# Bush/Cheny in 2004: Let California Burn **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 2, 2004, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-cheny-in-2004-let-california-burn/248192 "2004-06-02T02:55:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2004, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-cheny-in-2004-let-california-burn/248192/21 "2004-06-02T21:40:26Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > I don’t understand why price caps were the solution. It sucked when Nixon did it, and it would still suck. Why not just put the fraudulent dealers in jail and force the companies to trade peacefully and honestly? I wish we could bring back America’s greatest president and make him dictator for life, but oh well. I know how you feel, **Lib** , but Calvin Coolidge is dead and buried. It’s time to let go. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2004, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-cheny-in-2004-let-california-burn/248192/22 "2004-06-02T21:41:23Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > I wish we could bring back America’s greatest president and make him dictator for life, but oh well. He’s dead, Jim. Where’s yer blasted, Vulcan logic _NOW?_ ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/13edae/32.png) [@Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2004, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-cheny-in-2004-let-california-burn/248192/23 "2004-06-02T23:54:50Z")
> [@Apos](#): > > Unfortunately, the President at the height of the crisis was one George Bush. The crisis started necessitating brownouts and localized rolling blackouts in summer of 2000 (cites in [this post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=2108505&postcount=10) by **Sua** ). Please note George W. Bush’s inauguration date. Before that gets sloughed off as a sort of third-party _tu quoque_, let me say I think Clinton acted perfectly appropriately. I am not raising Clinton’s name to distract from Bush. I am instead raising it for purposes of comparison. I think it perfectly reasonable when determining if a particular administration acted appropriately to compare its actions to those of other administrations dealing with similar circumstances. Indeed, unless you can come up with a basis for distinguising the Bush administration’s handling of the issue from that of the Clinton administration (and, indeed, other administrations facing similar circumstances – Carter and the gas shortage springs to mind) then you’ve got to either say they were all wrong, or that Bush acted appropriately. > [@Apos](#): > > While experts begged for price caps, … You mean experts like Clinton FERC chief [James Hoecker](http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=473124)? > [@](#): > > _James Hoecker, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), put it bluntly: “As disappointing as it may seem to some, we cannot ‘price cap’ California out of a supply shortage…and generators should not expect future earnings that dramatically outdistance the industry’s historical performance.” He added that fixing things will require work “on several fronts over a period of time—in California’s case, three to five years.”_ His boss disagreed with imposing price caps, too, FWIW. > [@](#): > > …the most engagement the administration had was to send to Cheney meet with a few California officials during which he didn’t listen, stared at his watch while they were talking, briefly lectured them on the value of free markets (which was completely irrelevant since the whole contention was that they were not currently free) and left. Bush made a few brief statements about price caps making things worse without any hint that he understood the fears that the power shortage might have been artificial and temporary price caps could easily be gotten rid of if they didn’t have the desired currative effect. President Bush (to his everlasting discredit) did in fact impose temporary price caps in [June of 2001](http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/time/2001/06/25/light.html), something Bill Clinton steadfastly refused to do during his tenure (to his everlasting credit), outside of “soft caps” put in place in December 2000 (to his discredit). As for caps as a “temporary cure,” I refer you to New York’s rent control laws, which were put in place ostensibly to ease the burden on families whose breadwinner was busy storming Omaha Beach. They have only been falling by the wayside in the past decade or so. Or consider the telephone tax promulgated to pay for the Spanish-American War which you still pay today. Temporary cures have a way of becoming not-temporary with alarming frequency. > [@Apos](#): > > In short, without even considering more seedy motives, the administration attitude was “let them eat cake”: a blow-off in the worst way. Which administration are you referring to? Would you characterize the Clinton administration’s attitude over the summer of 2000 as Marie Antoinetteish? > [@](#): > > And the Enron people apparently knew this quite well: Please note that the traders are speaking in future tense. > [@blowero](#): > > We debated this two years ago: > [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=115418](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=115418) > > It was obvious then, and it’s obvious now that Cheney fucked California in the ass. But we got the same old tortured reasoning as to why (a) the Bush administration wasn’t to blame, and (b) everyone’s favorite whipping-boy, Bill Clinton, was equally to blame. Thank you for the link. Did you bother to read it? I suggest you pay careful attention to each of **Sua Sponte** ’s posts in that thread. Verifiable facts and paying attention to key dates isn’t “tortured reasoning.” Quite the opposite, really. I know it’s convenient to plug your ears and say “lalalalala” when the evidence doesn’t support your preconceived biases, but that is not the same as a flaw in your opponent’s logic. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-cheny-in-2004-let-california-burn/248192/24 "2004-06-03T01:13:12Z")
A few earlier threads on this: [Will George W. Bush help California](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=53287&highlight=FERC) GD 12-30-00 [California’s Power problem - explination please?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=56090&highlight=FERC) GQ 1-18-01 [Shouldn’t Cheney reimburse California for the $30 Billion he stole?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=115418&highlight=FERC) GD 5-15-02 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-cheny-in-2004-let-california-burn/248192.md?page=1)