It's the Economy We Want to Create, Stupid
David Brooks, conservative op-ed writer for the NYTimes, has a column today responding to the grading of the fiscal policies of the Bush administration by The National Journal (they gave him a B for short term policy, and C- for the long haul). Brooks goes to several administration officials and, not surprisingly, they try to put their decisions "into context" of the time they took over managing the economic well-being of the country. (This seems to be a Bushie pattern--remember, if you will, W's frequent caveats during the Tim Russert interview last January when he continually tried to put his answers "into context," largely to remind everyone that Saddaam was a bad man.)

The context they're squeezing into revolves around the need to jump start the economy after the dot-bomb catastrophe and the hemorrhaging of manufacturing jobs. But Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo reminds us that this is simply rationale, that W had been talking about massive tax cuts (that would ultimately drain us of any surplus and turn this country into a debtor wasteland) for a long time before he'd been elected or even before many of these economic events began to coalesce.

In a commentary about the economic effects of a current situation--high oil prices--Ev Erlich talks how to better transition to a world of fuel efficiency.

If I want to invent a new energy future, I don't need to make the price of oil $40 or $50 a barrel today. No, instead, I need to make it clear that the price of oil will be $40 or $50 ten years from now. Otherwise, companies will skip the investments and wait for the price to go back down again. So we need to provide some assurance about the price of oil in the future. ...

(after pretending to be a bird squawking, "tax,tax.")

That's what the problem demands--a steadily rising tax on carbon energy that gives consumers and producers the confidence to push ahead with new forms of energy, new vehicles and new solutions to the problems of climate change. A gasoline tax won't do it. The price of gas just went up half a buck, and you're still in your car. But if you tax BTUs or carbon or something equally broad, you can phase the tax in over time, and you can use the proceed to accelerate new technologies or conservation, or new forms of power, not to mention taking down our staggering deficit.

Here's a link to a page where you can grab the link to the RealAudio source.