THE late Senator Everett Dirksen reputedly once said: “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you are talking real money.” I wonder what he would say about to offer a $300 million government-sponsored prize to anyone who invents a new type of car battery at 30 per cent of the cost of today’s batteries. Is this real money?
Not if this prize is McCain’s main idea for breaking America’s dependency on oil. If the country’s energy problems could be solved for $300 million, they would not be problems. Energy is a multibillion-dollar business; private conglomerates could easily raise $300 million if…
