What about the subsidies to big oil?

If we're going to get through this crisis period without an awful lot of pain, we're going to have to have the equivalent of a Manhattan-like Project. We're going to have to challenge, not just the American people, but the people of the world because the first thing we have to do is to have an enormous conservation effort so that we buy time. US Congressman Roscoe Bartlett (R-Maryland)

Politicians are still subsidising oil extraction and oil consumption, as they have for decades. It is politicians who have subsidised the infrastructure that makes us dependent on oil. And here is one of them advocating another top-down, think-big, government-knows-best 'solution'. Yes, that's sure to work. Memo to Mr Bartlett: why not just stop the subsidies?