The Clinton-Gore War on the Economy
by Alan Caruba
See
his website: Warning
Signs
11/6/2000
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The other day, Al Gore was campaigning in Florida, promising to insure there would be no offshore drilling for new oil. It reminded me of how shortsighted or, perhaps, even deliberate has been the policies of the Clinton-Gore administration for the past eight years.
Here we are, desperate for new energy resources to keep our economy growing, and the candidate for president wants to shut down our access to our natural resources. No drilling off Florida. No new drilling off California. Presumably he wouldn't more exploration in the Gulf of Mexico off Louisiana, even though that may prove the big one of the largest sources of new oil. Most certainly he doesn't want any drilling in Alaska.
This same administration shut down any mining of high-grade coal in Utah, putting millions of acres off limited to create a "national monument" there. This was done with an old law on the books called the Antiquities Act and done, as well, without consulting the Governor or the Senators from that State. New mining enterprises in the US for any minerals required manufacturing anything have slowed to a trickle. Government regulations and interference has seen to it that mining companies look to do business in nations more friendly to such development.
At the same time, another major natural resource, timber, was so mismanaged by this administration that this year millions of acres of forest were lost to fires that could have be mitigated and avoided. Countless Americans lost their homes and possessions as the direct result of these fires. This administration stood by while the Endangered Species Act was allowed to be used to put off-limits access to millions of acres of forest in the northwest, putting saw mills and timber industry assets there out of business. Now we literally import lumber from Canada!
We haven't seen a new refinery built in a decade and few utilities want to expand in an atmosphere of such over-regulation that, while the need is obvious, the government harassment renders the effort useless to undertake.
Meanwhile the cost of gasoline at the pump has been driven to the highest point ever and this is a nation that runs on wheels.
Then, in an economy based on the enormous innovation and investment in the emerging information technology industries, the Clinton-Gore administration attacked the biggest company of them all, Microsoft, and continues to try to break it up. There were no outcries from consumers demanding this action against Microsoft, but the government is not interested in consumers. It appears to be far more interested in destroying the generators of wealth and prosperity, the providers of high quality, low cost technology driving the economy.
Finally, we have a Democrat candidate running around calling for war on Big Oil, Big Tobacco, Big Insurance, Big Drug Companies and nobody asks why are they Big? They are big because they provide products and services that millions of people want and purchase. They are big because millions invest their earnings in them because they want and expect them to grow even bigger. They are big enough to employ millions of Americans.
Business in America has survived and grown despite this administration, not because of it. If you want to see the economy do even better, you need to rid this nation of those who have looked upon these industries as opportunities for exploitation and extortion. We need to rid ourselves of a self-avowed enemy of these and all other major industries in the nation.
Ultimately, everything in our economy runs on confidence. How confident are you that Al Gore will care more about your economic well being than the prospect of a global warming he believes requires "a central organizing principle" in which "an all-out effort to use every policy and program, every law and institution, every treaty and alliance, every tactic and strategy, every plan and course of action-to use, in short, every means to hold the destruction of the environment."
Those words are chilling in their full meaning. They call for a form of dictatorship to achieve something that is not happening. You can read them for yourself. They are taken from his book, "Earth in the Balance."
© Alan Caruba, 2000
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