Editorials:

...Joseph House in New York...

...Must we always deify our public officials and raise them, literally and figuratively, above the level of the common folk they are supposed to represent...

...And will Ronald Reagan show himself realistic enough to forget his campaign position on energy and face up to the hard facts...

...Any interruption in this flow for more than a few days would create a disaster for the world's oil-centered economy, including that of the United States...

...But the new president would be ill-advised to allow such spectacular issues to distract his attention from more long-range and permanent matters, important as the post of secretary, of state is...

...Benedict's House of Hospitality at 1638 4th St., N. W., in an impoverished area of Washington, where about twenty men from the streets find shelter and where (when he isn't at the full-time job he holds to pay the bills) Michael Kirwan organizes the provision of soup and food for the people on the heating grates...

...Jimmy Carter's contribution on energy was not this or that detail of legislation he proposed but his insistence that the oil shortage was real, not imaginary, and that it could not be solved simply by wishing it away...

...STANDS FOR WHAT...

...One out of nine barrels of oil used in the entire world daily is burned as gasoline on U.S...

...More than thirty percent of our imported oil comes'from the Persian Gulf area, and the turbulence in Iran and its war with Iraq are good indications of the possibilities of trouble in that region-indeed in the entire Middle East...

...Reagan campaign talk to the contrary, the United States remains extremely vulnerable to any break or reduction in the oil supply...

...Estimates are that raising the U.S...

...At least I'll feel a little better knowing I've sftared my thoughts and perhaps given rise to some sense of indignation in others...

...Reagan took during the campaign...

...Reagan's position on energy provided a sharp contrast between him and Mr...

...alone guarantees newspaper headlines when the hearings reach their peak...

...This year foreign oil will cost us some $90 billion, more than the combined net assets of I.B.M., General Electric, General Motors, and Ford...

...France one of $1.67...

...Where is our love in this the season of that greatest example of Love...

...Although there are several million more cars on the road than a year ago, driving and gasoline consumption are significantly below last year's, levels...

...Higher prices reduce consumption...

...Conservation is our only hope of reducing national reliance on imported oil...

...Reagan brushed aside energy issues, indicating that shortages could be overcome simply by unleashing private enterprise...

...The time to act in this matter is now, before we are confronted with an emergency...

...When we returned from the New Year's holiday, there was a letter from Michael Kirwan at the office...

...Would consumption actually go down, as the experts predict, if prices went up...

...On the other hand there will certainly be a substantial growth in energy demand, especially from the developing nations...

...Two years ago, having returned to his native Washington, D.C., he began taking soup, bread, and tea to the men and women living on the sidewalk vents around the State Department building, and he began giving the men a place to clean up and to stay in his own apartment...

...By various presidential statements and by sending American equipment and military men to assist in the air defense of Saudi Arabia, we have signaled that we are willing to risk war for the sake of oil...

...In sober language, its authors admit the difficulty of such predictions, but their best forecasts expect that there will in fact be little or no increase in total world oil supply by the end of the century...

...This is something Mr...

...Twice in the last seven years the U.S...

...Carter...

...Reagan's most devoted followers in the industry really do not think this is likely...

...Even with Alaskan oil added in, total production is now one million barrels a day less than it was ten years ago...

...As long as they are going to take two months to build these shelters for the elite, why then rip them down after those few minutes of official use...

...Gasoline consumption would have been cut by 600,000 barrels a day, as it has been in the past year...

...However, even Mr...

...That task is not hopeless...

...they are giving silent assent to an increased tax payable to the OPEC nations...

...estimate ranges from less than one-half of today's level to a high of one-third less-hardly any support for the position Mr...

...Now that the campaign is over, President-elect Reagan should take time to read something perhaps Campaigner Reagan did not have time for-the forecast made some weeks ago by the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment...

...ose they left behind...

...The price of gasoline would probably be near or a little less than it is now, and tax rebates of $50 billion a year would be going to the American public instead of to the OPEC nations...

...Maybe it might even be a fitting memorial to the individuals who froze to death last week, one of them, ironically, on the steps of a church...

...We can't set the clock back to 1975, but it is still not too late to help ourselves...

...Last August, he established St...

...This is not a letter written in response to any Commonweal article or editorial," he began...

...Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia-in all these countries major threats of one sort or another represent a constant menace to continued oil production...

...form, even President Carter's modest ten-cent proposal, on the supposition that the public would not stand for such a move...

...indeed, the average U.S...

...highways...

...As for U.S...

...Domestic oil production in the lower forty-eight states declined from 11.3 million barrels a day in 1970 to 8.7 million today...

...citizen...

...In contrast, gasoline taxes in the United States are measured in pennies...

...In 1972 that tax amounted to one-half of one percent of the gross national product...

...Thus those who oppose an American conservation tax on gasoline are not simply voting against further price increases, as they like to imagine...

...Just imagine what a substantial, Reagan-blessed tax could do...

...although it did not go far enough, estimates of savings resulting from even that small a tax amounted to 100,000 barrels a day...

...We also ignore the homeless, families who in this coldest of seasons are forced to spend their nights and days on the streets as reported by the Washington Post on December 15, 1980...

...Of these crucial long-range issues that cry out for immediate attention, the economy may well be the foremost, but the energy issue is nothing to be passed over lightly either...

...Michael Kirwan is a young man who spent a couple of years helping at the Catholic Worker's St...

...What this amounts to is an OPEC sales tax on American consumption...

...Alexander M. Haig Jr...

...It is simply written in frustration and with some anger...

...By inaction in the face of the oil problem, this country sends a message to the OPEC nations and to the other Western consuming countries that we are incapable of facing up to and dealing with the energy problem...

...Throughout his presidential campaign, Mr...

...Carter's suggested oil import fee of ten cents, a gallon would have been a step in the right direction...

...Such a reduction would for a start head off further OPEC price increases by creating a buyer's market...

...Three years ago gasoline sold for about sixty cents a gallon...

...Are we equally willing to suffer the financial burden of a gasoline tax in order to reduce dependence on that troubled region-and to make military intervention less necessary...

...Last year it doubled again to four percent...

...It is incredibly sad to watch the Inaugural stands being built at the Capitol and the reviewing stands being built at the White House and to think that we would do that for the few minutes of the Inaugural ceremony and the maximum one hour of the Inaugural parade...

...Reagan might consider if he wants to project an image of a strong and resolute America...

...productivity, the O.T.A...

...And we ignore the many hundreds of homeless men and women crowding the public shelters night after night for want of a place to go for the rest of their lives...

...This year the figure is 6.7 million barrels, fourteen percent less...

...Nearly one-third of the world's total supply of oil moves by sea through the Persian Gulf and the Straits of Hormuz at its mouth...

...Congress finally gave the president the right to ration gasoline, but only in an extreme emergency, and it is highly unlikely that Congress would authorize a rationing system under any other circumstances...

...If we are not to be caught flatfooted by another major oil crisis, it is imperative that the United States reduce its oil dependence...

...America still imports almost half the oil it uses, for which our weekly bill runs just under $1.5 billion...

...Up to now Congress has shown itself gun-shy of a gasoline tax in any...

...Thus Mr...

...It is now running about $1.30, and estimates are that it may be close to $2 a gallon by the end of the new year...

...gasoline tax, state and federal, amounts to less than ten percent of the average gasoline tax of France, Italy, and West Germany...

...American oilfields are now being depleted, and it is probable that they will produce fifteen percent less, not more, by 1990...

...We here at the Catholic Worker might also have another place where we could direct the many that come to our home every night seeking shelter and warmth and for whom we have no more room...

...Just suppose Congress had been foresighted enough to impose such a fifty-cent tax on gasoline four or five years ago when the energy crisis was first hitting us...

...By 1979 it grew to two percent...

...What is wrong with the president-elect standing on the sidewalk with his guests like the rest of the citizenry to take the oath of office and review the parade...

...Of the oil imported, nearly ninety percent- almost seven million barrels a day-is burned as gasoline...

...Right at this moment, any serious expansion of the Iraqui-Iranian war could confront Ronald Reagan with an oil-gasoline crisis before his Oval Office chair is even warm...

...Skeptics were initially dubious, but so far the decline in gasoline consumption accompanying higher prices has been even more marked than was predicted...

...And it is obviously true that if the United States could produce more oil at home, it would reduce our reliance on foreign oil...

...gasoline tax by, say, fifty cents would cut consumption by ten percent immediately and by as much as forty percent in a decade...

...That means that Americans are paying OPEC four percent of all the goods and services this nation produces-a figure that the New York Times calculated comes to only slightly less than the total amount Americans spend on national defense or Social Security...

...Sad because we are outfitting these stands with plush seats and glass enclosures and heating systems to protect the officials against the elements - in the process spending hundreds of thousands of dollars - while at the same time we ignore the homeless poor who will be lying exactly two blocks away on the heating vents trying to keep warm...

...oil and gas supply has been disrupted by upheavals in the Middle East...

...Reducing our dependence on foreign oil is essential, and this makes the case for a substantial conservation tax on gasoline stronger than ever...

...Why not leave them standing to house the poor and homeless as a continuing reminder to all of us of our miguided priorities and appalling lack of sensitivity...

...Ayearagothe U.S...

...Italy has a gasoline tax of almost $2 a gallon...

...That would mean an immediate saving of 700,000 barrels of oil a day and almost three million barrels daily in ten years...

...imported 7.8 million barrels of oil a day...

...A substantial tax should be imposed on gasoline, with detailed provisions for rebate to the public, and the oil thereby saved should be placed in the national strategic petroleum reserve-a reserve that now contains only 91 million barrels of oil, about enough to make . up for a loss of two weeks' worth of imports in the event of a Middle Eastern crisis...

...Clearly the only way that a gasoline conservation tax might become politically possible is if Ronald Reagan were to get firmly behind it and if it were emphasized that the total tax would not be used for general revenues or to balance the budget, but would be returned directly to the public in the form of Social Security tax cuts or income tax rebates or, as some have suggested, in refunds of state sales taxes...

...At least such a shelter - and such a reminder - might delay the fate for those they left behind...

...Deputy Energy Secretary John C. Sawhill estimates that we are paying fifty percent more than last year and that this amounts to about $400 annually for each and every U.S...

...Gasoline consumption definitely responds to increased costs...