ENOUGH! is what the voice of the voters thundered. Enough appeasement; enough bungling; enough deindustrialization; enough energy stifling. It was exhilarating.
And yet it was but a first step. Those who believe that history is made by politicians (instead of the other way round) should recall the constraints under which a President, even with a cooperative Congress, must work.
Reagan will inherit an oversized and grossly unbalanced budget; his own budget will have to be largely made up of previously enacted commitments. In energy, just as elsewhere, the nonsense was not purely of executive, or even legislative origin. It was the courts, for example, that brought in concepts like "pristine air quality."
But more important than the constraints imposed by law are those imposed by political realities. The Speths, Duncans and Castles will make way for better men; but the termites who have crept into the lower echelons of government will stay. And the power of the bureaucracy is awesome, though
¾like that of the press, the educational establishment or the unions¾it is not anchored in the Constitution. Nor can the President do what is legally feasible until the, country is ready for it¾and he does not control the machinery feeding the country information.None of which is to say that the President will be powerless. At the very least, he can discontinue the nonsense. He need not depose rulers who fall short of Jeffersonian ideals only to be followed by ayatollahs or other savages, nor need he let the US be represented by semiliterate yahoos like Andrew Young. In the field of energy, there is a long list of nonsense to be discontinued: the violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty; the ban on recycling nuclear fuel; the snubbing of the INFCE findings; and hundreds of other artificial obstructions of ample energy production.
But he can surely do more, for he comes into office with widely based and deeply rooted support. The unnatural alliance of union bosses with Dixiecrats, of radical intellectuals with upper-middle class environmentalists, has crumbled, perhaps for good. What lives on is their common trait: They are unproductive and seek to redistribute the wealth created by others. Reagan will face their dogged opposition, especially in the media, which they continue to dominate. But if he remains true to the platform on which he was elected, he can tap the full strength of the producers
¾the ones who produce what is good enough to be exchanged without coercion, who have the confidence and self-respect that comes with that ability, and who do not need to destroy old values or to extort hand-outs by political clout in order to get ahead.Nowhere is the difference between producers and redistributors clearer than in the field of energy. We shall be watching closely, fervently hoping for the country's speedy recovery.
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Vol. 8, No. 4
Newsletter: Access to Energy Newsletter Archive Volume: Volume 8 Issue/No.: Vol. 8, No. 4 Date: December 01, 1980 04:47 PM Title: A turning point
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