While speaking at tea-party rallies across the Treasure State I have been gathering economic data for today’s column. You can walk into any Montana café and pay around $3.79 for a basic, two-egg omelet. If you melt a little cheese on top the price moves to $5.61 and diced ham moves the cost to $5.94. The addition of green peppers and onions moves the omelet into the Spanish category and the price becomes $6.64. Throw a little sirloin steak into the mix and you will pay $18.82 and the addition of lobster to your steak drives the price to a whopping $37.39. (For clarity, I have removed the cost of toast, coffee and hash-browns from this demonstration.) Are you with me?

In reference to the cost of breakfast, consider these hypothetical questions: Should the government force you to pay $6.64 for a Spanish omelet when all you want, or can afford is the cheaper $3.79 plain omelet? Can your government mandate your local diner must sell 25 percent Spanish omelets at $6.64 before selling any of the cheaper plain omelets? If the profits from Spanish omelets are redistributed to assist economically challenged patrons purchase more expensive omelets, does that make it okay? Obviously, the answer to all of the above is “No!” Why then is that being done, not with the price of breakfast, but with the price of electricity? Does the government have the right to force you to buy more expensive green electricity? Let’s look at the hard numbers.

In 2008, Professor Robert Michaels of Cal-State Fullerton published the following production cost comparison for electricity generated from a variety of sources:

• Coal (plain omelet) 3.79 cents/kwh
• Natural Gas (cheese) 5.61 cents/kwh
• Nuclear (ham-n-cheese) 5.94 cents/kwh
• Wind (Spanish) 6.64 cents/kwh
• Solar thermal (steak) 18.82 cents/kwh
• Solar photovoltaic (steak-n-tail) 37.39 cents/kwh

Wind generated electricity, the darling of secular progressives, costs 75 percent more to produce than that generated from burning coal. So why does the ruling elite demand we abandon cheap coal-fired electricity for that generated from more expensive sources like wind and solar? “To save the planet,” is their green answer, but global warming has been proven a fraud. In truth they favor more expensive electricity because it creates dependency, and here is how.

If you live on a fixed income and your electric heating bill was $250 last month, under mandated wind energy programs your monthly heat bill climbs to $437.50. If solar photovoltaic electricity was deemed the only energy source green enough for the grid, your electric bill would skyrocket to $2202.50 per month. Obviously, the “little people” couldn’t pay their electric bills without “energy-share” assistance from the ruling elite, and progressives just love that. They help you because then they own you; welcome to the dependency class. Every progressive program, from energy generation to extended unemployment benefits, enslaves the needy, so at every election voters will bow down to dutifully lick the hand that feeds them.

Montana sits on some of the largest coal reserves in the world, yet our five member Land Board blocks its development. Coal miners earning $30 per hour terrify progressives because if the “little people” have economic freedom from high-paying jobs, there will be no need for the programs of the ruling elite. Progressives must keep their base misinformed and begging for crumbs, and that is the true “green economy” they prefer kept a secret.