Hello and welcome I'm Anastasia Glova Friday is finally here and I'm bringing you the Cato

daily podcast for January 26th. The president has made repeated calls to the American public

to reduce gasoline consumption as in his State of the Union address earlier this week.

Bush's enthusiasm for energy independence and alternative energy sources have prompted Cato Senior

Fellow Jerry Taylor to question the validity of the President's proposals.

I think most people are glad to hear the President wanting to reduce gasoline consumption.

Why shouldn't this be a priority?

The question of how much gasoline this country consumes is a question that's best left to consumers, not to politicians.

I mean, orders about, thou shalt consume this or thou shalt consume that is the staple of

five-year Soviet economic plans not free market economies. Given price people

will consume as much gasoline as they think best and And the president nor Congress has any

business telling people what they should or should not buy. If people want to

cut back on gasoline, that's great. They have all sorts of opportunities to do that.

They can buy a more fuel-efficient car. They can take mass transit to work. of or what have you. There are all sorts of ways for people to reduce gasoline

consumption without getting a blueprint out of President Bush or the Democratic

Congress. These are decisions that people ought to make and if we leave prices

alone people have ample incentives

to conserve and to spend their energy dollars wisely.

Isn't reducing oil imports a good thing?

Not necessarily.

When we import oil for a reason, it's cheaper than the oil we could get from here at home or the energy we can get from any other source.

I mean the case for importing oil is the same as the case for say importing computer chips.

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