Why are our elected officials not serving the American people by Coming up With a Comprehensive Energy Package

Question

Yeah, I know it is an election year. But our economy is in the toilet and we have energy costs rising out of control but our congress and president have done NOTHING thus far! If someone took the lead we could become energy independent. Why do we have no leaders? Seems every politicians concern is getting elected or reelected.

Answer 1

I'm always amused by questions like this.  What, pray tell, is the government supposed to do?  Legislate to take over Saudi Arabia?  Perhaps outlaw SUVs and Hummers?

Really, this is not a government issue, this is a case of long term dependence on unsustainable technology.  

The truth is, there is no alternative out there right now.  Biofuels?  No, Mr Bush, in order to even come close to significantly replacing fossil fuels with biofuels, we'd all have to start eating dirt.  The world does not have the growing capacity to grow enough biomass to make a difference.

Hydrogen?  No, that is not an 'energy source', it is an energy storage medium.  Same with electric.  Both require significantly more power generation (in the US that means coal) in order to provide the electricity or hydrogen (produced by electricity). Plus massive infrastructure that will take decades to build and install.

Stop driving, drive slower, drive smaller vehicles.  Those are the options.  Quit blaming the government for our failings.

Answer 2

You've really basically answered your own question, by noting that it is all about the next election.  The next step is to ask the hard question, what can we, as voters, do about it?

One earlier response suggests we stop voting for incumbents.  That's probably a good default position to take, in the absence of better information, but bear in mind that we are where we are because of the two party system, and defeating incumbents isn't going to change all that much.  The newcomers are still going to belong to one of those two parties, so the risk that nothing will change will still be great.

Here's what I recommend.  Read the Constitution yourself.  Ignore anything written by others about it, including case law, newspaper articles, or any other source but what you see with your own eyes.  Think about it.  Discuss it with people you can have such conversations with, and drag some people into them if you have to.  

Here's the thing to understand, which you'll see in it for yourself once you read it and think on it:  The document was written to protect you from tyrannical government.  Not external invasion, from your own government becoming tyrannical.  It won't do that on its own, you have to enforce it. In addition, it is self-contained.  Case law may seek to explain it, but it can't change it. Everything you need to know about the Constitution is contained within the document itself.  Where externals conflict, the Constitution gets the last word.  Most importantly, know that it was written for the average citizen of the 1780's.  It wasn't written in code, and the language Legalese didn't even exist then.  You CAN understand it.

You can read it.  You can't see the real problem if you don't.  You can't be part of the solution if you don't see the problem.

Either the Constitution means something or it doesn't.  If you don't know what it says, it might as well not mean anything, and we're in the same situation we were in back in 1774.

Once you understand the Constitution, you can see that either we need to change government to conform to it, or change the Constitution to conform to government, or we assent to effectively not having a Constitution.  Those are our choices.  

Answer 3

If the opposite of "PRO" is "CON", it must mean the opposite of "PROGRESS" must be "CONGRESS".

Answer 4

It's as if congress really wants this union to fail. It's not just the current energy problems. This should've been addressed years ago, after the 1st embargo. And the fact that their sweeping it under the rug now, in the face of true hardship for US citizens, is unconscionable!

Will people wise up & vote out every incumbent?

Answer 5

If President Bush had an energy program he could not get it passed by the current congress.  He doesn't, at least not that I have heard about.  We also have a do-nothing congress.  Half of whom are on vacation.  The republicans are still in Washington trying to guilt the democrats into coming back to work on this exact problem.  Reed and Pelosi aren't coming back.  Too bad they are only thinking of themselves instead of the people they work for.  How about we throw all of them into the unemployment line?  Lets only vote for Libertarians, Greens and Independents this time around. That would really shake things up there in Washington D.C.  

Answer 6

Our politicians now make their policies on polls. The Democratic politicians want more government control of our economics, making the U.S. a collective society.

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'

Answer 7

Bravo, very nicely said.  Here is my question, Why did they do something about it in the 70's.  You know this isn't the first time we have had this problem and they should have been working on becoming energy independent then.  Why didn't they do anything about it then and why aren't they doing anything about it now.  You know that the auto manufacturers at one time had to put energy efficient things on vehicles and they had them stop, they were also required to do research and development into other alternatives and they made them stop, said it cost the auto manufacturers too much money, well isn't it going to cost us too much money down the road too.  Good question.  Why aren't they doing anything about it.  You know we have the greatest minds in the world right here in our country you would think they could come up with an alternative.