[at-l] A.N.W.R. VOTE - conservation issue - not trail

[Bob Cummings <ellen@clinic.net> (Bob Cummings)]

"... NONE of what I've written here is really about oil or the ANWR. It's ALL
about lies, assumptions and facts," says Jim &/or Ginny.

There are no facts, as Jim points out, when dealing with future events. It's all
prediction and guesses, based on whatever knowledge the predictor can muster.

Frankly, I don't care how much oil may be under the arctic wildlife refuge. I
happen to be an avid fan of the free enterprise system. A radical fan in fact.
So radical, that I think this country should try it some time. One start for
instance, might be to reject the $250 million Republicans in Congress wants to
give to the Enron Corporation which suddenly finds it self in bankruptcy despite
for the past year having had the luxury of selling electricity to California
utilities for 10 times more than Enron had paid for the electricity. Unlike
those cynical investigators who smell fraud I'm sure such good contributors to
George's election, would never do anything dishonest.

But such mundane matters are beside the point. I'm just suggesting a few
tentative experiments to see if my dream of free enterprise can work without
special subsidies from poor people. One experiment might seek to see what
private enterprise can do by exploring for oil on private lands, without the
help of government lsnd, subsidies or extra ordinary tax breaks.

I know mine is a minority view. Many think President Reagan was a radical
because he reasoned that because most people have to pay taxes, the richest
corporations and individuals also ought to pay at least a minimum tax. REagan
didn't repeal all the special tax breaks granted the big corporations. He just
said that regardless of these breaks a tiny minimum tax should be imposed on all
except the very poorest of Americans.

Different and perhaps wiser folks are now in charge. President Bush and his
allies in Congress now want to refund that minimum tax that was levied on poor
corporations like IBM, General Electric, General Dynamics. Such matters,
however, are beyond my expertise.

 But as a tiny start towards a free enterprise system, lets let what little oil
that remains under the public lands remain there, while we experiment with free
enterprise. Though I think free enterprise can work without special tax breaks
and subsidies, I'm not arrogant enough to be confident. Those oil reserves might
come in handy in case I'm wrong in my faith that a capitalist system can work
without the help of government.

Besides, that Arctic reservoir might come in handy if the "third world," which
owns most of the world's reserves, manages to get out from under the yoke of the
CIA and the oil companies, and decides to use its resources for the benefit of
the mass of its own people, rather than for the prosperity of Americans and the
enrichment of the kings and princes that we have installed to rule them.

Weary