Call us the “Do Nothing Generation.”
Posted on June 26, 2008 - Filed Under Energy, Society 
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FOLLOW UP: This article by Daniel Henninger in the July 3 edition of The Wall Street Journal amplifies some of the points made in the piece below.
Click here to listen to the broadcast of You Tell Me on Newstalk 600 KTBB, Friday, June 27, 2008.
Something I said on June 11 has been working on me since I first wrote it. In the story I did on the 1,400 mile Big Inch pipeline that was built from Longview, Texas to Linden, N.J. during World War II in only 54 weeks I said,
“We Baby Boomers are the children of people who got things done. And we have been living off of those accomplishments ever since (without really having to put ourselves out much).”
The truth of that statement is startling. Our parents and grandparents were doers. We have devolved into a bunch of talkers.
We Baby Boomers began taking the reins about 30 years ago. We inherited a nation that worked. The bridges, the highways, the refineries, the electric generating stations, the electric grid, the natural gas network, the telephone network, the hospitals, the military, the schools, the airports, the seaports, and the water treatment plants were all in place and functioning well. To the extent that we have provided any contribution to any of these things since, our contributions have been incremental.
By the time of our coming of age, our parents had created a world in which prosperity and lack of want had become the norm. Unlike those that went before us, we have never worried about getting enough to eat. In fact, we have to worry about eating too much. When we order something on Amazon, we get it one or two days later with the help of the Interstate Highway System — 46,000 miles of roads that network the entire nation — built by our parents.
We flip a switch and the lights come on. We pick up the phone and we’re connected to any phone of our choice out of tens of millions in seconds.
Our parents went from zero to walking on the moon in only ten years. Our parents freely took risks and we’ve been living off the rewards for the past 30 years.
And curiously, 30 years is a number that keeps coming up.
We all are unhappy with the high price of gasoline. Besides the high price of crude oil, one of the biggest factors in gasoline supplies is the lack of refining capacity. The last refinery built in America was built just over 30 years ago.
Many think we’re going to replace gasoline cars with electric cars. Not without more electric generating capacity we’re not. And guess when the last nuclear generating plant was licensed. That’s right, about 30 years ago.
We Baby Boomers, safely ensconced in the comfort provided by our parents, have refined our ability to talk and analyze and demagogue and litigate as a substitute for actually doing something. Construction on the World Trade Center began in 1966 and was completed in 1973, a total of seven years. It was just announced that the completion of the buildings to replace the World Trade Center has now been pushed back to at least 2013 with every likelihood that it will take even longer and cost even more than the latest revised estimates. Seven years for the originals. Twelve years and counting for the replacements.
We’re paying outrageous prices for gasoline because we’re not willing to run the risk of spilling some oil on the way from the well to the refinery. Our parents took that risk and gave us mobility - which is another word for freedom. We’re now unwilling to assume any of our own risk to keep that freedom.
Speaking of refineries, no one will build one today. Only the plaintiffs’ lawyers profit from the attempt to build a refinery. After the lawsuits are defended, there’s no profit left for the refiner.
Consider any major undertaking, such as those of our parents, and you are immediately confronted today by the omnipresence of environmentalists and their legion of attorneys.
It’s primarily environmentalists that stand in the way of increased oil drilling in the United States. Barack Obama defends that obstruction by saying that such drilling is pointless anyway because it won’t bear fruit for ten years. First, I don’t believe it will take ten years. Second, the fact that we became proactive would impact oil markets immediately. And third, that was the excuse ten years ago. Democrats talk about far-in-the-future energy technologies as an excuse for doing nothing about energy supplies today.
We’re at a tipping point. If we are to hand our kids a functioning, prosperous economy, we need to address our energy supply problem (along with many other problems too numerous for this column) and we need to address them now. We’ve been talking energy to death for 30 years. It’s now past the time to actually get something done.
Tom Brokaw wrote a great book about our parents called The Greatest Generation. If we don’t get to work and actually accomplish something before we’re too old, the book they write about us will be called, The Do Nothing Generation: How Baby Boomers Squandered Their Inheritance and Left Their Kids with Posturing Politicians, a Mountain of Debt and an Army of Plaintiffs’ Lawyers.
Don’t wait ’til 2010! Raise your own taxes now!
Posted on June 19, 2008 - Filed Under Taxes Print This
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Click here to listen to the broadcast of You Tell Me on Newstalk 600 KTBB, Friday, June 20, 2008.
I have some Democrat friends. I know, it doesn’t seem possible. But I do. They’re not extreme left wing-hate America-George Soros-Hollywood whack job Democrats. My Democrat friends are sane Democrats. They’re reasonable, thinking people. But sane as I give them credit for being, a Democrat is still a Democrat and this friend of mine and I wound up talking a little policy at his house a couple of weeks ago.
“Paul,” he says, “with the kind of deficits the government’s running and this ridiculous war that never ends, there’s no way we can’t raise taxes. It’s just gotta happen.”
“Well, it’s gonna happen,” I said. “The Bush tax cuts expire on their own in 2010 without anyone doing a thing.”
“Well, that’s not all bad,” says he. “It’s just something we’re just gonna have to get used to.”
Now as you might imagine, I don’t think so. If we can’t afford to pay for gasoline, how can we afford to pay more in taxes?
Let’s say you’re a middle class married couple, one of the 48 million such couples the Democrats so eloquently say they want to help. You’re about to pay $3,000 more in taxes per year than you’re paying now.
What about old people? The average elderly taxpayer is looking at $2,200 more in taxes. Feeling guilty that the Bush tax cuts only “helped the rich”? Tell that to the poor. When the Bush tax cuts expire in 2010, a single mother with two kids and a $30,000 income will pay $1,600 more in federal income tax. (Imagine that poor woman and $4.00 a gallon gasoline.)
But that’s me. A significant number of people, including my good Democrat friend, believe that our taxes never should have been cut in the first place and that it’s OK for them to go back up.
So I’m saying to all of you folks, ‘What are you waiting for?’
Paul, what do you mean, what are we waiting for?
I mean, if you think that one of the problems facing the United States is the fact that our tax rates are too low, you can do your part right now. Today. Without an act of Congress or the operation of any law.
But, Paul, we don’t set the tax rates.
It doesn’t matter. You can create your very own do-it-yourself tax increase. All you have to do is write a check to the U.S. Treasury and send it to this address:
Gifts to the United States
U.S. Department of the Treasury
Credit Accounting Branch
3700 East-West Highway, Room 6D17
Hyattsville, MD 20782
According to the U.S. Treasury website, this account ‘was established in 1843 to accept gifts, such as bequests, from individuals wishing to express their patriotism to the United States. Money deposited into this account is for general use by the federal government and can be available for budget needs.’
So, if you truly believe that we should be paying more in taxes, why wait? Set up an automatic payment in your on-line bank account to send money to the Treasury every payday. The amount can be the difference between what you pay in federal withholding now and what you’ll be paying when the rates go back up in 2010. (Or to save time, just send them $3,000 right now.)
If you sell some stock and make a $1,000 profit, you’ll pay $150 in capital gains tax. So write a check to the Treasury for another $130 to make up the difference between the capital gains rate today and what it will be when the rates go back up. After all, the reduction in the capital gains tax was only to benefit the rich. So if you have a capital gains tax liability, you must, by definition, be rich. Pay up!
If you do this, you’ll be acting on your conviction that taxes are too low and we’ll all respect you as a person of principle.
But you’re not about to do it, are you? Of course you’re not. And that’s my point.
Unless you’re willing to voluntarily send your own money to the government based on what you earn, you have no standing to insist that the same amount of money be taken from me and your fellow citizens by force of law.
The Bush tax cuts were a singular triumph of domestic policy. The fact that the rates go back up in 2010 is going to hurt an economy that’s already in a lot of pain.
So act on your convictions. Either start sending money to the Treasury now or start making your voice heard on making the tax cuts permanent.
There’s not much time.
Our parents got things done and the Earth is still beautiful.
Posted on June 11, 2008 - Filed Under Energy, Environment Print This
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The Big Inch
Click here to listen to the broadcast of You Tell Me on Newstalk 600 KTBB, Friday, June 13, 2008.
I want to propose an ambitious capital project and I want your thoughts on the feasibility.
In order to meet a strategic national need, we need to construct a pipeline nearly 1,500 miles from Texas to New York. We’re going to cross 95 counties and traverse all or part of Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
We’re going to bury most of it in a three foot-wide, four foot-deep trench. We’ll be moving more than 3.1 million cubic yards of earth before we’re done. To complete this project, we’ll cross swamps and forests, go over or under 30 rivers and more than 200 creeks and lakes. We’ll be passing our pipeline under streets, railroad rights-of-way and a few private backyards.
We’re going to need more than 7,500 right-of-way grants or tenants’ consents.
Oh, and there’s just one more thing. We need to have this project completed in 54 weeks. Uh, huh. A year and a month. What do you think?
Well, Paul, I’m not so sure.
Why not?
Why not?! There are a lot of reasons but your time line is the biggest problem. You’ve got to be kidding with that 54 weeks. You’ll be darned lucky to have the environmental impact statements finished in less than five years. And then you’ll have to get the approvals. You’re talking some serious stuff here. Crossing forests and natural wetlands for example. You’re bound to be making an impact on quite a bit of natural habitat, some of which is bound to involve protected or endangered species.
And assuming you get the necessary approvals, which is going to take a long time assuming you get it done at all, don’t think you’re going to just start digging. You’d better budget some serious money and some serious time for the legal challenges. You can count on being sued repeatedly by any number of environmental groups. They’ll get restraining orders and injunctions to stop you or slow you down. You can count on it.
Really?
Yeah, really. I think you should forget about this one.
Well, you’re probably right.
Oh wait. Except for the fact that all of this has already happened. In 1942, in response to the need for massive quantities of oil necessary to prosecute World War II, they built this very pipeline. It starts in Longview and it goes all the way to Linden, New Jersey. And it was completed, start to finish, in 376 days. It’s called the Big Inch, in honor of the fact that it employed what was then revolutionary 24-inch diameter steel pipe.
Historical marker at MLK Blvd. & Pittman in Longview
Want to know the best part? It’s still in operation. It is, at this very moment, transporting natural gas from Longview to New York via that terminal in Linden, New Jersey.
The Big Inch pipeline is still in use, transporting natural gas now instead of oil.
I’m telling you this because oil has gone up about ten bucks a barrel since we spoke last Friday. And yet, members of Congress, and both presidential candidates, still refuse on largely environmental grounds to open up known fields of oil and gas to drilling and production.
We Baby Boomers are the children of people who got things done. And we have been living off of those accomplishments ever since (without really having to put ourselves out much). And to the extent that our parents damaged the earth while accomplishing what they did, they and we all learned from those mistakes and we take better care of the earth now. Show me any business — from the largest multi-national to your corner dry cleaner — that is wantonly damaging the environment today and getting away with it.
Up until now, had you ever heard of the Big Inch pipeline? Ever heard of any harm it has done to the environment? Any chance it could get built today in just over a year?
With the Big Inch in mind, let’s acknowledge that refusing to drill for oil that we know is there out of fear of damaging the environment is ludicrous.
But, Paul, we need to move past oil anyway.
Oh yeah, well that will take a couple of decades if we’re really lucky. And it won’t be the result of some massive government initiative such as the Manhattan Project. The switch from oil to some other energy source will be market-driven. Energy is fungible. Atom bombs are not.
And guess what. Any alternate energy you find or develop will come from the earth. There is no other source. If you want energy, you will have to dig or drill or move or scratch or do something to the earth in order to get it.
All over East Texas there are oil wells that have been plugged and abandoned. Finding them today without specific detailed records would be next to impossible. The earth, by now, has fully reclaimed those old well sites.
And that’s because the earth is resilient and has what it takes to take care of itself.
The question is, with our way of life threatened by global oil market tyranny, do we have what it takes to care of ourselves?
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