Hot Button Issues

Liquid gold

I'm intrigued by 'hot button issues.' These are issues that produce not merely opinions, but passionate speeches, tirades and the like. Hot button issues will take an ordinary man, cause him to be prone on the floor with spittle drooling from the edge of his mouth, pupils dilated -- all from ranting without breathing. Three such issues that I'm thinking of now are: abortion, immigration and gas prices. With abortion and immigration, I have middle-ground opinions that would horrify the morally high-minded black-and-white thinkers. I don't think abortion in the first trimester is equivalent to murder, nor do I think Mexican immigrants are evil space invaders. I'll save those topics for another blog. The subject is gas.

Bush has probably lost another 5% in popularity points, due to gas prices. As a 'damn liberal,' that delights me, but as a consumer it perplexes me. Much of the anger is coming from conservatives. They're up in arms -- not over Iraq, but over gas prices. "Something must be done," they say. The devil is always in the details, and nobody wants to let that devil out just now. As a shopper and a bill payer, I've noticed many prices go up and down. My water bill nearly doubled last month, and my property taxes went up a whopping 20%. New houses have gone way up. If you doubled the price of gas, it might add $120 to my monthly gasoline bill. That's not a huge percentage of my budget. Why aren't there villagers with torches coming after the Dallas Water Utility? Why aren't we having rebellion against Trammell Crow or the Dallas Appraisal Office? These guys are sticking it to us good. The Exxon executive retired with a hefty sum and oil companies are raking in profits -- isn't that capitalism? Are we suggesting, no perish the thought -- that there should be controls on wages, prices or profits? Lavish excess is the rule of the day in telecom and on Wall Street. What is it about gasoline that makes everybody's pot boil? Should the line be drawn by industry, or are there some other criteria to go by?

The energy 'crisis' is the most unnecessary crisis of all. There are no less than 75 credible solutions to gas shortages and oil dependency. What we have in America, is a situation where big fat porkers don't want to change their particular habits. "Drill in Alaska, dammit, I need my Chevy Yukon." The world over, industrial nations are addressing this issue responsibly, and their handling of it preceded the Iraq situation. Here are some ideas, some inspired by Europe and Japan ....

- Build and encourage the use of mass transit
- Build high speed bullet trains in to your infrastructure
- Sell and promote highly fuel efficient 'Smart Cars'
- Impose gasoline taxes; to make it so that poor people aren't disproportionately taxed, it might have to be based on total gallons consumed, or fuel efficiency of the tax payer's car.
- Develop alternative energy sources

The above ideas are a starting point. Of course, oil companies and an oil-loving president will not pursue these. Necessity will be the mother of invention. When at some point, the well has run dry, or a bucket drawn from that well is intolerably expensive, "something will be done". The devil will just be in the details.