(5/11/2005) The California energy crisis is a perfect example of a Republican idea, electricity deregulation, carried out to it's full potential. They tell you deregulation will cut your bills by 20% and next thing you know your cost have skyrocketed 200%. And when the cries of foul play begin to be heard so does the finger pointing. They did it with the Saving & Loan deregulation of the 1980's, they did it with the Medicare prescription drug legislation, and they did it with energy company deregulation. The consumers and taxpayers always get hit with the bill for these GOP enabled corporate get rich quick scams.

In the case of the California energy crisis it was a George W. Bush scandal from start to finish. Here is what happened. President Clinton issued an executive order to block energy companies from manipulating energy prices in California's newly deregulated energy market, but as soon as Bush got into office he reversed that executive order and Enron, Reliant, TXU, Duke, Williams, Mirant, and Dynegy went to work.

 

These few companies appear to have colluded and conspired to manipulate the price of energy so they could price gouge the citizens of California for billions of dollars. The finally tally was actually around $8 billion dollars with a projected cost of over $71 billion dollars, and the governor of California's job. They did it by shutting down power plants, diverting power out of the state and then back in, and congesting power lines all timed to cause massive power shortages and drive up the price of electricity. They even had funny little name for their scams, like "Fat Boy" and "Death Star".

Bush's scam worked like a dream and from 12/99 to 12/00 demand for electricity in California dropped 16%, but the price increased 1483%, and so did the profits of the energy companies. When Governor Davis ask President Bush to stop this price gouging activity Bush said, sorry but it's California's own fault and the consumers will just have to pay. This crisis also resulted in Governor Davis being recalled.

The huge blackout in NYC in 2002 was also traced to the dim bulb in the White House. Yep, deregulation allowed Niagara Mohawk to raise prices, cut personnel, cut maintenance, and increase profits and the next thing you know, out go the lights. Bush's responded to this crisis by calling for more deregulation of power companies.

Bush has shown himself to be a puppet and a whore for the big energy companies. His relationship with Ken Lay and Enron is a prime example of this two-faced dealings with special interest in the energy industry. And we have seen the same corporate greed and political cronyism behavior with Cheney and Halliburton.

We have two oil men from Texas running our government and they act just like two oil men from Texas. Gas prices are way up and so are the oil company's profits.

Bush raised and spend nearly $250 million for his 2004 campaign, a record. Now, it is fairly obvious that there has been some big reciprocating paybacks to the HMOs, drug companies, military supplies, and oil companies. We all know who's pockets that money came from, like the wealthy big corporate interest that Bush is so friendly with. And we also know who will end up paying for it, like the consumers and middle class taxpayers who always get stuck paying for the Republican's acts of compassion and conservatism.

Don't let Bush and his gang of con-artist fool you again because next time you may not be in a position to do anything about it.