Energy policy burdens middle class
Extreme environmentalists who long ago hijacked the Democratic Party, and who are well on their way to hijacking Republicans as well, have declared for decades that it would be great to drive the price of gasoline to $5 a gallon. That would reduce consumption among us thoughtless slobs and save our planet. In that effort, they have successfully prohibited off-shore drilling, north-shore drilling, coal mining, new power dams, nuclear power plants, new oil refineries, oil shale recoveries, Cape Cod wind farms, desert solar power collectors, ocean tidal generators, wood-powered local generators and any other power generation that comes to mind. Consequently, they have nearly achieved their goal of $5 a gallon.
If we had plastered this country, as did France, with nuclear power plants decades ago, we could generate enough electrical power to produce non-polluting hydrogen for automobiles almost as a waste product. Nuclear power plants pollute nothing. In full disclosure I must admit as a rocket scientist that I truly believe manmade global warming is nonsense but, despite the plutonic wisdom of Jane Fonda, the fact remains that nuclear power plants produce no CO2 or anything but clean, safe electricity.
Now that you extremists have driven gasoline to nearly $5 a gallon, are you happy? At that price many of us won”t travel. Rich people, whom you profess to despise, will be unaffected in private jets but, since we middle class and poor folk, whom you profess to love, can”t afford the cost of a vacation, we won”t go.
But next winter will come and we will need fuel of some kind. Maybe we will wrap ourselves in blankets by wood fires. Oops, I forgot, environmentalists don”t like wood fires and are pursuing laws to prevent them. We”ll just wrap ourselves in blankets and shiver. Back to nature.
Randy Ridgel
Kelseyville
California can”t have strong economy without investing in its public schools
This budget is based on some of the same short-sighted tricks that got us into this mess in the first place, including massive borrowing and fund-shifting, without offering a long-term solution to our state”s budget problems.
In the midst of a massive home foreclosure crisis, we”ve been presented with a budget that resembles borrowing to pay the mortgage. In fact, borrowing against the state lottery may be even worse speculation than buying a home in an inflated housing market.
This budget offers little more than a fig leaf for education, while savaging health care and social service programs like only a Terminator could.
We all want this budget to be balanced, but our approach to resolving the deficit should be balanced, too.
We can”t have a world class state with a world class economy without a strong education system ? and this budget means our schools will still have to lay off teachers, reduce staff and increase class sizes.
In terms of what we spend per pupil, we are already 30 percent below the national average ? this budget risks setting us back further.
We will move as quickly as possible in analyzing the Governor”s proposals in detail. But we will also move as responsibly as possible to ensure that this budget does not result in undue harm to children, seniors, working families or the poor.
Patricia Wiggins
State Senator, Dist. 2
Reduce, reuse and recycle government
The best way to “go green” is fixing environmental problems at their source and that source is government. The federal government is by many accounts the largest polluter in the United States. By reducing the size of government and recycling redundant and unnecessary government bureaucracies, we will shrink the size of our “government footprint” and, in turn, help our environment.
More government is not the solution to environmental woes ? it”s the problem. Until we reduce the size of government, our environmental problems will continue to grow.
Shane Cory, executive director
Libertarian Party (www.LP.org)
Buckley guided conservative politics
On Feb. 27, 2008, my hero and role model died. Across the world, many, many others are thinking the same ? not just among members of the conservative movement.
William F. Buckley Jr. was the man who gave birth to the conservative movement, who nurtured and guided it as it grew into a major political force. Now, he has gone to his reward, and he belongs to the ages.
All those who cherish freedom are forever in Bill Buckley”s debt. Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan were the political fathers of today”s conservative movement, but Buckley was the movement”s intellectual father.
Without Buckley”s pioneering work, including his first book, “God and Man at Yale” (1951), and his launching of the National Review in 1955, there very well may never have been a successful conservative movement. Today, we often take conservative alternative media for granted, but for many years Buckley”s program, “Firing Line,” was almost the only conservative show on TV.
During a flight from Washington DC”s Reagan National Airport to LaGuardia Airport in May 2006, I told Bill Buckley that I wanted him to hear this: that I and every conservative would go to our graves not even beginning to understand the debt we owe him.
It was Bill Buckley, flying under the radar, who watched over the young conservative movement, providing encouragement to generations of young activists, writers, and politicians. It was Buckley who provided the intellectual foundation for, and drew a bright light onto, the conservative cause.
And, whenever an extremist would claim falsely to be a conservative, it was Buckley who took the lead in differentiating true conservatives from opportunists and kooks.
Buckley guided our movement in ways that will never be known to the public, or even to most conservatives. Often, his was an invisible hand behind conservative success.
Every conservative ? every person who loves freedom ? should thank God for William Buckley ? and thank God for not giving the Left a William Buckley.
I am reminded of 2 Samuel 3:38: “Do you not know that a prince and a great man has fallen this day ?”
Richard A. Viguerie
Manassas, Va.
