Our View - Wednesday

The miracle worker

Ritter takes his show on the road

Gov. Bill Ritter will be in Washington, D.C. this week, “promoting the economic, environmental and national security benefits of Colorado’s New Energy Economy and discussing his leadership around renewable energy issues,” according to a press release issued by his office.

What chutzpah!

Do we really have a New Energy Economy in Colorado? Is our state’s environment measurably better off, and are we really seeing “national security benefits,” as a result? We hadn’t noticed. And is Ritter, after less than a year on the job, really responsible for these alleged accomplishments? We think he’s been reading too many of his own press releases.

Last time we looked, the coal trains keep running through Colorado Springs each day, keeping our lights burning. Natural gas, not windmills, keeps our furnaces and ovens lit. Use of renewable energy may have notched up a bit, in response to consumer demand for “green” power and initial implementation of Amendment 36 mandates. A few wind farms have expanded or opened (the result of same). Ground has been broken on a biofuel facility or two, thanks largely to federal subsidies and government manipulation of energy markets. And a smattering of E-85 pumps have been installed — thanks to thousands of dollars in “incentives” paid to station owners, courtesy, again, of federal taxpayers.

Big deal. It’s fraud to call this a “New Energy Economy.” And it’s arrogant of Ritter to take credit for most of this, since one can see many of the same activities going on in many other states, for many of the same reasons. Many of these trends and changes were under way before he took office.

Perhaps the governor should wait awhile before touting as a success something that’s many years away from becoming a reality, if it ever does. But such empty bravado pervades the energy policy debate. You know the routine: Hand down a lot of ambitious mandates, whose costs and economic consequences are ill-understood; toss taxpayer money at not-ready-forprimetime technologies; and claim success, even though validation of these approaches and interventions is decades away.

The fact is, Colorado’s “new energy economy” — its Actual Energy Economy — is today much more closely tied to the development of conventional energy resources (gas, oil, coal, oil shale). What’s keeping the state’s economy going, tax and royalty revenues rising and energy prices reasonable is this activity — not the pie-in-the-sky promises of panacea pushers. The role “renewables” play is negligible. The “New Energy Economy” is a politically generated illusion.

And this is the way it will be for years to come, unless Ritter and Statehouse Democrats succeed in ruining Colorado’s Actual Energy Economy by rolling up the welcome mat on the jobs and revenues it generates. He may have blind faith in pie-inthe-sky, but we’ll place our trust in the tried-and-true, at least until we see stronger evidence of the former panning out.

Ritter’s been on the job less than a year, yet claims to have completely revamped Colorado’s economy. Next thing you know, he’ll be wanting to share credit with Al Gore for inventing the Internet. He calls himself a “leader” on the issue, when all he’s done is jump aboard an already overloaded bandwagon.

That’s not “leadership.” It’s lemmingship.

HillaryCare still a poison prescription

HillaryCare is back, with a promise to make health care more affordable and more accessible, with more choices for everyone. But if Sen. Hillary Clinton’s $110 billion-ayear health program ever becomes law, health care will be substantially more expensive, health insurance will be much less available and Americans will have fewer choices.

Candidate Clinton would require every person to pay for health insurance, or receive it at someone else’s expense. She would require employers to provide insurance, or pay into a fund. She would require insurers to sell coverage at the same price, whether buyers are in perfect health or at death’s door. She would subsidize some insurance premiums with tax credits. And she would dramatically expand government-provided health care into the middle class, offering “a public plan option similar to Medicare.”

Clinton’s solutions would worsen everything she claims to fix. Requiring individuals to purchase health insurance would require a massive government bureaucracy to enforce compliance. Even then it’s certain to fall short of its goal. Requiring employers to provide health insurance or pay higher taxes would increase business costs, resulting in high consumer prices, fewer workers hired and more laid off. Businesses with fewer than 10 employees, exempt under Clinton’s plan, would be discouraged from expanding payrolls.

Requiring insurers to sell coverage at one price, irrespective of health risks, would mean premiums would soar to cover actuarial risks posed by those in bad health. Such a mandate would impose on private insurers an obligation to cover the gravely ill by overcharging the relatively well. It’s also likely to drive providers out of the market, and the void would be filled by government plans. Perhaps that’s her motive.

Clinton’s proposed expansion of the federal State Children’s Health Insurance Program to include middle-class families is another step closer to socialized medicine. Private clients would migrate to government-funded coverage. What family would pay private premiums, bound to increase thanks to Clinton’s mandate on insurers, when a “free” government program is available, at someone else’s expense?

Clinton nixed a few of Hillarycare’s most extreme elements to make the new iteration more politically palatable. But it’s still a prescription for socialized medicine, which we think most Americans will spit out.