Today, conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer writes about a subject near and dear to my heart: cutting our ridiculous, crazy consumption and importation of oil. Like Krauthammer, I want to do this in part for geostrategic reasons. As Krauthammer says:
The worst part is that much of this $60 [per barrel] goes overseas to foreigners who wish us no good: Wahhabi Saudi princes who subsidize terrorists; Hugo Chavez, the mini-Mussolini of the Southern Hemisphere; and (through the fungibility of oil) the nuclear-hungry, death-to-America Iranian mullahs. This is insanity.
Yes, that's largely true. In addition, I would argue that the U.S. involvement in the Middle East mainly revolves around oil. And this is not a good thing, since it is a factor leading to anger and resentment by Muslims against us. Is it a coincidence that 15 out of 19 hijackers on 9/11 came from Saudi Arabia, home to the world's largest oil reserves? And that the rest came from Egypt, another oil exporter and location of the strategic Suez Canal (and Sumed pipeline), through which 3.8 million barrels per day of oil flow? I don't think so.
In addition to the geostrategic reasons, I also want to cut our oil consumption for environmental reasons, specifically global warming. In other words, I'm a "geo-green," a term coined by New York Times columnist Tom Friedman. Where did "geo-green" come from? As Friedman explains:
I was just sitting at the Davos conference and actually having a conversation with a friend of mine on the phone and I was ranting and raving -- this is where most of my ideas emerge -- and I said, "You know, what we really need is something that merges neocons and environmentalists because they both actually have the same interests right now." So I said we need a "neo-green" strategy, then I thought, no -- "geo-green."
So how do we reduce our oil consumption, in the view of Charles Krauthammer (R) and Tom Friedman (D) alike? Econ 101, my friends. Here's Krauthammer again:
Just yesterday we were paying $3.50 a gallon at the pump and were ready to pay $4 or $5 if necessary. No blessing has ever come more disguised. Now that we have lived with $3.50 gasoline, $3 seems far less outrageous than, say, a year ago. We have a unique but fleeting opportunity to permanently depress demand by locking in higher gasoline prices. Put a floor at $3. Every penny that the price goes under $3 should be recaptured in a federal gas tax so that Americans pay $3 at the pump no matter how low the world price goes.[...]
It makes infinitely more sense to reduce consumption, drive the world price down and let the premium we force ourselves to pay at the pump (which begins the conservation cycle) go to the U.S. Treasury. If the price drops to $2, plow that $1 tax right back into the American economy by immediately reducing, say, Social Security or income taxes.
OK, so how does this all relate to Virginia politics? Believe it or not, it does. Remember how in this campaign, Jerry Kilgore -- when he wasn't busy invoking Hitler and those horrible Hispanic house cleaners! -- was claiming (gasp!) that Tim Kaine wanted to raise your gas taxes?
Well, guess what, besides the fact that it wasn't even true, all Jerry Kilgore was doing was playing politics and demagoguing on this issue. The fact is, every economist, every energy expert, and just about everyone else who's thought for more than 2 seconds about this issue, knows that we consume 25% of the world's oil in the United States not because it's expensive , but because it's the cheapest (by far) in the entire industrialized world. In Europe, we're talking $5-$6 per gallon. Same thing in Japan. Around $3.50 per gallon in Canada.
Here's the bottom line: right now, the world is faced with two major threats, one geostrategic (international terrorism) and one environmental (global warming). There are other threats related to oil as well, such as our enormous and ballooning trade deficit.
The common thread between all of these problems? Profligate U.S. oil imports, mainly to fuel people driving around sprawlsville in SUVs. Frankly, that's nuts. The answer to solving this problem? Econ 101: to consume less of something, raise the price of it. So that lower- and middle-class people don't suffer, use the revenues to lower taxes elsewhere, to focus on "smart growth" including mass transit and telecommuting options through the use of fiber optics and other super-advanced communications technologies. Very simple, actually.
In other words, let's get off of our early 20th century economy and move boldly into the 21st century. For that, we need leadership that is sorely lacking in Republican-controlled Washington DC right now. Luckily, we can also move forward at the state level, as many states -- California, New York New England, and many others -- are already bush doing by mandating renewable energy and carbon emissions standards.
Why can't we do that here in Virginia? Answer: no reason, except for politics. That's just ONE reason why we need some drastic changes in Washington, DC in 2006, 2008 and beyond. So which will it be: new leadership for a better world, or the same old LACK of leadership to keep us mired in the familiar quagmire? Seems like an easy answer to me, to Charles Krauthammer, to Tom Friedman and to many others. So let's stop talking about it, let's do it!
P.S. For others who agree with me on this, see Business Week, another article in Business Week by Nobel Prize economist Gary S. Becker, Robert Samuelson, New York Times conservative columnist John Tierney, Money Magazine, Andrew Sullivan, and many others.