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Cheney: No bailouts, no tax hikes…more oil

The vice president wields considerable power on economic policy. In a Fortune exclusive, the free-market fan weighs in on the credit crisis and his biggest fear. more

• Cheney’s brain trust

• Dick Cheney does the economy

Vice President Dick Cheney wields considerable power on economic policy. In a Fortune exclusive, the free-market fan weighs in on the credit crisis and his biggest fear.

WASHINGTON (Fortune) — President Bush’s economic legacy is emerging as a central debate point in the 2008 presidential campaign. But it’s important to remember that this is also Dick Cheney’s legacy - the fact is, the Vice President plays a surprisingly major role in shaping the administration’s economic policy.

In the coming months, as the administration struggles with the threat of recession brought on in part by the subprime credit crisis, White House insiders say the staunchly free-market Vice President can be expected to resist any impulse to soften the blow with government action.

“The fact is, the markets work, and they are working,” said Cheney in an interview in his White House office. “And people - some of the big companies obviously - have taken risks. Risk means risk. And there’s an upside as well as a downside in some of the choices they’ve made. We have to be careful not to have this set of developments lead us to significantly expand the role of government in ways that may do damage long-term for the economy.”

Those words carry weight on Pennsylvania Avenue. Inside the White House the Vice President’s role is both formal and informal.

“I sit in on virtually all the economic policy sessions,” Cheney says, including the regular Wednesday luncheon of economic principals. And he stands out as the one economic policy advisor with routine private access to Bush.

As he did with intelligence matters, Cheney has built his own independent network of information gathering, relying on an outside brain trust of economists.

Cheney opposes any rollback. “This is identical to a big tax increase,” Cheney argues. “And it will slow down the economy. We already have a tax system that is very, very progressive. The top 1% [of earners] pay 36% of all the income taxes in the country.”

So what is Cheney worried about? Oil. Specifically, the prospect of sabotage aimed at disrupting the oil market.

“Clearly the world depends on a global supply of oil, and that will continue to be true for some considerable period of time. Efforts to shut down the flow of oil could conceivably have a significant impact.”

Cheney has done more than worry about it. When President Bush’s 2008 budget was coming together, with the goal of balancing the budget in five years, Cheney nevertheless insisted on a $947 million line item: a speedup of the flow of crude into the Texas and Louisiana salt caverns housing the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Cheney’s agenda will linger long after the Presidential election. It will take a puzzle master to gather all the pieces required to revise his oil based economy into a sustainable energy economy. Weaning away from oil should have begun long ago. Obstructions to alternative energy imposed by the government, have caused the US to fall far behind those forward looking countries already using creative energy alternatives. Energy innovations are blocked from import into the US. Home grown energy alternatives remain in the prototype stage, only affordable to the wealthy. Lip service rhetoric addressing alternative energy is not enough. Affordable, personal use, energy systems are only available overseas. Wasting time is not an option any more!

Research and development are happening right now. US inventors must look to other countries for implementation of their ideas. Energy saving transportation is in Europe and the Far East. The US is not even serious about mass transit outside of ‘some’ big cities. The next administration will have to hit the ground running. Social issues and energy issues are tied at the hip. If people cannot afford to travel to work, or school, or market, or doctors, are we expected to perish in place? That won’t happen. The under ground economy will open even wider to accept the rest of us. The ‘conventional’ way of travel and survival will change dramatically. The dissolution of this culture has already begun. No longer able to afford recreational drugs, the under ground economy will smuggle energy. Is there an ‘alternative energy mafia’ in our future? Maybe they will go to war with the oil mafia. Maybe we had all get used to riding horses again.

BossKitty is still waiting for the solar powered electric car.

Posted by bosskitty November 26th, 2007 | Category: Cheney, Clean Energy, Corporate Corruption, Deception, Environment, Favored Firms, Mafia, Oil, Tax Dollars, alternative energy, arrogance, brain trust, budget, climate change, consequences, consumers, critical resources, economics, economy, energy, extortion, infrastructure, markets, recession, risk, taxpayers | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL