True North

According to this article on WCCO's website, Hamline professor David Schultz thinks that Sen. Coleman and Al Franken are posturing for the voters on the issue of high gas prices. Here's what Schultz said:

Professor David Schulz of Hamline University said both candidates are posturing.

"Can either of these candidates do anything in the next few weeks? No, absolutely nothing. They're not going to have any impact on gas prices. A lot of this is about symbolic politics. What would I do if I were king, or something like that," he said.

However, Schulz said both the candidates do clearly have different views on this issue.

And while much of the campaign so far has focused on matters, like Franken's past writings, tax problems and just this week Coleman's living arrangements in Washington D.C., Schulz said this debate on energy policy could mark the start of the real campaign, one where issues and substance make up the headlines.

I respectfully disagree with Schultz's characterization. The difference between Franken and Coleman is that Franken is pushing a tax increase while Sen. Coleman has proposed a solution. That isn't posturing. Let's examine Franken's solution first.

Franken said that he supports a windfall profits tax, with the money being "invested in renewable energy sources." The economy is fragile as it is but Franken is proposing a tax increase on the oil companies. This raises their production costs. It also passes that production cost onto consumers.

This is nothing more than populism dressed up as a solution. It's what I'd call an anti-solution. It doesn't solve anything; it just makes things worse.

Now let's look at Sen. Coleman's proposal. Sen. Coleman introduced a bill that would increase oil production by opening up more leases on the OCS. It also would allow for the building of nuclear power plants.

During the blogger conference call of a week ago, Rep. John Peterson said that it wouldn't take nearly as long as Democrats are telling people to get production going. He said that there are some rigs off California's coast that were placed offlimits that could be fitted with new technology that could start producing oil "within months." Rep. Peterson also said that exploration that's done near existing oil fields would come online faster because it wouldn't take long to connect with existing infrastructure.

The other great thing about tapping into the OCS is that there's huge amounts of natural gas out there. That's what I'd call a solution. I definitely wouldn't call that posturing.

WCCO does its watchers a disservice by treating an anti-solution with the same merit as a solution. Perhaps that's why the people are voting with their fingers to opt for the New Media's appraisals instead of the analysis of the WCCO's and Stribs.

Rest assured that I will be pointing out the differences between Franken's gimmicks and Sen. Coleman's solutions.

Comments welcome at LFR.