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Published on Wednesday, January 17, 2001 in the Madison Capital Times
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Let’s Hope W Doesn’t Keep Promises
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by Dave Zweifel
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State Journal the other Sunday announced it will keep track of W’s
campaign promises to see if he keeps them once he takes office.
I think a better idea since he didn’t even win the popular vote is that we watch to make sure he doesn’t keep his campaign promises. According to the exit polling and the results of the vote itself, most Americans don’t want a tax cut that for all practical purposes will do away with our chance to pay down the national debt. They don’t want Supreme Court justices appointed who will send women back to the underground and have them resort to coat hangers to end unwanted pregnancies. They don’t want the Social Security system jeopardized by scheming with Wall Street to invest the elderly’s money. Which, incidentally, did better this past year — the Social Security system or the NASDAQ? Social Security still made money for the nation’s pensioners while paying out billions to the permanently disabled and to dependent children who lost a working parent. Most Americans don’t want to see the exploitation of one of the last remaining pristine wilderness areas in Alaska, nor do they want taxpayers’ money funneled into private schools. So, with any luck at all, W won’t keep his campaign promises. An e-mail came the other day from a self-proclaimed "free-marketer" who took issue with my contention that the energy crisis in California proves that utility deregulation is a farce. You didn’t point out, the man said, that California only deregulated the power generation and not the prices that utilities charge the consumers. That would make it better? Let’s see now ... California votes to deregulate the generation of power ... the utilities spin off the power plants ... the new deregulated power plant owners now find they can raise the price for the power they produce by 900 percent. Had California taken the next step and deregulated consumer costs, too, then the utilities could pass on all the 900 percent to the consumer. Wouldn’t that be just peachy? Revenues to the power plants and the utilities would be allowed to jump 900 percent while the hapless homeowner pays nine times his or her normal bill. It’s fine the way it is now. Let the utilities squirm a bit. This was all their idea in the first place. Copyright 2001 The Capital Times ### |