Dick Cheney's favorite classical scholar, Victor Davis Hanson has donned his toga and is calling for sacrifice in the forum of the SF Comical.

Now in California - the nation's richest farm state - the population is skyrocketing toward 40 million. Yet hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland this year are going out of production, and with them thousands of jobs.

Why? In times of chronic water shortages, environmentalists have sued to stop irrigation deliveries in order to save threatened 2-inch-long delta fish that need infusions of fresh water diverted from agricultural use. And for both environmental and financial reasons, we long ago stopped building canals and dams in the Sierra Nevada to find sources of replacement irrigation water.

. . .

Consider energy consumption and supply as well. The United States still has plenty of untapped natural gas and oil - both offshore and in Alaska. We have nearly unlimited coal supplies and oil shale, in addition to the ability to build dozens of new nuclear plants.

Developing such traditional sources of energy responsibly would save us trillions of dollars in imported fuels, keep jobs here at home and allow the nation a precious window of energy autonomy as we steadily transfer to more wind, solar and renewable energy.

. . .

Then there is the question of national debt. We are now projected to run a record $1.7 trillion deficit - and may add $9 trillion to our existing $11 trillion in aggregate debt over the next eight years.

The president, though, has outlined vast new entitlement programs in health care, education, environmental programs and infrastructure. The problem, of course, is that we have not earned enough money to pay for any of these additional expenditures. Again, the glamorous ends get the attention, never the mundane means of how to obtain them.

Wonks Anonymous was almost stirred until he begin to consider Mr Hanson's position and his concrete proposals. Mr Hanson wears two hats. He is a farmer in the California Central Valley and he holds a sinecure at a well endowed private conservative think tank, the Hoover Institute. If Mr Hanson does not hold nature in contempt he has done a good job of concealing this in his numerous writings on environmental policy.

So what would these sacrifices cost Mr. Hanson?

• If we deliver more water to the farms and starve the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta we will certainly lose the smelt and, more than likely, also kiss our dying salmon fishery goodbye. But Hanson does not care about the smelt and besides he is a farmer, not a fisherman.
  

• If we spend more on water projects Hanson will pay only a small fraction of the cost, probably the same fraction of the cost that he pays for the water he currently uses. The rest will be made up from state and federal funds. Hanson the farmer will stand up and stoically take this subsidy for the good of us all.

• As for energy, Mr. Hanson likely owns some stock in various oil companies who will benefit from the development he proposes. Wonks Anonymous applauds his willingness to give up beaches, which he does not care about, for profits, which are in his interest.

• As for education, pensions, health care and all of that nonsense, Hanson is at the Hoover Institute which will shelter him in its loving arms until he dies, regardless of his ability to continue to spout conservative drivel.

Hanson wants us to give up things that are of no use to him in order to give him significant economic benefits and, he claims, help the nation.

How would Mr. Hanson react to these proposals?

• We encourage water conservation by charging cities and farmers prices that reflect the full cost of water production, including the costs of constructing the water system and of environmental damages. We will all pay for this one, Wonks Anonymous, as an orchid nut, will pay more than most.

• We tax fossil fuels to raise their price and encourage conservation. People ride public transit, buy more efficient cars and the value of Mr Hanson's oil stocks decline.

•  We pay for government programs with increases in revenues. We maybe even tax high income individuals like Victor Davis Hanson and Wonks Anonymous a bit more than average folks.