In the wake of last week's relative victory for health care reform, President Obama decided today to shift the big fast car from fourth gear directly into reverse by ending the ban on drilling for oil along the Atlantic coast.
I see this as the same kind of mistake that the U.S. Mint has made each time it has tried to introduce a $1 coin into general circulation. Why do you suppose we still use dollar bills far more than dollar coins? It's because the Mint refuses to actually REPLACE the bills with the coins. If you want to introduce a new form of currency to supplant an old one, you have to take the old one out of circulation.
