Debates; the more things change....

the more they stay the same. I don't know how many people clicked on the link from the Wall Street Journal's "Best of the Web" regarding the debate between Ronald Reagan and John Anderson but I found it interesting reading.

Regarding energy policy Anderson states (remember that this debate was held in September of 1980) that

"....here are at least five reputable studies, one even by the American Petroleum Institute itself, that, I think, clearly indicate that somewhere along around the end of the present decade, total world demand for oil is simply going to exceed total available supplies."

Sound familiar?

Previously in the debate the Great One had said,

"We have nuclear power, which, I believe, with the safest. the most stringent of safety requirements, could meet our energy needs for the next couple of decades while we go forward exploring the areas of solar power and other forms of energy that might be renewable and that would not be exhaustible. All of these things can be done."

as well as

"When you stop and think that we are only drilling on 2%. have leased only 2% of the possible. possibility for oil of the continental shelf around the United States; when you stop to think that the government has taken over 100 million acres of land out of circulation in Alaska, alone, that is believed by geologists to contain much in the line of minerals and energy sources,..."

Nearly 30 years later our nuclear power plants are still being stiffled. The other forms of renewable energy have had that time to be developed and mature and yet they are stillborn. If a technology is economically feasible then it is profitable and it doesn't need government subsidies.

Read the whole thing; http://debates.org/pages/trans80a.html. It's a great insight into the past.

I have one quote of Mr. Reagan's that I can't help but include even though it doesn't bear on anything else. Just because it is so delightful and so telling. Responding to one of Anderson's points Mr. Reagan says,

"Well, some people look up figures, and some people make up figures. And John has just made up some very interesting figures."

Brought a smile to my face.