This week saw George Bush give his State of the Union speech. In it he mispronounced "nuclear" at least four times, and said that by 2030, nearly 60% of the federal budget will be eaten up by "entitlements" such as Social Security and Medicare. Calling for fiscal responsibility, he said that something has to be done about this problem.

Does anyone recall the $800+ billion (in just ten years) liability he pushed through Congress two years ago, otherwise known as the Prescription Drug Benefit, or "Medicare part D"? Does anyone recall how his Congressmen and Senators voted on this patently unconstitutional program? Interesting questions to consider as one listens to the President.

Mr. Bush also told us that "America is addicted to oil." He wants a 22% increase in federal spending on what he calls the "Advanced Energy Initiative", a program intended to increase "clean energy" development. Mr. Bush wants to "make dependence on foreign oil a thing of the past."

One must note the political economics of this statement. Under the market paradigm, the "dependence" America has on foreign oil would decrease as the price of the product increased. Once the price of oil, which is still the cheapest way to produce moveable power, rises to a level where it makes alternatives attractive to investors and consumers, those investors and consumers will choose the alternatives. Even oil producers, those who are savvy, will look at these alternatives and see if it is in their economic best interest to begin supplying them in greater quantities. Thus, through the process of consumers and business people attempting to serve their self-interests, the market will naturally shift to the most efficient use of capital. Mr. Bush's attempt to jumpstart this process redirects the flow of useable capital to areas which are currently less efficient, and thus retards the growth of the economy.

As an extreme example, one could say that if Mr. Bush wanted to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil, he could (though it would be unconstitutional) outlaw the internal combustion engine, and force Americans to use horses and rickshaws. One can see that this is absurd, and can recognize how it would harm the economy. But why would it harm the economy? The answer is that through the market, our society has been able to develop beyond those slower modes of transportation. It uses more efficient methods, and allows for more efficient uses of our time and resources. We get more for our effort thanks to cars and other motorized transportation, and eliminating them would force us to work much, much harder to get the things we get when using the fruits of economic progress over the decades since the internal combustion engine was created.

Attempting to direct tax money into what politicians see as the "future", in a manner completely disconnected from the feedback of consumers and investors, is akin to making this choice of going back to the horse and buggy. By taking people's tax money to pay for more investment in nuclear, coal, hydrogen, etc., without the give and take of market profit and loss, we retard the growth of the economy in favor of utopian ideas, and are forced to turn away from our own choices for our capital. These are choices which have served to give us a developing economy and greater productivity, to work less and get more. There is nothing wrong with lifting the federal regulations on coal plants and nuclear technology, in fact, such action should be encouraged, but using the government to select these means of garnering energy would be like choosing to invest tax money into keeping the horse and buggy on the road in 1900.

While the hay-growers might like it, most of us would not. Similary, while the universities and auto manufacturers receiving federal grants for these energy programs might speak out in favor of them, we should never forget the multitudinous people not mentioned in their press releases and the news articles about their utopian energy programs. These people are taxpayers like you, who will never have a choice to decide how their money will be spent. Apparently, Mr. Bush knows better than you do how to spend your money.