We all want efficient energy and prefer not to have the pollution, and it hardly matters if you side with the Global Warming Alarmist or the now Labeled Climate Denialists. Still, one has to ask if this concept of taxing coal, gasoline, diesel and other fossil fuel carbon emitters and then use that money to fund and promote alternative energy really makes sense. You see, if you tax one type of business over another, you are killing efficiency on one hand and promoting inefficiency on another.

Alternative energy ought to be able to stand on its own without subsidies. Funding research is wise, obviously that is a good idea and excellent investment in the future, but if we fund alternative energy whey not also fund research to make fossil fuel more efficient and cleaner to use. Either way you get the same result – less CO2 and cleaner air.

It seems whenever the government gets behind something with its full force of onerous regulations, taxation, funding, and/or subsidies things begin to become very inefficient extremely quickly. History shows us that and there is really no need for me or anyone else to cite the 1000s of examples of this such as healthcare.

The point is that if we artificially keep gasoline and energy costs high so that alternative energies can be created to compete, then they will never be efficient and thus, they'll never compete. In the end all we will have done is raised prices to all, and lowered our standards of living having less spending money for the things we enjoy in life.

Now, on the other hand if we only fund research and make alternative energy compete then one day it just might and then we have a natural free-market energy evolution that lowers prices and raises our quality of life, think on this.

By Lance Winslow