RMD: How To Get Some REFORM in Washington, DC

Most military experts will tell you that a good way to destroy an army is to engage it in a frontal assault on a well-prepared defensive position. Sometimes as in "Pickett's Charge" (thousands charged, hundreds came back) the defensive position doesn't even have to be all that well prepared, just firmly defended.

A political example of "Pickett's Charge" would be "Let's take away all the oil company's tax breaks!" The oil, war and pharma lobbies have discovered the addresses of the Dem replacements of the DeLay K Street strip miners and are preparing their defensive positions as I write this.

So I will say it plainly, this should be our strategy: "We are not taking away anything; we are changing the results expected."

How to implement this strategy? Make the jump...

We should pay attention to how Washington,DC works and NOT do any 'TAKEAWAYS', but redirect the funds to gain the outcome we desire.

Having lived in Washington,DC for a few years and once having been married to a lobbyist, I can tell you that lobbyists are very well prepared to blunt, deflect, and delay any efforts to take away pork in the form of tax breaks. Where do you think Chuck Schumer and Rahmbo got their millions? Why was Hoyer chosen over Murtha? K Street had a lot to do with it, M'Kay?

Just ask yourself why we don't have national healthcare when the rest of the industrialized world does? Lobbyists... millions... you connect the dots, M'Kay?

So let's NOT attack where they are strongest. Let's NOT attack at all, let's just redirect the funds towards getting what must be done -- done.

For instance, let's redirect oil company tax breaks for extraction, refinery construction, yadda-yadda to re-make oil companies into energy companies that supply the US with a variety of fuels of which oil is a component, but the tax breaks go for the purpose of building a multi-fuel infrastructure.

We can phase in this re-direction so that any projects currently in the permit process can rely on the tax incentives at the time of permitting, but that new incentives OF AN EQUAL AMOUNT are now available for making our fuel systems more flexible.

What is the sense of building 'flex fuel' vehicles if there are no alternative fueling stations? Why not give tax breaks to stations that start offering biofuels at the pumps for example?

Now I have used some small examples of redirection in the energy industry but there are lots more. Please use the comments to articulate how you would 'redirect the money' if you were a congresscritter.