Letter: Forward thinking in short supply

Saturday, May 13, 2006 | 7:09 a.m.

The crisis of the week, maybe even for the entire month, is the price of gasoline at the pump. So what's new? Didn't we get a shot across our bow, or hood, last year?

For those who can still remember, we had a similar but more severe gasoline shortage problem in the 1970s during the Carter administration. At that time, the administration passed laws mandating national energy conservation standards, including having every natural gas and electric utility provide homeowners with low-cost home energy audits. Their purpose was to inform homeowners as to what were the most cost-effective measures they could take to reduce energy consumption and to save money.

Soon after, the Reagan administration took office and the federal funding for this farsighted initiative was killed, and consequently nothing was done.

It is part of American lore that nothing happens in America until there is a crisis. I guess this newly subscribed to but patently misguided belief is why we now find ourselves reeling from one potential crisis to another.

Why plan when you can wait and react? Is this why we elect representatives to Congress and the White House? We hope that they can react in a timely fashion? I hope not. It's their job, for the good of the country, to be forward thinkers.

Apparently we have swapped any remaining forward thinkers in our representative government for crisis tinkerers. This is certainly a sad state of affairs. If voters continually re-elect incumbents based upon a belief that they will continue to bring home more pork, then these same voters will eventually be turned into bacon. Right now their bacon is being cooked on a gas(oline)-fired stove.

Richard Rychtarik, Las Vegas