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The Week
National Review, Feb 24, 2003
-- Whatever else the Republican sweep in November represented, it was, alas, no mandate for smaller government. The president's new budget reflects that fact. Under the Bush plan, federal spending will increase at more than twice the rate of inflation next year. That's not because of wartime demands on the budget: Education spending is getting a larger percentage boost than defense. Reducing the size and scope of the federal government must remain a central goal of conservatives, even if it looks like a depressingly far-off one.
n Bush's State of the Union speech included a commitment to spend $1.2 billion on research into the development of automobiles fueled by hydrogen gas. "A simple chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen generates energy, which can be used to power a car producing only water, not exhaust fumes," stated Bush. Quite true. Put hydrogen together with oxygen and you get water plus an output of energy. But wait: Where is the hydrogen to come from? There is essentially none of it in raw form closer to us than the surface of the sun, where it is unfortunately at several thousand degrees Fahrenheit. You could, of course, extract hydrogen from water by electrolysis; but that (just run the previous formula backwards) requires an input of energy-energy that would have to come from power stations. Alternatively, you could separate out hydrogen from the hydrocarbons in fossil fuels. That, unfortunately, would leave behind carbon dioxide-a greenhouse gas. Hmm. A sum of $1.2 billion is probably not enough to repeal the laws of physics. Of more interest to the administration, we guess, is whether it is enough to dull the edge of criticism from environmentalist lobbies.
-- On the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Democratic presidential candidates trooped over to a banquet celebrating abortion. Some people may regard abortion as a tragic necessity. At the NARAL Pro-Choice America event, abortion was progress; it was equality; it was liberation. There was a slightly hysterical tone to the proceedings. Political organizations need to keep their donors in a constant state of alarm. The abortion lobby generally insists that Roe is about to be overturned and women will be forced into back alleys. Kate Michelman, the head of the group, did not disappoint at the dinner, declaring once again that the Supreme Court is one vote away from overturning Roe. (We wish. In fact, six of the nine justices on the Court are on record supporting Roe. The Court is one vote away only from letting states ban partial-birth abortion.) She even raised the stakes: After Roe goes, she said, "a woman's right to contraception could be the next right lost." Howard Dean went even further, saying that women wouldn't be allowed to go to school in this grim future. Dean also made a defense of partial-birth abortion and an attack on parental-notification laws. Dick Gephardt was the most conservative of the candidates: He did not pledge his support for partial-birth abortion, but was merely silent on the issue. (He's voted to ban it in the past.) He confessed to having been a pro-lifer in the past, but begged forgiveness on the ground that he was raised as a Baptist and therefore could not have been expected to know any better. On abortion, both sound moral judgment and even normal sensibilities are now a disqualification for office in the Democratic party.
