PAUL RYAN – Mr. Ryan spoke out against the president’s policy on space exploration and demonstrated once again the Republican hypocrisy on the role of government in our society. The President has all but pulled the government out of the space exploration business. He wants private industry to step in and take the lead in our efforts to explore outer space. Paul Ryan disagrees. He says that if government gets out of the space business it won’t be long before “we see China looking down on us from the moon.” Whatever happened to the good old American entrepreneurship that Mr. Ryan is so fond of? Mr. Ryan wants government to fund our space exploration efforts to enable our future generations to compete in the race for space. Yet he wants to cut government funding for teachers, education and Pell Grants that enable our future generations to compete here on earth.
REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH – Nothing sets conservatives’ hair on fire like a conversation about the redistribution of wealth. Any hint of taking the hard earned money from one individual and handing to another is like waving a red cape in front of a raging bull. But conservatives ignore the fact that redistribution of wealth has been an integral part of our economic structure from the beginning. According to Jeffrey Bruner of Gannett News; the best example of this is the progressive federal income tax system that has been in place since 1913. The system taxes the wealthy at a higher rate than poor. Most Americans think that’s fair. There are other examples of redistribution that play an important part of our society. Congress collects taxes and then distributes that money as it sees fit. Some funds may go to help only a few…research for the cure for rare disease…while other funds go to help everyone…roads, bridges, health care for seniors and weapons for the military. When you rail against the concept of redistribution of wealth you are venting against one of the cornerstones of our capitalist society.
GOVERNMENT AND BUSINESS CAN WORK TOGETHER – There is a natural gas boom going on in our country. Geologists have discovered that we have natural gas resources beneath the ground that rival the oil resources in Saudi Arabia. Drilling companies are stumbling all over themselves to mine that gas for profit. The process is called “fracking.” It involves injecting large amounts of water and chemicals into the ground to break up the shale and free the gas. The development of this process has been hailed as a historic achievement by private industry. The boom happened “away from the greedy grasp of Washington” claimed the American Enterprise Institute. “The free market has worked its magic.” claimed the Barnett Shale Energy Education Council. What these private industry advocates ignore is that from 1916 until the 1970’s the federal government was providing subsidies focused almost exclusively on increasing the production of natural gas and oil. The Department of Energy began funding research into fracking and horizontal drilling in 1975. But it took more than 20 years to perfect the process. The Department of Energy invested $137 million in gas research over three decades and the federal tax credit for drillers amounted to $10 billion between 1980 and 2002. In 2010 gas and petroleum industries received $2 billion in federal subsidies with another $14 billion going to renewal energies. What was once considered a “stupid” idea in 1981 is now a viable component of "energy independence." Our thanks to Kevin Begos of “Associated Press” for his work on this important story.
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