head to have a PLAN to do that on his desk in 15 days. The President could even ORDER that every supervisor CONSLUT with his employees about reducing gasoline consumption by Federal Employees who drive to work. Of course, the President would CHALLENGE Congress to take the same actions. Yes, the White House would have to reduce ITS use of gasoline the same 20%. Similarly, there would be another ORDER to, within 30 days, have a PLAN to cut ALL energy use by each agency. Remember the ORDER on gasoline would require actual REDUCTIONS to be in place with 30 days. There may be other energy conserving measures the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT could take as to ITSELF.
AFTER the above is implemented, the President could challenge EMPLOYERS to do the same thing VOLUNTARILY--following the Federal example. As I said, when the actions were announced, the President should already have challenged state and local governments to issue the same kind of orders.
Further, there is no doubt (this is one of the things that turned my brother off on President Bush, since it is a no brainer) that we should NOT have been purchasing oil for the Strategic Oil Reserve AT ANY PRICE. What a TERRIBLE example of HOARDING to set for India and China. Once oil went to $100.00 a barrel, we should have STOPPED those purchases ("suspended" them). Buy low and sell high. We are actually continuing the purchases to the end of July because of contractual requirements (which, however, did NOT require that we not SELL the oil fromt he reserve to match what we were buying).
Even though I don't favor New Gingrich's idea to sell HALF of the Strategic Oil Reserve in a panic over price, and attempt to manipulate price, I do favor reversing the stupid purchases of at least the last year by SELLING equivalent amounts of oil on some regular schedule as a further way of showing we are SERIOUS about this. This also sends a message to China and India that they should stop hoarding oil, by purchasing at any price. That is EXACTLY what we were doing: purchasing oil for the Strategic Oil Reserve AT ANY PRICE. That never made any sense (even assuming we got a contractual price less than the high futures prices of today). Selling oil would even help the deficit a LITTLE, and we can buy it back at a lower price (assuming a lower price). Again, the idea would not be to sell a major portion of the reserve, but only to put the amount of oil back on the market that we had foolishly removed in the last year.
Notice, again, that NONE of the above involves any OCERCION. In fact, most of it simply involves ACTION by governments (politicians).
No question which IGNORES the question of GOVERNMENT "conserving" (even if it means "belt tightening" like ordinary citizens have to do) can be right. No answer to the wrong question can be more than half right.
If Republicans really took it to Democrats and leftists on this issue (gasoline and energy costs), they would actually WIN this election BIG. Don't hold your breath. Republicans like government power and perks almost as much as the next leftist.
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