I agree, but I have in my mind a plan to get started. Energy is one of our main problems and concern, imported oil, clean energy, etc. Once we have a clean abundant source of various kinds of energy, prices will stabilise and people will have jobs.
1) Open up all American sources for drilling, and fast track the Alaska-Canadian natural gas pipeline via the Alaska Highway to the lower 48.
2) Get government to streamline the process for building nuclear power plants using navy guidelines. The Navy has super safe nuclear ships and subs with very few problems. Build enough to shut down coal plants.
3) Convert government vehicle fleets, including states, counties, and city vehicles to natural gas, give incentives to other fleets to convert like UPS, FedEx, etc. (25% of vehicles in US are in fleets). This would cut 40% of total imported oil.
4) Remove government regs concerning diesel or improve them to allow more diesel cars and pickups. You can get 7 more gallons of diesel out of a barrel of oil than you can gasoline. Thereby cutting imports by another 20% or so. 85% of Germany's cars are diesel for that reason so they don't import as much oil.
5) Put more effort into wind, solar, and tide energy where it is abundant like the plain states, the southwest, and coastal areas.
6) Encourage building synthetic fuel refineries making gasoline and diesel from coal replacing oil and keeping the coal industry alive with the shut down of coal power plants using nuclear, solar, wind, and tide energy.
7) Encourage more use of fuel made from algae oil to replace the depleting oil supply because it is being depleted. Most new sources are in Alaska and offshore, but some is in shale formations out west which is harder to extract. Algae will keep the oil industry going.
These ideas will get all our energy produced at home, not having to buy from potential terroist supporting suppliers. It will create good paying energy jobs at home. It will also cut down on carbon emmissions from coal plants and burning less fuel with diesel and natural gas.
In order to help bring industry back home, you can easily require all Federal products purchased must be manufactured in the USA. You can also stipulate that all states, cities, and counties receiving government aid be required also to buy only American made products. This would help bring back at least some textile industry for uniforms, etc. Also, shoes, for boots and shoes for military and government workers. It would require that all vehicles purchased by government be at least 75% manufactured in the US if not more. Textiles and shoes require less skilled labor so a lot of people with minimum education can get decent jobs without being on the dole.
With all these people getting good jobs in the energy business and manufacturing being brought back home, that would help take care of a lot of the health care, because these industries will offer health insurance at work.
This would help stop or slow the trade deficit, get more taxes into the government coffers to balance the budgets, and solve the health care problem with less government interference.
Trade rules, regulations, and restrictions must be streamlined to do this.
Go back to the pre-1998 regulations for banks so as not to allow the financial problems that happened recently. No more ARM's, no more home loans without down payments and a job to pay for the mortgages.
Also, build the fence on the southern border, and make all ILLEGALS return home to enter legally. I'm not against legal immigration so we at least have time to screen out the criminals, potential terroists, and diseased people from entering the country.
