Energy Policy: No Solutions

   Daniel Greenfield's blog posting on Free Republic titled "A Little Energy is a Dangerous Thing" is a right-leaning commentary on our nation's lack of planning for the future.  He lauds the steps currently being taken by China to invest in their nation's infrastructure to keep winning in the future when and if the value of the US dollar increases in strength.  The audience the author intends to reach is a wide-ranging one because many American readers and also many around the world will find his points about American leaders lacking planning and innovation and instead sticking to dogmatic principles when confronted with problems interesting and convincing. 

   Although Greenfield's argument centers around a lack of planning for the future, the examples he uses to make his points are mainly centered around energy policy and regulations in the energy industry that he believes have led to the loss of many American jobs.  Greenfield states that "there is no such thing as clean and safe energy. Energy is inherently dangerous and polluting."  Green energy options, in the opinion of Greenfield, are at this point still way too expensive to be feasible as energy providers for a nation that uses energy as much as we do.  He also points out that all forms of affordable energy have a human cost.  "Technology isn't magic.  It's a set of implemented techniques that work around the laws of the universe to achieve human ends."  Here Greenfield is making a strong conservative point that the primary goal is to make available as much of a good as possible to the public and take care of humans first.  Going on to make the point that our politicians continued to regulate industry until most of our factories moved to China, Greenfield casts this as a parallel to increased reliance on government to help provide Americans with the opportunity to land a good job, through such programs as financial aid for college and welfare programs. 

   Finally, in attacking our nation's leadership, or lack thereof, Greenfield defines real leadership as "planning for the future by balancing risk against reward, setting goals and achieving them", going on to say that it has been quite a long time since American leaders followed that path, instead concentrating on rewards and claiming any policy that will meet their desired rewards is risk-free.  This, he says, is the circular logic of children.  "We no longer consider whether things will work--instead we decide that the must because we want them to." 

Houston Rep. Lee Opposes Budget Cuts

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of the 18th Congressional District in Texas wrote an editorial for the Houston Chronicle published March 10 attacking most of the proposed budget cuts made by the Republican majority in the House of Representatives.  In her editorial, titled "Republican budget cuts will hurt American public", Rep. Lee pleads her case against the intended shutdown of government activities and states that the Republican majority "would rather throw a tantrum" than proceed in a thoughtful, bipartisan way.  Lee also writes that proposed budget cuts would cause schoolchildren to go without education.  This remark especially stings me because of my belief that education starts in the home; my mom and my older sister took the necessary steps to ensure that when I entered Kindergarten at age 5, I was reading at a very high level and could already perform the basic four mathematical functions.  Last month on his radio show, Mark Levin took a call from a woman who was bashing the educational system in general because her son at age 16 struggled with basic schoolwork such as reading comprehension and had repeatedly failed standardized tests, which as most of us in Texas know are a complete joke and a severe waste of time.  Teachers in the Houston Independent School District receive performance bonuses, the largest of which was $25,000, based on how their students perform and improve on standardized testing.  Levin asked her how much time she spent working with her son throughout his adolescence and she responded by saying that it was not her job to ensure that her son was well-educated and prepared for post-high-school life and that the public education system had failed him.  I strongly believe that you only get out of education what you put into it.

Lee devotes quite a bit of her editorial to budget cuts and how they would effect the economy in its current state.  She wants to follow the advice of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform that recommend halting cuts until 2012 or 2013.  I believe this has been one of the primary problems lawmakers have caused by standing pat and hoping things will recover or alternately throwing money at large corporations whose problems mainly resulted from major mismanagement, plowing us ever further into debt. 

The Ever-Expanding Bureaucracy

    Judson Berger's article posted to Foxnews.com and titled "Obama Draws Fire for Proposing New Education Agency to Develop Classroom Gadgets" is of course written from a conservative perspective.  The article details a proposal by President Obama to create a new agency to be called the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Education with the purpose of giving money to companies to create high-tech gadgets for use in school classrooms.  The proposed agency would cost $90 million in its first year of operation.  Many republican Congressmen have voiced their displeasure with the proposal.  The article also points out a recent report released by the Government Accountability Office that found many duplicate programs already in existence in the Department of Education.