One of the most famous features of France’s renowned Palace of
Versailles is the Hall of Mirrors whose construction began in 1678
during the reign of King Louis XIV. The hall has seventeen ornate
arches of twenty-one mirrors each; 357 mirrors in all. I think it
would be good if we had something of similar design installed in
our legislative and executive buildings in Washington.
One of the most famous features of France’s renowned Palace of Versailles is the Hall of Mirrors whose construction began in 1678 during the reign of King Louis XIV. The hall has seventeen ornate arches of twenty-one mirrors each; 357 mirrors in all. I think it would be good if we had something of similar design installed in our legislative and executive buildings in Washington.
The design of our mirrored halls do not need to be as elaborate as the original, but a fundamental requirement must be met; coming or going everyone should be able to use the mirrors to get a really good look at themselves. Perhaps we should call it the Hall of Reflections because that would be its purpose – to give us all a chance to reflect prior to hunting for the perfect scapegoat.
On 21 May, a task force from the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing to investigate prices and profits of the oil industry, especially the cost of gasoline. They grilled top executives from five oil companies. Then, deciding that they had found the perfect scapegoats, Congress went back to concentrating on the upcoming general election. They were still celebrating the made-for-TV beating they had given these moguls when the price of benchmark crude oil hit a new high – again.
Obviously, taxes also add to the price of gasoline. There is an 18.4 cent/gallon federal excise tax and 18 cent/gallon California excise tax. Sales taxes vary depending on the city and county, but it’s roughly 8 percent average, which adds another 25 cents/gallon, totaled that’s about 61 cents/gallon. At $3.85 a gallon, taxes equal 18.8-percent of the cost of gasoline. The government is angry because the high cost of oil is making it difficult to raise gasoline taxes, which is what they want to do.
This October will mark the 35th anniversary of the 1973 oil embargo by the Arab members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries – OPEC. A newly licensed seventeen-year-old driver waiting in line for gas then is most likely a 52-year-old grandparent now. During that entire period, the United States has not had an energy policy designed to end our reliance on our 60 percent of imported oil. The key members of OPEC issued a challenge and we have been ignoring it, hoping it would just go away.
We have had six Republican and three Democratic administrations since, and all they have done is fiddle around the edges. Unless there are changes, the next administration will do no better, none of the candidates has laid out the serious goals, policy outlines and funding that is necessary to accomplish this vital task likely to take 50-years to complete. To fill in the political picture, the 110th Congress in now in session, the 93rd Congress was in session during the 1973 embargo. In the interim, both the Democrats and the Republicans were in control of the Senate and/or the House multiple times; the results have been the same.
This is a general election year and we have had pandering by everyone. Clinton and McCain want to suspend the gas tax, Obama is against that, but he wants to raise taxes on the oil companies instead and the Congress wants to sue OPEC and that’s good enough for the American people. However, none of that will solve the problem, it’s just public relations. Until we cut away our chains of energy dependence will be slaves to the royal family of Saudi Arabia and megalomaniacs the likes of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez. Do you want your grandchildren to spend their lives with one eye on the price of gasoline every day as so many people do now?
Neither wind nor solar energy will save us in the near future. They are both very heavily subsidized and still produce only a minute percentage of the nation’s energy requirements, but we’ll keep plugging away, every little bit helps. We should be doing everything within our national power to conserve, increase domestic production of oil, build nuclear power plants and develop alternate fuels – especially clean coal.
Alternately, we can just keep looking for the perfect scapegoat and everybody is a candidate except the person in the mirror.
