(ThyBlackMan.com) Victory has a hundred fathers.
President Trump’s economic victory has at least four: tax reform, trade reform, regulatory reform and energy reform.
The whole is greater than the sum of the parts, working together synergistically to boost domestic investment, wages and job growth.
And while energy reform comes last in that list, its importance should not be underestimated.
Consider that modern industrial society depends on energy – readily available at an affordable price.
Readily available hydropower built America in its earliest days. Falling water drove the wheels that ground the grain the first settlers farmed.
In “Report on Manufactures” commissioned by George Washington, Alexander Hamilton saw the Great Falls of the Passaic River powering the infant industries of our agrarian nation. Indeed, they made Paterson, New Jersey, into Silk City, and falling water drove the textile mills that grew up along the rivers of New England and New York.
By the turn of the 20th century, electricity from Niagara Falls had made the region an industrial powerhouse, turning out steel, furniture and chemicals in such prodigious amounts Buffalo was said to have more millionaires per capita than any city in America. To this day, Niagara hydropower is the cheapest electricity on the planet.
The energy of fossil fuels and thermal electricity decentralized American society, untethering industry, agriculture and the people who depend on them from rivers that had previously been the sole providers of power and transportation.
It is in this historical context that we understand the importance of the Trump energy revolution.
We are producing more natural gas, a clean burning fuel that has enabled the U.S. to reduce greenhouse gas emission even as our economy has grown.
The Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico is now one of the world’s greatest oil fields, helping make the United States the world’s top producer of petroleum and natural gas.
Responsible regulatory reform enables pipelines and ports to deliver that energy to homes, offices and businesses across the U.S. and around the world.
Energy production and transportation has created thousands of better-paying jobs for Americans. Those who were earning $30,000 a year in the service sector are now earning double, triple that, enough to support families, buy homes and plan for the future.
The impact of the president’s energy reforms has rippled across the economy to sectors far beyond the oil patch.
Hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs have been added. America’s energy boom means lower energy costs for our manufacturers, giving us an advantage over foreign competitors. And energy exports lower our trade deficit.
By streamlining well-intentioned but counterproductive mandates from Washington, the president has pulled off the hat trick: saving small independent refiners that produce much-needed fuels, preserving the jobs of refinery workers and in the construction trades and preserving the biofuels program that provides a market for corn farmers.
It is in this historical and contemporary context that we can understand the Trump energy reform’s antithesis: the Democrats’ Green New Deal.
The 2020 Democratic presidential candidates have sworn a loyalty oath to the extreme green machine. Even the king of the so-called moderates, front-runner-of-the-moment Joe Biden, says he will eliminate all fossil fuels.
“Leave it in the ground” was once the battle cry of only the most radical environmental fundamentalists, like the Unabomber; now it’s an article of faith of the Democratic Party.
At least the lunatic fringe was honest about its desire to return to a pre-industrial era even if it meant certain death for millions if not billions of humans.
Today’s liberal politicians policies are not as forthcoming about the inevitable results of the radical policies they embrace with religious fervor.
The energy renaissance of President Trump has boosted the fortunes of millions of Americans.
Democrats would return us to the Dark Ages.
Written by Curtis Ellis
Official website; http://twitter.com/curtiswellis
