The economic ideal in America is that a business competes with other businesses for customers by offering better or cheaper products or services. Government’s role is supposed to be that of neutral umpire — preventing fraud and protecting property rights, but leaving it to consumers to pick winners and losers.
We have fallen far from that ideal, which is evident in the expectations many in our supposedly free market have of government.
Here is the lead of a Hearst Newspapers article: “Business leaders ... said an infusion of more than $1 billion in federal grants for renewable energy projects is driving a surge of private investment in wind and solar operations.”
But any such “surge” is artificial. The question is not whether wind or solar power is “surging” when it is propped up by subsidies from taxpayers, but whether it is successful standing on its own two feet.
If Uncle Sam showered enough subsidies on a company building solid-gold countertops (if there were such a company), it could bring the price of gold countertops down enough to make them seem cost-competitive with marble or Formica countertops. But that would be an illusion. Consumers still would be footing the bill, but they would be paying the tab through taxes rather than through free-market choices.
By the same token, government can make expensive wind and solar power projects seem cost-effective by offering them big subsidies. It can also do that by placing burdensome new taxes on production and use of oil, natural gas and coal, thus making their costs artificially high. But that, too, is smoke and mirrors.
Private investment that results from subsidies or from contortions of the tax code — and that would fail without those intrusions in the free market — is nothing to celebrate.
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The US imports 70% of our oil,much of it from politically unstable sources. Our own wells are producing at a slowly dimminishing rate. Our untapped reserves could reduce our imports by several percentage points if we ramp up production now,but we simply do not have enough oil to meet our own needs now or in the future.If oil is likely to be less available and more expensive going forward,should we not begin to develope other energy forms to replace our diminishing oil stocks? Of course we should.
Our oil industry has received tax breaks for decades and it stands to reason that alternatives will as well,at least initially.Now is the time to be agressively developing a wide array of alternatives BEFORE the next oil crisis.Whether it's wind,solar,nuclear,or geothermal,large up front investments and incentives are required to prepare for the inevitable time when we no longer have enough oil.
For the NFP to oppose tax concessions for emerging American energy technology solutions when our country is at the mercy of oil exporting countries,defies logic. To fail to prepare defies logic. Does the NFP believe in magic?
Talk about defying logic. Yes, most of us agree we need to diminish reliance on hostile foreign powers like OPEC and their partners. Instead of making use of plentiful sources offshore, in Alaska and other US sites NOW, we are making others rich and ourselves poorer.
Canada's economy in the past few years has surged (after decades of decline=Liberal policies) due to selling out their oil and gas reserves and natural resources to the US, China and India. During the 1990's Depression Canada's (small compared to the US) industrial manufacturers went bankrupt or moved to Mexico and overseas. It won't be long now when the people will see their "chickens come home to roost" as a well-known racist,oops Chicagoan once said. Canadians have already lost more than you can know-but wait, soon it will be our turn if we keep on this track.
THAT is how it works. Lovely talk about Bio-energy, Green alternatives, wind, solar, etc. is all hot air. The REALITY is that the implementation of those commodities kill the poor and working classes-for years and none of us see any return on our investment now, or in the future. Why? Because all Governments have proved over and over just how corrupt they are when their hand is in your pocket.
In a thriving, healthy economy we would be wiser to experiment with alternatives AND put in place legislation to prevent Hucksters like Al Gore profitting from fantasy solutions that only enrich the rich (with our taxes BTW). Millions and millions of us know this to be true because we live(d) the reality.
greater taxes on coal and oil would not be artificial if they were done to offset the external costs of those commodities: respiratory illnesses, polluted lands and waters, depleted reserves, threats to our security and stability, dependence on centralized producers, danger to miners. We subsidize coal and oil in many ways and at costs far greater than the incentives intended to get wind and solar past the early-adopter phase where all new commodities struggle.