This is no small potatoes, to folks like me and my family. My folks are retired, and I'm on food stamps. We don't have a lot of cash to throw around on things like buzillions of lights at Christmas (okay, even if we did, we wouldn't. Our primary ostentatious spending habit is on books, not airstrip lights for Rudolph and the rest of the reindeer). $33 a month is twice what I spend on Kat Fud, including the stuff I toss to the pride on the porch.
And, yet, I'm not in California, where instantly the blame would fall upon the "greedy power companies" for "sticking it to the po'folks." I'm in the rational Midwest, where we recognize that false caps on prices will eventually have to fall away, and the resultant dramatic inflation will hurt all the more, because it didn't happen gradually. We get to blame the state legislature and that idiot governor who sat & allowed it to happen before he lost his job, went to trial, and fought for his freedom in the face of a conviction.
Of course, there are some who point the finger at the power companies, since they have no real competition...
"The promise was retail customers and small business customers no longer would need government regulation to keep prices reasonable because competition would keep prices reasonable," said Benjamin Weinberg, chief of the attorney general's public interest division. "And that's a good theory. Unfortunately, during the transition period, competition has not emerged."but then, whose fault is that? When was the last time Illinois -- especially this end of it -- was a low-tax, low-regulation, attractive state for any business?
1 comment:
Oh, so nicely put!
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