I know how you feel, Lib, but Calvin Coolidge is dead and buried. It’s time to let go.
He’s dead, Jim. Where’s yer blasted, Vulcan logic NOW?
The crisis started necessitating brownouts and localized rolling blackouts in summer of 2000 (cites in this post 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.
You mean experts like Clinton FERC chief James Hoecker?
His boss disagreed with imposing price caps, too, FWIW.
President Bush (to his everlasting discredit) did in fact impose temporary price caps in June of 2001, 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.
Which administration are you referring to? Would you characterize the Clinton administration’s attitude over the summer of 2000 as Marie Antoinetteish?
Please note that the traders are speaking in future tense.
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.
A few earlier threads on this:
Will George W. Bush help California GD 12-30-00
California’s Power problem - explination please? GQ 1-18-01
Shouldn’t Cheney reimburse California for the $30 Billion he stole? GD 5-15-02