Thursday, July 24, 2008

WSJ.com - The Opposite of Progress

Just 12% of voters think Congress has passed any legislation to improve life in this country over the past six months. . .Why is Congress so unpopular? Because it is often intent upon doing things that will make life in America much worse.

The most important example is continued blockage of access to America's energy resources. No new nuclear power plants have been permitted in decades; no new oil refineries; no additional drilling off the coast of Alaska, California, Florida or parts of the Gulf of Mexico where there are huge amounts of useable energy; and continuing opposition to building liquefied natural gas facilities. 

Then there is Congress's virulent protectionist thinking. As the North American Free Trade Agreement has shown, trade is good for America; it has increased jobs, incomes and available goods in our country. 

Next comes the Boxer-Lieberman-Warner climate bill [that] would have made life in America much worse, for it contained a huge expansion of regulation, permitting, and taxation that would have cost America 600,000 jobs a year, raised electricity prices by 44%... 

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