AN ENERGY PLAN COULD SOLVE OUR HOUSING ISSUES

The answer, in this writers opinion to many of our problems lies in energy. We are sending $60 billion of our wealth to the OPEC nations each month. A clear plan on energy could create new investment in our economy, new investment in research and development, new research in our universities and lower oil prices today. Those lower prices are like a tax break to the American public. Think of a person who spent $400 per month on gasoline 2 years ago, that today needs $700 to $800 to pay for the same gas. Business that are paying double. Corn and everything made from corn is more expensive. It can't happen over night, but a clear plan will drive speculators out of the oil market and could lower oil $40 to $60 per barrel. That is a $300 to $1,000 bonus to most American households on a monthly basis. Way better than a one time $600 or $1,500 check. If the US government would have pledged $200 billion, or what ever the cost was from the recent stimulus plan, into an energy plan; the American public would benefit and so would our economy.
Below is an article I enjoyed by Thomas Friedman.


9/11 and 4/11

'By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

new_york_times:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/20/opinion/20friedman.html

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: July 20, 2008
I am reliably told by a Bush administration official that there is an old saying in Texas that goes like this: “If all you ever do is all you’ve ever done, then all you’ll ever get is all you ever got.”

Could anyone possibly come up with a better description of President Bush’s energy policy? America is in the midst of its worst energy crisis in years and what is the big decision our Decider has decided? Drum roll, please: Our Decider decided to lift the executive orders banning drilling for oil and natural gas off the country’s shoreline — even though he knew this was a meaningless gesture because a Congressional moratorium on drilling passed in 1981 remains in force.
The economist Paul Romer once said to me that “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.” President Bush is well on his way to being remembered as the leader who wasted not one but two crises: 9/11 and 4/11. The average price of gasoline in the U.S. last week, according to the Energy Information Administration, was $4.11.
After 9/11, Mr. Bush had the chance to summon the country to a great nation-building project focused on breaking our addiction to oil. Instead, he told us to go shopping. After gasoline prices hit $4.11 last week, he had the chance to summon the country to a great nation-building project focused on clean energy. Instead, he told us to go drilling.
Neither shopping nor drilling is the solution to our problems.
What doesn’t the Bush crowd get? It’s this: We don’t have a “gasoline price problem.” We have an addiction problem. We are addicted to dirty fossil fuels, and this addiction is driving a whole set of toxic trends that are harming our nation and world in many different ways. It is intensifying global warming, creating runaway global demand for oil and gas, weakening our currency by shifting huge amounts of dollars abroad to pay for oil imports, widening “energy poverty” across Africa, destroying plants and animals at record rates and fostering ever-stronger petro-dictatorships in Iran, Russia and Venezuela.
When a person is addicted to crack cocaine, his problem is not that the price of crack is going up. His problem is what that crack addiction is doing to his whole body. The cure is not cheaper crack, which would only perpetuate the addiction and all the problems it is creating. The cure is to break the addiction.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/20/opinion/20friedman.html?_r=1&oref=slogin