California has written the book on how not to pursue utility deregulation, and now the damage is that their leaders will use the current crisis to demagogue against the concept. As Pete duPont has recently reminded us, the idea of price controls goes back at least 4,000 years and they have always failed, particularly when […]
Archives for February 2001
The Consequences Of Ideas
I have just read a short book by R. C. Sproul with the same title as this essay, in which he traces the key strains of Western philosophical thought from the Greeks to the present in order to illustrate the consequences of the ideas on our present condition (a kind of takeoff on Richard Weaver). […]
It’s The Culture, Stupid!
In my October, 2000 Special Pre-Election Issue, paraphrasing Pat Buchanan, I wrote that the 2000 election was not to be about who gets what or the details of policy, but rather was to be about who we are. Now, three months after Election Day, I’m even more convinced. The post-election fight in Florida and the […]
Thoughts On Faith-Based Initiatives
Of all President Bush’s proposals to date, the most difficult and potentially most transformational is the centerpiece of his compassionate conservatism, the plan for Federal support of faith-based social programs. Fully competitive school choice and full privatization of Social Security would certainly be more dramatic, but these aren’t in the cards for awhile and don’t […]
Let’s Be Honest About Ag Policy
A friend who is knowledgeable in Federal agriculture policy recently sent me an article from The New York Times which reminded me of the failures of policy in this area and the political difficulties in dealing with them. Since the passage of the acclaimed Freedom To Farm Act in the mid-1990’s, which was supposed to […]