I need not say anything, Dan Froomkin sums it up quite well:
One fair test of how seriously Bush takes his new energy conservation kick will be whether he exercises any self-restraint. But don’t expect cardigans or thermostat-lowering in this White House.
Bush’s gas-guzzling motorcade was whizzing all over town yesterday — and today he flies off in his fuel-gulping 747 for his seventh trip to the Gulf Coast since Katrina struck a month ago.
You know what always amazes me about this administration — and many previous ones, including the Clinton government? They keep allowing corporations to reap huge, record profits then expect taxpayers to foot the bill.
Example: drug companies are among the most profitable corporations by far. They claim to use those profits for research, but in fact most research is government funded and done at universities. They actually use those profits for marketing. When the time came to devise a scheme to lower drug prices for seniors, no one gave a moment’s thought to the simplest plan: ask the drug companies to lower their prices.
Now that gas prices have topped $3 per gallon, there is talk of releasing the strategic reserve, huge tax breaks to oil companies already making record profits, and urging from the White House to conserve. But I don’t believe that President Bush has called his oil company cronies to ask them to actually lower their prices at a time when they are making record profits. He hasn’t even called for significant mileage improvements from car makers.
Sometimes, the free market is just raping its customers, and that’s when government has to step in and stop it.
And the days of Bush’s pie-in-the-sky no sacrifice world are about to come crashing down around us. Cut taxes! Spend more! War brings democracy! Profit is better than stability! Buy now, pay later!
