This is from the Reagan administration’s deregulatory 1981 energy plan: “All Americans are involved in making energy policy. When individual choices are made with a maximum of personal understanding and a minimum of government restraints, the result is the most appropriate energy policy.”

Many modern Republicans claim devotion to Ronald Reagan’s ideas, but they often seem to forget about the “minimum of government” thing. The following points are from Republican Virginia gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell’s “More Energy, More Jobs” plan:

• “McDonnell was the chief sponsor of legislation creating the Virginia Hydrogen Energy Plan.”
• “McDonnell also supported grant programs for solar photovoltaic manufacturing, tax exemptions for solar energy and recycling property, and tax credits for solar energy equipment.”
• “In order to protect Virginia’s citizens from the skyrocketing wholesale prices of electricity seen in other states, McDonnell brought together all the necessary stake holders to re-regulate electricity in Virginia.”
• “Currently, Virginia is the second largest importer of electricity behind California.  This is unacceptable.”
• “Bob McDonnell will establish Virginia as a Green Jobs Zone to incentivize companies to create quality green jobs. Qualified businesses would be eligible to receive an income tax credit equal to $500 per position created per year for the first five years.”
• “The Virginia Alternative Fuels Revolving Fund was established to assist local governments that convert to alternative fuel systems … Bob McDonnell will expand the purpose of this fund to include infrastructure such as refueling stations, provide seed money and aggressively pursue additional grants.”
• “Bob McDonnell will make Southwest and Southside Virginia the nation’s hub for traditional and alternative energy research and development…To assist with the attraction, building and operation of major energy facilities in Southside and Southwest Virginia, we will also support the establishment of the Center for Energy.”
• “To help Virginia universities gain access to federal stimulus money, as Governor, Bob McDonnell will establish the Virginia Universities Clean Energy Development and Economic Stimulus Foundation.”
• “As Governor, Bob McDonnell will leverage stimulus funding to incentivize individuals and businesses to conduct energy audits and encourage public private partnerships between small businesses and government.”

It’s true that McDonnell’s plan has some free market elements, and also that Ronald Reagan supported some wasteful energy boondoggles. However, the degree to which the modern Republican wants to micromanage and manipulate the energy industry is remarkable. McDonnell is almost setting out a Soviet five-year plan for a substantial part of the Virginia economy. For goodness sakes, he wants to treat Virginia like a separate country and try to fix the supposed problem that it is “importing” too much energy from other states!

It’s not just energy. Look at the top-down central planning ideas that McDonnell has for “creating jobs”:

• “Expanding use of the Governor’s Opportunity Fund by roughly doubling the funding available and broadening Fund rules to allow companies that generate additional state and local tax revenue to qualify.”
• “Appointing Lieutenant Governor Bolling to serve as “Virginia’s Chief Job Creation Officer” in the McDonnell/Bolling Administration.”
• “Designating one Deputy Secretary of Commerce to Focus Solely on Rural Economic Development.”
• “Providing a $1,000 tax credit per job to businesses that create 50 new jobs, or 25 new jobs in economically distressed areas.”
• “Double the funding for the Virginia Tourism Corporation. Currently Virginia trails 14 states including West Virginia and Tennessee in tourism funding.”
• “Increase funding for the Governor’s Motion Picture Fund by $2 million.”
• “Providing a $1,000 tax credit per job to businesses that create 50 new jobs, or 25 new jobs in economically distressed areas.”

Again, McDonnell mixes some pro-market proposals in with these Big Government interventions. And his opponent, Creigh Deeds, is promoting his own interventionist schemes, many very similar to McDonnell’s.

In 1980, the difference between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan on economic policy was clear. But today, we seem to have arrived at a point where it’s virtually impossible to tell the difference in economic platforms between a self-proclaimed conservative Republican and a liberal Democrat.

Thomas Friedman’s New York Times column today would be astonishing in its incoherence if only Friedman hadn’t long ago sapped us of our ability to be astonished by his incoherence. Like many capital-‘d’ Democrats, Friedman has soured on democracy for failing to deliver on his policy wish list.

Watching both the health care and climate/energy debates in Congress, it is hard not to draw the following conclusion: There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today.

Why does Friedman say the United States has one-party democracy? Because the Republican Party is effectively opposing the Democratic Party’s agenda! Not even kidding. Get this:

The fact is, on both the energy/climate legislation and health care legislation, only the Democrats are really playing. With a few notable exceptions, the Republican Party is standing, arms folded and saying “no.” Many of them just want President Obama to fail. Such a waste. Mr. Obama is not a socialist; he’s a centrist. But if he’s forced to depend entirely on his own party to pass legislation, he will be whipsawed by its different factions.

Only the Democrats are really playing! You might think that would mean they can do whatever they darn well please. But no! The Democrats can’t do anything! Because the other party’s opposition is so effective! So it’s exactly as if there’s just one party: nothing gets done!

My hunch is that the Times’ editors see Friedman aiming the gun at his foot, but watching a man stupid enough to actually pull the trigger is so fun they hate to intervene. That or they’re trying to explode the myth of American meritocracy.

So where were we? Oh, yes: one-party democracy is aggravating because sometimes one party can’t do what it wants because the other party gets in the way. Sooo frustrating!!! Why have democracy at all when all you end up with is a single party stymied by the other one! And so it is that Friedman comes to wax romantic about communist central planning:

One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century. It is not an accident that China is committed to overtaking us in electric cars, solar power, energy efficiency, batteries, nuclear power and wind power.

Nikita Kruschev, the enlightened leader of a now-defunct one-party autocracy, was also committed to overtaking the United States in technology and so much more. “We will bury you” is how he put it. At the time, more than a few left-leaning American opinionmakers suspected he was right. After all, how can inefficiently squabbling democracies possibly keep pace with undivided regimes wholly devoted to scientifically centrally planning their way into the brighter, better future? And that, children, is why we speak Russian today.