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Why are Republicans unhinged on energy policy?

September 28th, 2007 No comments

In a post of the same title at at NRO, Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren of Cato do a great job of demonstrating  there is absolutely no relationship between energy policy and national security.

However, they forgot to provide the answer to their own question – Republicans are “unhinged” on energy strategy for a very simple reason – because “energy security” is a very convenient way of justifying a meddlesome and paternal big government, and the Republican administration is in charge of the pork spigots and can control the flow of favors to special interests. 

Do Taylor and Van Doren find the Republicans “unhinged” only because they expected that Republicans actually meant their disavowals of “nation building” and the like?  Though Americans seem to share a congenital idealistic streak, I suspect that they are not that naive. 

No doubt the Dems will also find “energy security” to be a convenient way to aggrandize their own power, reach into Americans’ pocketbooks to direct federal largess their friends and to keep the US involved in the internal affairs of other countries.  They will have been aided by a Republican administration that was more liberal in the assertion of the right to exercise power than many Democratic administrations that preceded it.