Virtually every individual, family, business and institution in the United States is grappling with the destructive consequences of our national failure to devise a responsible energy policy.

The price of oil has risen 85 percent in the past two years. Because of our extreme dependence on fossil fuel, that price increase is causing a shock to our economic system that is apparent in higher gas and food prices, rising costs for manufactured goods, damaged corporate profits and painfully stretched household budgets.

"For years, Washington has failed to address the issue of rising energy costs," said Dow Chemical Co.'s chief Andrew N. Liveris last week. "As a result, the country now faces a true energy crisis, one that is causing serious harm to America's manufacturing sector and all consumers of energy."

And with that, Liveris announced Dow would raise its prices by up to 20 percent.

Make no mistake about it: The United States does have an energy policy. That policy was formulated in secret during the early days of the Bush administration by Vice President Dick Cheney (a former oilfield service firm executive) in consultation with high-level energy industry officials.

The report issued by Cheney's office, which became the basis for the energy policy adopted by Bush, recommended some substantive measures to promote energy conservation and thus diminish this country's growing reliance on imported oil. But in the end, those measures were subsidiary to the report's proposals to encourage oil and gas exploration and production in the U.S. and import more energy from abroad.

And since the administration didn't give credence to global warming at the time, the report studiously ignored any calls to limit energy use that contributed to climate change.

So the country continued to manufacture gas-guzzling SUVs, continued to push for oil exploration in ecologically sensitive areas and continued to throw money at oil company tax breaks while giving short shrift to conservation and alternative energy research and development.

That the U.S. hasn't had an energy policy to attack the root of the problem -- our recklessly growing demand coupled with a dangerous reliance on imported energy sources -- isn't by any means the fault of just the Bush administration.

Not since President Jimmy Carter pulled on his much-derided cardigan during the energy crisis of the 1970s (to encourage Americans to turn down the thermostat) has an American president seriously questioned this country's addiction to oil.

(Al Gore, who questioned our addiction in the most serious way of any policymaker, never got to be president.)

And now, that addiction has not only exacerbated serious security concerns -- for how long do we want to be in thrall to oil-producing countries that may not like us? -- it's also threatening the security of our economy and our very way of life.

Too bad the problem of $4 a gallon gas has hit during an election year, though. Election years historically have not been the time to ask people to make sacrifices. Or, put it another way: Those who ask for sacrifices don't tend to win elections.

So instead of intelligent proposals to attack the range of factors contributing to our current crisis, the American people -- who so desperately need that kind of action -- are instead treated to the specter of politicians taking cheap shots.

Republicans in Congress want to use the crisis to increase drilling, open environmentally sensitive areas to oil exploration and some would even offer a useless federal gas-tax holiday.

Democrats want to tax the so-called windfall profits of big oil companies (when in doubt, soak the rich), investigate price-gouging by oil companies (when in doubt, hound the rich) and charge oil-producing cartels with monopoly behavior (when in doubt, sue the rich). Several lawmakers -- including presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton -- also want to offer a moratorium on the federal gas tax.

Such measures hardly constitute an intelligent response to our energy crisis, nor are they the stuff of complex energy policy. And the American people evidently see through the demagoguery: In a recent CBS/New York Times poll, 49 percent of those surveyed said the gas-tax holiday was a bad idea.

Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders pegged it when he said, "There is not one single cause and there is not one simple solution." In his essay on the facing page, Colby College Professor Lenny Reich gives a helpful (and depressingly long) list of reasons why gas prices are so high.

What this country desperately needs is an honest, realistic discussion about the current energy crisis, how we got into this situation and how we're going to get out. That will entail discussion of conservation (and thus sacrifice) as well as the significant economic opportunities available if the U.S. decides to develop technologies that can help us conserve.

We know what to do, in fact. We know we must diminish energy demand, find new ways to harness the sun, tides, wind and nuclear energy, and reduce our contribution to global warming.

How we do that is the stuff of energy policy. We can think of no better place for this national discussion to happen than in the current race for the presidency. It is the most pressing matter before us, and those who want to lead this country owe it to us to lead us toward solutions.