Monthly Archives: August 2008

The Antiplanner rarely listens to speeches, preferring to rely on written documents. I’ve never listened to a speech by Obama, but I decided to listen to his acceptance speech last night. What I heard did not give me much hope.

P.J. O’Rourke once said, “Democrats believe government can work. Republicans believe it can’t, and then they get elected and prove it.” Certainly George Bush fulfilled O’Rourke’s expectations. But it nonetheless remains true that the fundamental political debate in America remains the role of government.

Obama admitted that “Government cannot solve all our problems.” But the only thing he suggested that government can’t do is turn off the television at night and make children do their homework. He did make a lot of promises that government under President Obama will do a lot of things that most experts believe it really can’t do.

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Today is the 45th anniversary of the march on Washington and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s I have a dream speech. I was 10 years old at the time.

I remember the Selma to Montgomery marches. I remember feeling outraged that anyone would discriminate against someone else because of the color of their skin. I remember going to the Unitarian church school (where I learned to be an atheist), and my mother coming out of the church service one day saying that Reverend Steiner had fired people up about civil rights so much that if he had said, “Go get on a bus to Alabama,” half the congregation would have done it. I remember feeling disappointed that he didn’t say it.

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The Arizona Supreme Court ruled yesterday that a transportation measure could not be placed on the ballot this November. The measure would have increased sales taxes by a penny to raise billions of dollars for roads and transit.

Contrary to what some people might think, the Antiplanner would have opposed this measure even if all of the funds were dedicated to roads. Transportation facilities should be built using user fees, not taxes.

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The U.S. went through a couple of gas crises in the 1970s, and now we are in the midst of another one. High prices at the pump have got politicians debating about drilling for oil in ANWR, off shore, and other places.

Recently, the Antiplanner’s esteemed colleagues and faithful allies, Indur Goklany and Jerry Taylor, pointed out that gas is actually less expensive today, when measured proportionate to personal incomes, than it was in 1960. Jerry (who has also been debating whether or not to drill for oil in the L.A. Times) expands on this point, with charts, on the Cato blog.

The point they were making is that we aren’t really in a serious crisis, and politicians should not rush to adopt ill-considered policies that are “exactly the wrong thing” — policies like ethanol subsidies that end up costing a lot and producing few benefits. I completely agree with this point, and to underscore it I’d like to scrutinize the data a little more.

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