Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 6A
Opinion
The days of
cheap oil prices
are gone
The following editorial
appeared in the Miami Herald
on Friday, June 6:
As the price of oil creeps
beyond $4 per gallon,
Americans struggle to reori¬
ent their driving habits and
wonder whether this crisis has
an end. Experts say that high
fuel prices are here to stay. As
Treasury Secretary Henry M.
Paulson Jr. said a few days
ago, “I don’t see a lot of
short-term answers.”
This poses severe chal¬
lenges for the U.S. economy,
but it does not necessarily
mean an end to the era when
the U.S. standard of living
was the envy of the world.
The question is whether'
Americans, and particularly
our leaders, are prepared to
do what it takes to cope with
the new reality of high-fuel
costs. So far the answers
haven't been reassuring.
• Just weeks ago, two
presidential candidates —
Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen.
John McCain advocated a
suspension of the federal tax
on gasoline as a quick and
easy way to ease the burden
of high prices.
• Congress probably won’t
fall for that gimmick, but it
eagerly approved another
pointless measure, forcing the
president to suspend deliver¬
ies to the oil reserve that rep¬
resents our national fuel
piggy bank. Within days, the
Energy Department made the
suspension effective.
• Lawmakers followed that
up by hauling energy compa¬
ny executives before
Congress and berating them
for their greed, short-sighted¬
ness, lack of patriotism and so
forth.
None of this is likely to
make a dime’s worth of dif¬
ference to motorists. What
these actions have in common
is an excess of political pos¬
turing and an absence of
political resolve.
Grilling oil-company exec¬
utives in front of the cameras
makes for good theater, but it
is not going to squeeze a sin¬
gle extra drop of fuel out of
their refineries or contribute
to a long-term solution.
The lesson is already sink¬
ing in. Mass-transportation
systems are recording increas¬
es in ridership.
The lesson is to beware of
political leaders offering easy
solutions. Readjusting the
U.S. economy and lifestyle to
an era of high prices for fuel
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FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS — Wednesday, June 11,2008
won’t take place without pain.
Yet it is remarkable how few
leaders are willing to call for
sacrifice and lay out a plan
for making the transition.
Perhaps that’s because the
electorate hasn’t been kind to
political leaders who chastise
our profligate habits.
. Nearly 30 years ago,
President Jimmy Carter put
the issue squarely before us at
a time when high oil prices —
artificially induced by OPEC,
at that time — were crippling
the U.S. economy. Carter
called for an end to “this
intolerable dependence on for¬
eign oil” and asked people to
take conservation seriously.
Among other things, he
urged drivers to switch to pub¬
lic transportation or use car
pools, to adjust their thermo¬
stats at home, to take no
unnecessary trips, to leave
their cars at home for at least
one workday per week. He
proposed legislation that
would have placed a mandato¬
ry cap on the amount of oil
used to generate power.
The speech went over like
a lead balloon, and the follow
ing year Carter lost the contest
for a second term. Many other
factors led to the electoral
loss, but his “malaise” speech
was widely lampooned and
contributed to Carter’s unpop
ularity. Ever since, our politi
cal leaders have been reluctant
to call for these kinds of sacri
fices.
The latest crisis offers
another, once-in-a-generation
“teachable moment.” For
some, the lesson is already
sinking in. Urban mass trans¬
portation systems are record¬
ing sharp increases in rider
ship, and Detroit is scaling
back on production of gas
guzzlers while plunging
ahead with innovations like
electric-powered cars. These
car manufacturers and drivers
get the point — cheap fuel
prices are not our national
birthright.
It is up to the next presi¬
dent and allies in Congress to
take advantage of this oppor¬
tunity to wean the country
away from “the intolerable
dependence on foreign oil.” A
generation has been lost in the
vain search for easy solutions,
This time, it appears that
the days of cheap oil really are
over. The wisest leaders are
those who can lead the way to
a future that does not hold
America’s destiny hostage to
the whims of the international
oil market.
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The of the robber
Beyond measuring the
prospects of the Georgia
football team and the misuse
of credit cards on a grand
scale at Georgia Tech, you
don’t hear much about the
goings-on in higher educa
tion these days,
Well, that’s not quite true,
A couple of university sys
tern regents, led by aging
playboy and liquor magnate
Don Leebern, have been in
hot water for making illegal
political contributions. Ex
Regents Tim Shelnutt of
Augusta and the Hugh
Hefner-esque Leebern have
paid thousands in fines for
handing out illegal cash to
aspiring public officials. The
FBI has been looking into the
matter,
Shelnutt has separated
himself from higher learning,
And it’s hard to get upset
with the mostly good-natured
and generous Leebern. He’s
poured tons of money into
UGA and the Medical
College of Georgia and into
the pockets of several gover¬
nors.
So what if he punched out
a guy in an argument over a
dog? And who cares that
Don’s 69th birthday celebra
tion had not been equaled
since the Christians barred
bacchanals? It’s the Bulldog
way. If you got it, flaunt it.
Beyond those blips and
the routine personnel dust
ups, Georgia’s halls of ivy
Bill
Shipp hF
w
are mostly off the public
radar. Tech used to be called
the MIT of the South. And
Gene Odum at UGA was the
Moses of ecology and a
greener world.
Times change. The bubba
from Bonaire took charge of
Georgia and its schools. Tech
and MIT are no longer men¬
tioned in the same sentence.
Though environmental pro¬
tection is in vogue through¬
out the world, Georgia has
somehow lost its seat at the
Green table. Gene Odum is
long gone.
Our mossback leadership
had rather pray for rain than
prepare for growth and possi¬
ble economic disaster.
When the university sys¬
tem is mentioned in most
cracker circles these days, the
boys with fat cigars lose
interest if the talk strays
beyond starting quarterbacks.
When budget tightening is
brought up in the Gold Dome,
Gov. Sonny Perdue’s decision
to slice $1.5 billion from
Georgia’s pitiful education
budget for kindergarten
through 12th grade is invari¬
ably mentioned first. Don’t
forget the colleges, folks. The
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University System of Georgia
has suffered similar billion
dollar cutbacks. Tuition keeps
going up and up to compen¬
sate for the cuts, with the per¬
haps not intentional side
effect of erecting more educa¬
tion barriers for the poor.
Why was this allowed to
occur? That’s easy. The guys
running the calculators and
charting Georgia’s future are
idiots. They had rather fund a
boat ramp than underwrite a
professorship.
Georgia gets more bang
for its buck from a growing
university system than from
just about anywhere else.
And college money is mostly
clean white-collar cash,
which begets additional clean
white-collar money.
The University of Georgia
published a news release last
week on the good works that
UGA does for Athens plus
what the whole 35-school
system does for the state.
Sure, the handout may
contain puffery, but it is
puffery worth considering, if
the numbers are even close to
correct.
For instance, the universi¬
ty system directly impacts
Georgia to the tune of $11
billion. UGA’s slice of that
economic pie is $2.1 billion,
making it the single largest
contributor to the system’s
statewide impact.
Each on-campus universi¬
ty job creates 1.2 jobs off
campus. In Athens the total
number of UGA-related jobs
is 20,200. Imagine Athens or
Statesboro or Valdosta or
Milledgeville or metro
Atlanta or a half-dozen other
bustling areas without their
great and growing schools.
So what are we waiting
for? Why aren’t we making
the schools bigger and bet¬
ter? Or will our elected bub
bas insist forever that an SEC
championship is always
worth more attention than
academic research?
In Georgia, because of our
benighted history, ginning up
emphasis on higher education
makes for poor politics.
Georgia voters don’t trust
elitist bookworms to run their
government.
Several governors in the
past (Carl Sanders, Jimmy
Carter, George Busbee and
Zell Miller) disguised them¬
selves as rubes in order to
become reformers. Gov.
Perdue is different. We final¬
ly figured out that he is what
he seems to be.
Now we know why educa¬
tion, high and low, has suf¬
fered throughout his tenure
— even when the upside of
investing in education is so
obvious.
You can reach Bill Shipp
at P.O. Box 2520, Kennesaw,
GA 30156, e-mail:
shippl@bellsouth.net, or
Web address: billshippon
line.com.