The Cato Institute is confused. Let's see if we can help them out.
The above title is the correct assessment of the new energy bill that President Bush just signed into law, less than 24 hrs after the House approved it by a 314–100 margin. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, speaking just prior to yesterday’s vote, gave the politicians’ assessment: “You are present at a moment of change, of real change.”Of course, it’s not that much of a change for politicians to substitute their collective judgment for the private decisions of consumers who have strong incentives (stronger than politicians!) to make the most efficient choices. Still, the new energy bill — assuming Congress sticks to it — will make some changes:
- The incandescent light will be phased out of existence beginning in 2012.
- Average fuel economy for new vehicles will move from the current 25.0 MPG to 35.0 by 2020 — a standard that only the Toyota Prius and Honda Civic hybrids currently meet.
- New government mandates and subsidies will push the domestic ethanol industry to some 36 billion gallons in sales by 2020. (This will actually lessen fuel efficiency because ethanol gets considerably worse mileage than gasoline.)
- The move to more biofuels will continue to increase food prices as farmland is reallocated to the production of energy stocks.
All this leads to one question: Why are these mandates necessary? If the changes are as sensible as Congress and the White House claim, consumers would make them privately. Indeed, the data indicate that consumer preference for fuel-efficient cars is stronger than what the economics would justify.
So then, what is this energy bill really all about?
Hmm, that's a puzzler.
As a guess. Perhaps it's about making sure that consumers have the actual real-life capacity to make the fucking choices they've been demanding for years in the face of a retarded American corporate structure that refuses to innovate to meet a demand that sane people saw coming 15 years ago?It's called democracy, dumbass. It's amazing how the concept of the "will of the people" only has relevance for this shithead in the context of some hypothetical marketplace -- one which is in fact hypothetical and not real exactly because the "market" failed -- and not in terms of legislation passed by a majority of the people's elected representatives.
Not that I'm pleased with this bill, it clearly does not go nearly far enough, for exactly the reasons the Cato person is feebly snarking at. But, you know, we need more actual responsiveness to the will of the people, not less.
The reason I hate this Cato post quite a bit, though, is it shows how corrupting cynicism can be, and usually I'm a pretty big fan of cynicism.