Clinton Administration & Economic Issues

At the same time - after the same twelve year span of anti-conservation/anti-environmentalist leadership - the current administration was elected on a platform that included advocacy for both programs. The first target of conservation groups is the massive oil consumption of the American public, business and individual consumer alike. The first target of environmental groups is the overwhelming pollution caused by utilizing petroleum, fossil fuels and other "unclean" fuel sources - caused by a "deregulatory" business environment that holds few incentives for developing nascent "clean" fuel industries.

The crossroads the Clinton Administration stands at, then, is how to reconcile a need to raise revenues and bolster the economy while cleaning up the environment by red

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tax, while serving to both depress usage of carbon-intensive, "dirty" fuels (notably coal) - and at the same time providing an incentive for industrial concerns to invest in alternative energy power sources. It would also ensure major economic disruption in the Midwest, where electric power is primarily coal-driven; if successful in its intent to cut dependency on carbon-intensive fuels, the Carbon Tax would kill the coal industry - plunging states like West Virginia and Pennsylvania into a severe depression. For this reason, environmentalists and economists find common ground with yet another variation on the energy tax: the Gasoline Tax. Under this type of plan, the current federal gasoline tax of 14.1( per gallon would be raised considerably, proposals ranging anywhere from 7( to 30( per gallon increases. As with the Btu tax, economic disruption is projected as minimal, raising the consumer price index a mere 0.2-0.3 of a percentage point and reducing GDP growth by only about 0.2 of a point. By directly affecting the consumer on a daily basis - as opposed to the "hidden" prices increases that would occur with the Btu - the Gasoline Tax would encourage individual consumers to adopt more energy-efficient vehicles and tran
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1704
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)