Forgetting What policy To Pursue

YOU MAY RECALL, unless you prefer not to, that when former Texas governor Rick Perry ran for president, he made himself look foolish during a G.O.P. debate, which is easy for anybody to do. He proclaimed his intention, should he be elected, to trim our bloated government by eliminating no less than three cabinet departments, and then was unable to name the three he had in mind. He got two, but that was all he could remember. The one he left out was the Department of Energy, which is the one he now is in charge of. Thanks to Donald Trump, whose sense of irony and humor is greatly underrated, a man who not only wanted to eliminated a vital executive department but couldn't remember it, now heads it. Trump has a way of appointing to positions of power people who have no interest in the job to which they are appointed. Now, Perry is having yet another memory lapse. He cannot remember the basic principles of free market capitalism, an economic philosophy to which he devotedly adheres, like most conservatives; when they can remember to do so. Perry wants to use government money to subsidize the coal and nuclear power industries, which are failing, due to free market forces. Both are being priced out of the market by natural gas, wind power, and solar energy, but Secretary Perry, conservatively, sentimentally attached to the old planet destroying traditional energy sources, is not willing to let them go and die a natural free market death. When the free market does not yield the correct result, does not benefit big money contributors to republican political campaigns, let socialism save the day! Maybe this has something to do with personal stock portfolios, and Texas wealth and republican benefactors. Maybe another factor is that people like Trump and Perry cannot possibly imagine how fossil fuels could ever hurt the environment, pollute the air, or cause climate change. Or, maybe they are merely hostile to safe, clean energy sources, like wind power and solar power. Whatever the case, Secretary Perry, most likely, cannot remember which it is.