President Bush's Statement
It is not very often that you will hear a politician, even a Republican, say something like this. At a press conference today (7/15/08) President Bush was asked about conservation. Some pencil-neck reporter asked whether he would encourage/mandate conservation. Bush's response was priceless (from Politico.com):
"They're smart enough to figure out whether they're going to drive less or not. I mean, you know, it's interesting what the price of gasoline has done," Bush said at a news conference in the White House press room, "is it caused people to drive less. That's why they want smaller cars: They want to conserve. But the consumer's plenty bright. The marketplace works."
"You noticed my statement yesterday, I talked about good conservation and — you know, people can figure out whether they need to drive more or less," he said. "They can balance their own checkbooks."
"It's a little presumptuous on my part to dictate how consumers live their own lives," the president added. "I've got faith in the American people."
It is refreshing for a politician express faith in the American people. Most politicians (including many Republicans) think that the government has to take care of us because we are too cotton-picking stupid to take care of ourselves or make decisions on our own. Thank you, President Bush, for expressing faith in "We the People."
2 comments:
Would you consider the decision to support Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to be a decision which will, in effect, dictate how consumers live their lives?
With the ensuing inflation, consumers will have to cut back mightily. Will we then be admired for our wisdom?
Will we care a rip by then?
All the questions now are tough questions.
The problem in the American psyche is that we expect to constantly earn more and more money, while expecting prices to remain the same or decrease. Of course we will have to make adjustments. My family has had to make cutbacks, most notably in dining out and frivolous driving.
I am not in support of government bailing out private industry. Essentially, we have taken the risk out of living if we do that. Americans have been resilient in the past. We survived the Great Depression. We survived the recession of the late 1970s.
The problem is that the American Left sees the average American as stupid and incapable of making wise decisions about their lives without the ever-present hand of almighty government leading the way.
More government is not the solution.
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