Seeing Clearly to Chart a Course for America's Future

Posted by: David Lantz in MyBlog on May 19, 2011 Print PDF

Tagged in: Obama

David Lantz

Introduction

In a book titled Generations: The History of America’s Future, Published in 1991 by William Strauss and Neil Howe, the authors looked at 13 generations of Americans as they attempted to envision the sort of crisis their analysis of history predicted America would confront by the year 2020. Writing in 1991, however, Strauss and Howe did make this now prescient statement:
One rather safe prediction experts often make about elderly Boomers is that they will collide with underfunded federal pension and health-care systems, starting in the mid-2010s. … Boomers will force a dramatic turn in the politics of Social Security. In the 2010s, they will lay the terms of an entirely new intergenerational “deal,” snapping the chain of ever-rising benefits that G.I.s insisted would never end. Boom leaders will thoroughly recast – and probably rename – Social Security and Medicare. … Affluent Boomers will receive little economic recompense from a lifetime of payroll taxes paid to support others. Yet in a turnabout from the G.I. entitlement ethic, Boomers will derive self-esteem from knowing they are not receiving rewards from the community.
Borrowing a metaphor from a short story written by Nathanial Hawthorne in the early 1800s titled “The Gray Champion,” William Strauss and Neil Howe likened the Boomer generation to this mythical guardian of American liberties. The authors of Generations: The History of America’s Future did not envision just one Gray Champion, but rather a generation that produces many such leaders. They conclude their conversation about the prospect of such future Gray Champions (individuals who would arise out of the Baby Boom generation and whom, I believe, the Tea Party movement now embodies) this way:
Let us hope that the old Boomers will look within themselves and find something richer than apocalypse. If they see (and assert) themselves as beacons of civilization, younger Americans may well look up to them as G.I.s did to the great Missionary leaders: as elders wise beyond the comprehension of youth. If the Gray Champions among them can seize this historic opportunity, they can guide a unified national community through the gates of history to a better world beyond.
As a member of the Boomer generation, I see myself as one of these many such Gray Champions. And so, today, I wish to provide some insights to the would-be Republican Nominee for President of the United States who will seek my vote, as well as my active grassroots support.

 


2020 Vision: Seizing the New Kennedy Moment

          America faces today nearly certain financial collapse. It is not a collapse that is caused by our inability to solve our problems. Rather, it is caused by our unwillingness to galvanize the American People around an ideal larger than themselves which provides the hope they need to chart America’s way forward and, as the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has said, “Win the Future”.

          As Proverbs 29:18 states: Where there is no vision, the people perish.
          Hindsight, they say, is “always 20/20”. However, we can’t afford to wait until the year 2020 to look back and see, with hindsight, what we should have done. America needs a leader today who can look into the future with 2020 vision and say “This is how we’re going to not just take that hill, but how we’re going to go to the other side of that hill.”

Since 1974, lip service has been paid to a vision of energy independence. Ever since the Three Mile Island accident, the environmental lobby has pushed “green” technologies that include anything but fossil fuels. Today, serious investors realize that unless something qualifies for a federal or state tax break and has the phrase “green” woven into the proposal, it is not worth their time to invest. Green technology promoters, including former Vice President Al Gore, have so demonized oil and coal that any hope to achieve energy independence has been abolished.

          Until now.

          It is time to take seriously such a goal. America is looking for a presidential candidate who will boldly proclaim that America should harness its coal, oil and natural gas resources to promote such a 2020 vision, and not be sidetracked by the Cheshire cat promises of a solar/wind/ethanol subsidy cocktail that leaves us with empty wallets and a grain-alcohol hang over. Even John Stewart, in a 2010 satire about our failure to pursue a serious national energy policy, states: “Let’s just use oil. You know what? We have to!” (see this link to watch the video).


The Three Pillars of a 2020 Vision
For the would-be nominee of the Republican Party, a cogently articulated plan is needed to lay the foundation of a vision which galvanizes America to rise to the challenge of its current “man on the moon” moment. Make no mistake, EVERY Republican candidate will bow to the idol of “energy independence” just as the John Stewart video satire makes clear. They will all sing the chorus of “Drill, Baby, Drill!” But, the only candidate who can win in 2012 is the one who articulates a 2020 Vision built on three key pillars. These pillars are:

1. The need to create jobs related to energy exports.
2. The threat of global terrorism funded with petro-dollars.
3. The courage to strip away self-made impediments that prevent us from becoming energy self-sufficient.

1. The Need to Create Jobs Related to Energy Exports

In July, 2010, The Brookings Institute released a study done by the Hamilton Project titled: “June’s Employment Numbers Highlight America’s Increasingly Distressed Communities”. In their study, they cited a statistic they call “the jobs gap,” which they define as “the number of jobs it would take to return to employment levels from before the Great Recession, while also accounting for the 125,000 people who enter the labor force in a typical month.” [1] Based on their estimates, the jobs gap in 2010 stood at 11.3 million jobs. Estimating that if we create 208,000 jobs per month (which they indicate was the best we did during the years George W. Bush was in office), it would take a little over 11 years to close that gap. A graph depicting the time it would take to close the “jobs gap” can be viewed at http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2010/0702_jobs_greenstone/chart.aspx


If you focus on job creation for the months of February through April of 2011, we are averaging 217,000 jobs per month – not significantly different from the pace they say would take 11 years to get back to the employment levels we saw at the end of 2007.

America can’t wait 11 years. We need a plan, TODAY. What is President Obama’s plan? In a speech he gave in Williamsburg, Pennsylvania in February, 2009, the President said:

So then you get the argument, well, this is not a stimulus bill, this is a spending bill. What do you think a stimulus is? That’s the whole point.”[2]

Every economics instructor teaches his students about something called the multiplier effect. Different types of jobs have different types of multipliers or “trickle down” effects. Allow me to demonstrate how different types of jobs created different types of trickle down effects.

I know a family where the wife works as a chemist for Eli Lilly, the husband as a master carpenter, and the teenage son has worked in fast food restaurants flipping hamburgers. If one asks “which of these three has the greatest multiplier effect,” the answer is:

1. The chemist. If she, or one of her fellow chemists, creates a new drug, Eli Lilly will build a new building in which new employees will be hired to manufacture that new drug.
2. The carpenter. Along with other construction workers, he’ll be hired to build the building where the people will work to make the new drug invented by the chemist. If the drug doesn’t get invented, no new buildings are needed, and the carpenter doesn’t get hired to build a building for Eli Lilly.
3. The “hamburger flipper”. When the carpenter goes to work, he has to eat lunch. So will the new employees of the building where the new drug that Eli Lilly has built. To feed them, McDonalds may decide to build a new restaurant near by, and hire the son of the chemist and the carpenter.

A massive Man on the Moon effort to mine our own oil, coal and natural gas is a plan that would create the jobs we need. The stimulus effect of a job in these industries – called a “multiplier effect” by economists – leads to job multipliers ranging from 3 to 8, depending on the part of the country and type of fossil fuel being mined. That means that for every 1,000 jobs created in these industries, another 3,000 to 8,000 jobs are created in the rest of the economy. You don’t get that by just “spending money” on, say, unemployed people.

Even John F. Kennedy understood the multiplier effect. In a speech he gave on September 18, 1963, President Kennedy said:

The multiplied effect of these new private consumption and investment expenditures released by the tax cut will create a new market right here at home nearly equal to the gross national product of Canada and Australia combined.[3]

         We need a President with 2020 vision. We need a President who can seize the new Kennedy moment to set a vision for the end of the decade – to see clearly what we should do by 2020.
President Obama fails that test. We need to tell him that he is no John F. Kennedy.

2. The Threat of Global Terrorism Funded with Petro-Dollars.

          Not only should we focus on meeting our own energy needs. We should focus on mining, drilling and extracting enough energy resources so that we can also export fossil fuels to the rest of the world. Most Americans don’t know the US presently exports coal to China. In November, 2010, the New York Times reported the following:[4]

The United States now ships coal to China via Canada, but coal companies are scouting for new loading ports in Washington State. New mines are being planned for the Rockies and the Pacific Northwest. Indeed, some of the world’s more environmentally progressive regions are nascent epicenters of the new coal export trade, creating political tensions between business and environmental goals.

Now, if we can mine and export coal, why not oil, natural gas, and other commodities? Not only could we go a long way in reducing our balance of payments deficit, but we could undermine the source of funds available to fuel terrorism around the globe.

Thanks to the release of documents via the Wikileaks scandal, we know now that the Arabs have been funneling petro dollars to various terrorist groups around the world. In 2010, the OPEC nations earned over $600 billion from the rest of the world. Saudi Arabia accounted for 27% of OPEC’s oil revenues. Libya, Iran and Kuwait together accounted for 23% of OPEC revenues.[5]

For many of these Arab nations, oil is virtually their only export commodity. If the US can reduce their ability to earn money from selling oil to give to terrorist organizations, then we will have won a major battle in the war on terror.

But the threat of petrodollar financed terrorism isn’t the only reason to replace the Arabs as a source of oil. Beginning in Tunisia and Egypt, recent government upheavals in the Middle East have caused oil prices to rise substantially. Some experts, such as Niall Ferguson, are warning of oil prices hitting $200 per barrel. In such an environment, the United States cannot risk placing the fate of its economy in the hands of foreigners, especially the Arabs. One last point is to note that Saudi Arabia is increasing its ties to China. In such a dangerous, shifting international environment, America must not only strengthen its own energy resources, it must remember that all markets are contestable. China is contesting for the oil resources of the world, building relationships with oil producing nations and supplanting the US. We cannot afford to cede relationships built over decades without a fight.

President John F. Kennedy clearly understood this concept. In a televised speech on the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy said the following:

We no longer live in a world where only actual firing of weapons represents a sufficient challenge to a nation’s security to constitute maximum peril.[6]

While the threats have changed since the days of Kennedy, America’s resolve must not. We need a President who understands this basic concept. We need a President with 2020 Vision who can see clearly the way forward for how America should not only become energy self sufficient, but contest markets and reduce the flow of petrodollars going to Arab nations, which are in turn used to fund terrorist activities designed to kill Americans.


3. The Courage to Strip Away Self-made Impediments that Prevent us from Becoming Energy Self-Sufficient.

In 1974, President Nixon promised that we would become energy independent by 1980. His idea: Increased oil drilling and the development of new sources of energy, including safe nuclear power. In March of 1979, Three Mile Island experienced a shut down and partial melt down. From that point forward, dozens of nuclear power plants were shut down. The goal of energy independence changed to focus on solar, wind and biofuels.

President Jimmy Carter highlighted these alternative energy sources in his July, 1979 “Crisis of Confidence Speech” televised address to the nation. And, he ceded failure to achieve energy independence, stating: “I am tonight setting a clear goal for the energy policy of the United States. Beginning this moment, this Nation will never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977—never.” In 1979, US oil imports were just under 8 million barrels per day (MBD). In January of 2011, we imported 12 MBD.[7] Since Nixon, every American President has paid lip service to the idea of energy independence. Yet, as a monologue on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show makes clear, all Presidents since Carter have attempted to pin their hopes on everything BUT oil and nuclear energy.  But the reality is drastically different, as the following graph depicting trends in US oil production from 1945 to 2005 makes clear:


US Oil Production, 1970-2005


         Some say that we can’t do it, that traditional wells are running dry. Yet, new shale fields, such as the Bakken field in the Dakotas and the Marcellus Shale region of the Appalachian Basin, hold increasing promise. According to an article in the Anchorage Daily News, North Dakota could easily surpass California and Alaska in terms of oil production. Additionally, the article states:

North Dakota's oil patch now accounts for about 6 percent of total U.S. crude oil production. That's up from 1 percent less than three years ago. Federal and state estimates had pegged North Dakota's portion of the Bakken shale and underlying Three Forks-Sanish oil formations in western North Dakota at about 5 billion barrels of oil, using current horizontal drilling technology. Helms said that estimate has more than doubled based on drilling success and current production rates.[8]

It is time to make good on the promise of energy independence. We have not failed because we can’t achieve energy independence. We’ve failed because we’ve been unwilling to achieve energy independence. We have failed because, rather than firmly facing the problem, our leaders have blamed others for their lack of political will.

In his day, President Kennedy faced down those who refused to see clearly the solutions to our problems. Speaking at the California State Democratic Party Dinner in Los Angelos, CA on November 18, 1961, President Kennedy said:[9]

In most crucial periods of our nation’s history, there have always been those on the fringes of our society who have sought to escape their own responsibility by finding a simple solution and appealing slogan or a convenient scapegoat … But in time the basic good sense and stability of the great American consensus has always prevailed.

The American people know that we need to achieve energy independence. They need a President with 2020 vision who can reflect the “good sense and stability of the great American consensus” and seize the new Kennedy moment to set a vision for the end of the decade – to see clearly what we should do to finally make good on a 37 year old promise to become energy independent.

Without a Vision, the People Perish

Proverbs 29:18 says "Where there is no vision, the people perish."  America is hungry for a vision that makes sense. They want to see job growth to get us back to where we were – today - not 11 years from now. They want to see a halt to the slide of our nation into a second rate paper tiger. They want a restoration of hope and change they CAN believe in, not a bait and switch gimmick that took their change and stuck them with an IOU to the world.

          America needs a President who says we can solve our problems, and here’s how, instead of a President who says we can’t solve our problems, and here’s why not.

America needs a President with 2020 Vision.
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David Lantz lobbied in the electric utility industry from 1984 to 1987 in Indiana. From 1992 to 1995, David served as the State Director of the Indiana Christian Coalition. I teach economics and statistics for several colleges in Indiana. In addition to his website, www.wisejargon.com you can also learn about David's books, available for the Kindle, at http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00464TFTS
[2] York, Byron. Obama: If It’s Spending, It’s Stimulus. Accessed 5/7 at http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/176877/obama-if-its-spending-its-stimulus/byron-york
[3] Lantz, David: Bill Clinton, You’re No John F. Kennedy. P. 40. Quote from Kennedy’s speech “Prosperity Insurance: Importance of Tax Reduction Now.”
[4] Rosenthal, Elisabeth. Nations that Debate Coal Use Export it to Feed China’s Need, New York Times, November 21, 2010. Accessed 4/24/11 at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/22/science/earth/22fossil.html
[6] Lantz, David: Bill Clinton, You’re No John F. Kennedy. P. 78. Quote from Kennedy’s televised address to the nation October 22, 1962.
[7] Everett, Bruce. “Obama’s New Year Resolution”, 4/1/2011. Accessed 4/24/2011 at http://bmeverett.wordpress.com/2011/04/01/obama’s-new-year’s-resolution/

[8] MacPherson, James. “North Dakota oil production forecast to surpass Alaska's”, Associated Press, January 3, 2011. Accessed 4/24/2011 at http://www.adn.com/2011/01/02/1629025/north-dakota-oil-production-is.html

[9] Lantz, David: Bill Clinton, You’re No John F. Kennedy. P. 18.
Comments (3)Add Comment
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written by Roger Tomey, June 01, 2011
Mr. Lantz,
Your comments on America's current energy/political situation are excellent. My generation (the baby boomers) has watched our political leaders, for decades, succumb to self-interest and weak character. Our so called leaders have little to no desire to stand for principles at the cost of their poltical careers. You are dead on with the need for leaders who have 20/20 vision and a deep passion for this country. However, our representative republic requires citizens to be able to think critically and responsibly. This is why it is so important for us to have a well educated population which has a thorough knowledge of America's foundation.
I truly hope we do have the Gray Champions filling the void and bringing back hope to our nation. Mr. Lantz, I hope more of our fellow citizens will take your comments to heart, step up and make their voices heard.

Roger Tomey
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written by Jim Baughman, June 04, 2011
When the Alaskan North Slope oil field was first developed, it was thought that we would sell some of this oil to both China and Alaska. I think that must have been (no pun intended)a pipe dream.

Reducing our dependence on foreign oil and examining the number of jobs created to make this work can be analyzed by looking tinto the electric car industry. While the auto makers strive to produce hybrid and/or total electric cars, a new industry to research battery technology as well as a exploring for a viable disposal method for used batteries. Wouldn't it be great if the batteries coudl be re-cycled???

Americans have become too complacent and willing to be told what to do, rather than just looking for needs and filling them.
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written by Rick Link, June 05, 2011
Mr Lantz,
Your comments on energy and our current political situation are strong and encouraging. I would like to add that not only must we quit "kicking the energy policy can down the road" but also the Social Security, Medicare, Tax Reform, Deficit, and BIG government cans. Our current political class(both parties) avoid solving problems to protect their political careers and positions. These "leaders" with elitist attitudes must be removed by freedom loving patriots with hearts for God and Country and Liberty and the desire to protect the liberties of our children and grandchildren. Only realistic, common sense solutions, will remove our dependence on foreign oil and the strangle hold on our economy and future. Thank you Rick Link

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