| "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."
-- Krishnamurti
"The public is hedged about by so many goddam bookkeepers that no time is left in which to produce. More time is spent in carrying out garbage than in carrying in food."
-- Martin H. Fischer
"We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork."
-- Milton Friedman
(1912-2006) Nobel Prize-winning economist, economic advisor to President Ronald Reagan, "ultimate guru of the free-market system" | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment   |
| "The danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that man may become robots."
-- Erich Fromm
(1900-1980)
"The state tends to expand in proportion to its means of existence and to live
beyond its means, and these are, in the last analysis, nothing but the
substance of the people. Woe to the people that cannot limit the sphere of
action of the state! Freedom, private enterprise, wealth, happiness,
independence, personal dignity, all vanish."
-- Frederic Bastiat
(1801-1850) French economist, statesman, and author. He did most of his writing during the years just before -- and immediately following -- the French Revolution of February 1848
Source: Sophisms, 141 | | comments: Leave a comment |
| "The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority,
but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."
-- Marcus Aurelius
[Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus] (121-180) Roman emperor (161-180) | | comments: Leave a comment |
| "If voting changed anything, they would make it illegal."
-- Emma Goldman
an “anarcho-communist” who has been lionized as an iconic “rebel woman” feminist
"Censorship is telling a man
he can't have a steak
just because a baby can't chew it."
-- Mark Twain
[Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835-1910)
"It is frequently said that speech that is intentionally provocative and
therefore invites physical retaliation can be punished or suppressed. Yet,
plainly no such general proposition can be sustained. Quite the contrary…. The
provocative nature of the communication does not make it any the less
expression. Indeed, the whole theory of free expression contemplates that
expression will in many circumstances be provocative and arouse hostility. The
audience, just as the speaker, has an obligation to maintain physical
restraint."
-- Thomas I. Emerson
Source: The System of Freedom of Expression, 1970 | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Healthcare bill taxes
When polling Americans about healthcare, there are ways to get two very different answers to the same question. If you ask people “should everyone be required to have healthcare?” the answer comes back 67% yes, 27% no. But, when the question is rephrased to "should we require everybody to carry insurance, or face a federal penalty?” it flips and 64% say no, and 28% yes. Perhaps if the media would bother reporting on all of the new taxes this plan carries with it, support would dip even lower?
WHo the fuck would have though in the land of the free !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ANd if this is what you want than you are one stupid fuck!!!!! This freedom stealing tax hiking lump of shit of a bill is 2000 pages of garbage.... It goes on and on Tax everything.
If it passes your life as you remember it is quite over.
COMPREHENSIVE LIST OF ALL TAX HIKES
IN SENATE GOVERNMENT HEALTH BILL: H.R. 3590
Individual Mandate Tax (Page 324/Sec. 1501/$8 bil): Starting in 2014, anyone not buying
“qualifying” health insurance must pay an income surtax according to the following schedule
(capped at 8 percent of income):
Employer Mandate Tax (Page 348/Sec. 1513/$28 bil): If an employer does not offer health
coverage, and at least one employee qualifies for a health tax credit, the employer must pay
an additional non-deductible tax of $750 for all full-time employees. Applies to all
employers with 50 or more employees.
If the employer requires a waiting period to enroll in coverage of 30-60 days, there is a $400
tax per employee ($600 if the period is 60 days or longer).
Excise Tax on Comprehensive Health Insurance Plans (Page 1979/Sec. 9001/$149.1 bil):
Starting in 2013, new 40 percent excise tax on “Cadillac” health insurance plans ($8500
single/$23,000 family). Higher threshold ($9850 single/$26,000 family) for early retirees and
high-risk professions. CPI +1 percentage point indexed.
From 2013-2015, the 17 highest-cost states are 120% of this level.
Employer Reporting of Insurance on W-2 (Page 1996/Sec. 9002/Min$): Preamble to
taxing health benefits on individual tax returns.
Medicine Cabinet Tax (Page 1997/Sec. 9003/$5 bil): No longer allowable to use health
savings account (HSA), flexible spending account (FSA), or health reimbursement (HRA)
pre-tax dollars to purchase non-prescription, over-the-counter medicines (except insulin)
HSA Withdrawal Tax Hike (Page 1998/Sec. 9004/$1.3 bil): Increases additional tax on nonmedical
early withdrawals from an HSA from 10 to 20 percent, disadvantaging them relative
to IRAs and other tax-advantaged accounts, which remain at 10 percent.
FSA Cap (Page 1999/Sec. 9005/$14.6 bil): Imposes cap on FSAs of $2500 (now unlimited).
Corporate 1099-MISC Information Reporting (Page 1999/Sec. 9006/$17.1 bil): Requires
businesses to send 1099-MISC information tax forms to corporations (currently limited to
individuals), a huge compliance burden for small employers
Excise Tax on Charitable Hospitals (Page 2001/Sec. 9007/Min$): $50,000 per hospital if
they fail to meet new “community health assessment needs,” “financial assistance,” and
“billing and collection” rules set by HHS.
Tax on Innovator Drug Companies (Page 2010/Sec. 9008/$22.2 bil): $2.3 billion annual tax
on the industry imposed relative to share of sales made that year.
Tax on Medical Device Manufacturers (Page 2020/Sec. 9009/$19.3 bil): $2 billion annual
tax on the industry imposed relative to shares of sales made that year. Exempts items
retailing for <$100.
Tax on Health Insurers (Page 2026/Sec. 9010/$60.4 bil): $6.7 billion annual tax on the
industry imposed relative to health insurance premiums collected that year.
Eliminate tax deduction for employer-provided retirement Rx drug coverage in
coordination with Medicare Part D (Page 2034/Sec. 9012/$5.4 bil)
Raise “Haircut” for Medical Itemized Deduction from 7.5% to 10% of AGI (Page
2034/Sec. 9013/$15.2 bil): Waived for 65+ taxpayers in 2013-2016 only
$500,000 Annual Executive Compensation Limit for Health Insurance Executives
(Page 2035/Sec. 9014/$0.6 bil)
Hike in Medicare Payroll Tax (Page 2040/Sec. 9015/$53.8 bil): Current law and changes:
Read it all all the taxes.:: http://www.atr.org/userfiles/111809pr-comptaxreid%282%29.pdf | | comments: Leave a comment |
| "There’s no longer any left or right. There’s the system and the enemies of the system."
-- Eduard Limonov
founder of the National Bolshevik Party in Russia
"We are sure living in a peculiar time.
You get more for not working than you will for working,
and more for not raising a hog than for raising it."
-- Will Rogers
(1879-1935) American humorist
"All history is one long story to this effect:
men have struggled for power over their fellow men
in order that they might win the joys
of earth at the expense of others,
might shift the burdens of life
from their own shoulders upon those of others."
-- William Graham Sumner
(1840-1910) American academic and professor at Yale College | | comments: Leave a comment |
| "Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President or any other public official save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. ... Every man who parrots the cry of “stand by the President” without adding the proviso “so far as he serves the Republic” takes an attitude as essentially unmanly as that of any Stuart royalist who championed the doctrine that the King could do no wrong. No self-respecting and intelligent free man could take such an attitude."
-- Theodore Roosevelt
(1858-1919) 26th US President
Source: Works, vol. 21, pp. 316, 321
"Give me the facts, and I will twist them the way I want, to suit my argument."
-- Sir Winston Churchill
(1874-1965) Prime Minister of England
"Our job is to give people not what they want,
but what we decide they ought to have."
-- Richard Salant
(1914-1993) former President of CBS News
Wow that last guy said point blank (can you say, state run Media? ) | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Putting one-fifth of America on welfare
The Left's health care "reform" plan will dramatically expand eligibility for Medicaid, a poorly-functioning program created in the 1960s to help low-income families.
The Health care "reform" bills advancing in the House and Senate would expand Medicaid by making this government-run health plan available to all adults with incomes at or below 150% of the poverty line. The change would dramatically multiply eligible recipients, with 46 states seeing increases of at least 20%, including 16 posting jumps of 50% or more. Almost 21% of the entire U.S. population would be eligible for Medicaid and seven states and the District of Columbia would have eligibility rates of at least 25%. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Global Warming Ate My Homework: 100 Things Blamed on Global Warming
Cap and trade proposes a new national tax of historic proportions.
Late for a party? Miss a meeting? Forget to pay your rent? Blame climate change; everyone else is doing it. From an increase in severe acne to all societal collapses since the beginning of time, just about everything gone wrong in the world today can be attributed to climate change. Here’s a list of 100 storylines blaming climate change as the problem.
The deaths of Aspen trees in the West
Incredible shrinking sheep
Caribbean coral deaths
Eskimo’s forced to leave their village
Disappearing lake in Chile
Early heat wave in Vietnam
Malaria and water-borne diseases in Africa
Invasion of jellyfish in the Mediterranean
Break in the Arctic Ice Shelf
Monsoons in India
Birds laying their eggs early
160,000 deaths a year
315,000 deaths a year
300,000 deaths a year
Decline in snowpack in the West
Deaths of walruses in Alaska
Hunger in Nepal
The appearance of oxygen-starved dead zones in the oceans
Surge in fatal shark attacks
Increasing number of typhoid cases in the Philippines
Boy Scout tornado deaths
Rise in asthma and hayfever
Duller fall foliage in 2007
Floods in Jakarta
Radical ecological shift in the North Sea
Snowfall in Baghdad
Western tree deaths
Diminishing desert resources
Pine beetles
Swedish beetles
Severe acne
Global conflict
Crash of Air France 447
Black Hawk Down incident
Amphibians breeding earlier
Flesh-eating disease
Global cooling
Bird strikes on US Airways 1549
Beer tastes different
Cougar attacks in Alberta
Suicide of farmers in Australia
Squirrels reproduce earlier
Monkeys moving to Great Rift Valley in Kenya
Confusion of migrating birds
Bigger tuna fish
Water shortages in Las Vegas
Worldwide hunger
Longer days
Earth spinning faster
Gender balance of crocodiles
Skin cancer deaths in UK
Increase in kidney stones in India
Penguin chicks frozen by global warming
Deaths of Minnesota moose
Increased threat of HIV/AIDS in developing countries
Increase of wasps in Alaska
Killer stingrays off British coasts
All societal collapses since the beginning of time
Bigger spiders
Increase in size of giant squid
Increase of orchids in UK
Collapse of gingerbread houses in Sweden
Cow infertility
Conflict in Darfur
Bluetongue outbreak in UK cows
Worldwide wars
Insomnia of children worried about global warming
Anxiety problems for people worried about climate change
Migration of cockroaches
Taller mountains due to melting glaciers
Drowning of four polar bears
UFO sightings in the UK
Hurricane Katrina
Greener mountains in Sweden
Decreased maple in maple trees
Cold wave in India
Worse traffic in LA because immigrants moving north
Increase in heart attacks and strokes
Rise in insurance premiums
Invasion of European species of earthworm in UK
Cold spells in Australia
Increase in crime
Boiling oceans
Grizzly deaths
Dengue fever
Lack of monsoons
Caterpillars devouring 45 towns in Liberia
Acid rain recovery
Global wheat shortage; food price hikes
Extinction of 13 species in Bangladesh
Changes in swan migration patterns in Siberia
The early arrival of Turkey’s endangered caretta carettas
Radical North Sea shift
Heroin addiction
Plant species climbing up mountains
Deadly fires in Australia
Droughts in Australia
The demise of California’s agriculture by the end of the century
Tsunami in South East Asia
100. Fashion victim: the death of the winter wardrobe
And the list goes on. The truth is climate change is causing some of these events, but the earth’s average temperature has been increasing and decreasing since the beginning of time. Maybe the increase in UFO sightings can’t be pinpointed to climate change but certainly animals will adapt to new habitats as the climate changes. But climate change and adaptation to it is nothing new. There’s an underlying assumption that human activity is causing the climate to change in many of these stories, but the scientific consensus on what causes climate change is anything but a consensus. Temperatures have risen and fallen many times before and the earth was cooling as recently as the period from the 1940s to the 1970s giving rise to fears of a coming ice age:
“At the first Earth Day celebration, in 1969, environmentalist Nigel Calder warned, "The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind." C.C. Wallen of the World Meteorological Organization said, "The cooling since 1940 has been large enough and consistent enough that it will not soon be reversed."
The other implication of this list is that a reduction in Co2 with cap and trade policies like Waxman-Markey and Boxer-Kerry will cure problems as disparate as hurricanes, wars, crime, hunger and…cow infertility. The problem is that no one can actually claim that a reduction of Co2 will prevent these occurrences; one can only speculate that they will be worse in a world that has more rather than less Co2. Given cap and trade’s massive economic consequences and negligible effects on the earth’s temperature, this is a bold and potentially very costly speculation. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| Keeping up with Obama
He's been a busy guy this weekend - first, he had to delay plans for climate change action, even though he previously stated ‘delay is not an option.’ Then he had to bow down to another foreign leader, this time it was in Japan. And, for good measure, this lover of the Earth traveled around in China with a 71 car motorcade. Oh, it's good to be King! Uh, President.
Healthcare - Where are the lawyers?
Only 34% of people actually want government running their healthcare, but special interests are keeping the bill alive. Special interest groups like the AARP who stand to make huge profits on gap insurance if the bill passes. And what about attorneys? Haven't heard any of them speak out against the bill.
"If you are afraid to speak against tyranny,
then you are already a slave."
-- John “Birdman” Bryant
self labeled as “The World’s Most Controversial Author”
"The enormous gap between what U.S. leaders do in the world and what Americans
think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments of
the dominant political mythology."
-- Michael Parenti
political scientist and author
"One of the common failings among honorable people is
a failure to appreciate how thoroughly dishonorable
some other people can be, and how dangerous it is to trust them."
-- Thomas Sowell
(1930- ) Writer and economist
THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER
This one is a little different...
Two Different Versions....
Two Different Morals
OLD VERSION
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building
his house and laying up supplies for the
winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool
and laughs and dances and plays the summer
away.
Come winter, the ant is warm
and well fed.
The grasshopper has no
food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.
MORAL OF THE STORY:
Be responsible for yourself!
MODERN VERSION
The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all
summer long, building his house and laying up
supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool
and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the shivering grasshopper
calls a press conference and demands to know why the
ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold
and starving.
CBS, NBC , PBS, CNN, and ABC
show up to provide pictures of the shivering
grasshopper next to a video of the ant
in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.
America is stunned by the sharp contrast.
How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this
poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
Kermit the Frog appears on
Oprah with the grasshopper
and everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy
Being Green.'
ACORN stages a demonstration in front of the
ant's house where the news stations film the group singing,
“We shall overcome.” Then Rev. Jeremiah Wright has the
group kneel down to pray to God for the
grasshopper's sake.
President Obama condemns the ant
and blames President Bush, President Reagan,
Christopher Columbus, and the Pope for
the grasshopper's plight.
Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid
exclaim in an interview with
Larry King that the ant
has gotten rich off the back
of the grasshopper,
and both call for an immediate tax hike on the
ant to make him pay his fair share.
Finally, the EEOC drafts
the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper
Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer.
The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate
number of green bugs
and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive
taxes, his home is confiscated by the
Government Green Czar and given to the
grasshopper.
The story ends as we see the
grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last
bits of the ant’s food while the government house he is in, which, as
you recall, just happens to be the ant's old
house, crumbles around them because the
grasshopper doesn't maintain it.
The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again.
The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and
the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a
gang of spiders who terrorize the ramshackle, once prosperous and
once peaceful, neighborhood.
The entire Nation collapses bringing the rest of the free world with
it.
MORAL OF THE STORY:
Be careful how you vote in 2010. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Obama's Fuzzy Math
What is a 'saved' job exactly? Most economists are left scratching their heads because it's a completely made up statistic. Well, finally some numbers are coming in on what the government considers a saved job. The results are astounding -- not because they were a success. They were astounding because this is one of the worst attempts at spin in political history - claiming jobs 'successes' in the midst of 10.2% unemployment and shedding 2.2 million jobs.
What journalism looks like
Jake Tapper, one of the few guys in the press who actually gets it and hammers both sides, sat down with the President and gave him a thorough questioning on healthcare and more. Fair yet tough, all journalists should take notice of what Tapper does on a day to day basis to both Republicans and Democrats. He presses the President on many sticking points including federal funding for abortions and possible jail time for not purchasing healthcare. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| If Cap and Trade Doesn't Work, Obama Will Make It Work
Cap and Trade proposes a new national tax of historic proportions
All the talk in Washington is surrounding a government health insurance plan, but there’s a little discussed insurance plan in the Boxer-Kerry cap and trade bill that’s worth some attention. The Senate version of the cap and trade bill includes a section that grants the President the authority to “direct relevant federal agencies” to impose additional greenhouse gas regulations. Senator David Vitter (R-LA) and John Barrasso (R-WY) have been working assiduously to uncover the true costs of cap and trade legislation.
Greenhouse gas concentrations are measured in parts per million (ppm). Many global warming alarmists believe that upper limit on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions in order to prevent catastrophic harm is 450 parts per million (ppm). Once we reach that threshold, water will rise to the torch of the Statue of Liberty, California will be an island, the polar ice caps will cease to exist and island nations will no longer be nations but submerged pieces of land. To put the numbers in some perspective, Sharon Begley notes in her Newsweek column that the carbon dioxide concentration is currently at 386 ppm; we were at 280ppm before the Industrial Revolution. If you include the carbon dioxide equivalent greenhouse gases, we’ve arguably reached the 450 ppm threshold. The Boxer-Kerry legislation says that if global greenhouse gas concentrations exceed 450 parts per million of carbon dioxide equivalent:
Sec. 707 Not later than July 1, 2015, and every 4 years thereafter--
`(1) the President shall direct relevant Federal agencies to use existing statutory authority to take appropriate actions identified in the reports submitted under sections 705 and 706 and to address any shortfalls identified in such reports.
The passed House version, Waxman-Markey, also contains language that grant the administration similar authority. So, for those who thought cap and trade legislation would preempt costly regulations, think again. This is more or less an insurance policy that would allow EPA officials regulate just about every aspect of the market and guarantees there will be economic pain. Even EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said, “We get further faster without top-down regulation.” Added regulations on top of cap and trade would be a bureaucratic nightmare that could delay economic projects and tie them up in litigation and result in hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars in compliance costs.
If we’ve learned anything from the health care debate, it’s that companies shouldn’t trust government promises that their bottom lines will not be affected. Proponents of a government-run option made repeated claims that private businesses would remain competitive but Karen Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, recently sent a letter to the White House and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi saying the plan “would bankrupt hospitals, dismantle employer coverage.
The same can be said for cap and trade. In order to garner business support, Members promised generous allowance revenue handouts for various industries and special interests. President Obama originally called for an auction of the emission allowances, forcing companies to bid on the right to emit. Businesses, knowing very well this would impose a severe cost on their bottom line, sent their lobbyists to Washington to protect them. And it worked – at least they thought it did. Sections 705-707 of the Boxer-Kerry cap and trade bill would pile costly regulations on these allegedly protected companies. And these costs would be passed onto the consumer, making the bill all that more painful.
Even if we are only at 386 ppm, the way China and other developing countries are growing and refusing to cap greenhouse gas emissions, global greenhouse gas concentrations could reach 450 ppm in no time. George Will writes, “On Oct. 21, China, the world's leading emitter of greenhouse gases, and India, which ranks fourth -- together they account for 26 percent of emissions -- jointly agreed: They, with their combined one-third of the world's population, will not play in what increasingly resembles a global game of climate-change charades. Neither nation is interested in jeopardizing its economic growth with emissions caps of a sort that never impeded the growth of the developed nations that now praise them.”
With the rate of growth of global greenhouse gas emissions, cap and trade paired with top down regulation assures economic pain for every part of the economy, especially the American energy consumer, with nothing to show for it.
But this is the change along with no reading of any bill that is pased, a president whom can't make a decision on our troops, a government taking control of 1/6 of our economy and telling it's people that if they do not get Healthcare then it is Jail time.
I would just like to ask all the defeat mongers/socialist idiots have they never read the constitution that little oath that is taken to uphold and defend it's principles?
American dream??????? Freedom, choice, liberty???? I guess not it is truly sad that the way of Tar and feather has become so unpopular!!!!! | | comments: Leave a comment |
| "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce."
-- James Madison
(1751-1836), Father of the Constitution for the USA, 4th US President
Source: Federalist No. 45
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not
be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
-- U.S. Constitution, Ninth Amendment
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution,
nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States
respectively, or to the people."
-- U.S. Constitution, Tenth Amendment | | comments: Leave a comment |
| "The most common way people give up their power
is by thinking they don't have any."
-- Alice Walker
Author
"Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or
shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded,
or shall we transgress them at once?"
-- Henry David Thoreau
(1817-1862)
Source: Civil Disobedience (1849)
"The truth which makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer
not to hear."
-- Jim Bishop
(1907-1987)
Source: The Day Lincoln Was Shot | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Al Gore Going Green to Make Green
Cap and trade proposes a new national tax of historic proportions
John Broder of The New York Times has an interesting piece on Al Gore’s financial profit tied to his global warming alarmism and push for renewable energy. Gore’s venture capital firm invested in Silver Spring Networks, a company that makes hardware and software to improve efficiency in the nation’s electricity grid.
NY Times Piece link:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/business/energy-environment/03gore.html?_r=2
When President Obama told a crowd at a solar power plant in Florida, ironically on an cloudy day where the sun was nowhere to be found, that $3.4 billion of the so-called stimulus package would be allocated for smart grid investment, it significantly reduced the risk of Gore’s investment: “Of the total, more than $560 million went to utilities with which Silver Spring has contracts. Kleiner Perkins and its partners, including Mr. Gore, could recoup their investment many times over in coming years.” Broder calls Silver Spring “a foot soldier in the global green energy revolution Mr. Gore hopes to lead.”
If Al Gore wants to invest his money in green technology, windmills, solar panels or algae, he can do as he pleases. It’s his money. But the same cannot be said for taxpayers. Along with his money, the government is taking other people’s money to invest in these projects who do not have a say in the matter. It’s what economist Frederic Bastiat described as legalized plunder: “See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.”
When it comes to investment, that’s exactly what venture capitalist firms are for – to supply funding for the early stages of high risk, potentially high profit start-ups. The government footing a portion of the bill significantly reduces the risk and there’s a reason they need to do so. It’s because these projects are too expensive to compete in the market otherwise and even after years of subsidies and tax breaks, renewable energy still only provides a small fraction of our energy. Maybe wind and solar investments will occur without government support but that’s for the market to decide.
In a speech last year, the former vice president called for the United States to commit to having 100 percent of the country’s electricity supplied by renewable energy within 10 years. With cap and trade, a mandated renewable electricity standard, and billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded green energy investments, it’s no surprise “few have put as much money behind their advocacy as Mr. Gore and are as well positioned to profit from this green transformation, if and when it comes.” But it’s not just Gore. Large energy companies are hedging their bets on political policy designed to make renewable energy more competitive and are pushing for federal funding.
Gore responded to criticism of this saying, “I absolutely believe in investing in ways that are consistent with my values and beliefs. I encourage others to invest in the same way.”
That’s fine. Many Americans do invest in ways consistent with their values and beliefs and many hold stock where they work or what they think will be profitable. It becomes objectionable when the government forces people to invest in projects, whether they’re profitable or not. But if the government is investing in them, it’s a pretty telling sign they won’t be. This isn’t laizze-faire capitalism; it’s crony capitalism. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Senate Concerns on Cap and Trade Cannot Be Fixed
Cap and Trade proposes a new national tax of historic proportions
link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMwBbl6RoIs
Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus made headlines this week for something other than healthcare. On October 27 Senator Baucus said he has “serious reservations” about the cap and trade bill, especially the increased near-term target of 20 percent carbon dioxide reduction below 2005 levels by 2020 – up from 17 percent in the passed House bill.
No changes can be made within the cap and trade approach can alleviate his concerns. Changing the targeted emissions reductions for 2020 from 20 percent to 17 percent might reduce the near-tem economic impact, but the reduction targets from there on out mirror the Waxman-Markey bill. The steeper the reduction targets in subsequent years, the higher energy prices will have to go to meet those targets.
The scariest numbers from The Heritage Foundation CDA analysis of Waxman-Markey were in 2035, when job losses reach 2.5 million, gasoline prices will rise by 58 percent ($1.38 more per gallon) and average household electric rates will increase by 90 percent. The Heritage model only goes out to the year 2035 but carbon dioxide reduction cuts are most stringent in 2050.
This is just one of many concerns the Senate has with the cap and trade. In June of last year 10 Democrats sent a letter to Senator Barbara Boxer and Senator Harry Reid stating their concerns over a cap and trade bill, the biggest being that it contain costs and prevent harm to the U.S. economy.
The Heritage Foundation analysis of Waxman-Markey found that implementing the bill would reduce aggregate gross domestic product (GDP) by $9.4 trillion from 2012-2035. Even the Congressional Budget Office acknowledged that “such legislation would also reduce economic activity through a number of different channels.”
Senators in coal producing states rightly have their own reservations. For instance, Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) said one of his top concerns was “a spike in energy prices” saying, “I don’t think we’re entirely there, for coal states.”
And we’ll never get there for coal states. President Obama’s infamous line when it comes to cap in trade is that electricity prices will “necessarily skyrocket”, but his message on coal was just as alarming. Although the President did talk about the possibility of clean coal, he also said, “So, if somebody wants to build a coal-fired plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted. That will also generate billions of dollars that we can invest in solar, wind, biodiesel and other alternative energy approaches.” (At the 2:16 mark of the video)
So we’re going to tax cheap, reliable energy (costs that will be passed on to the consumers) to invest in expensive, inefficient energy sources that cannot survive without government support.
Despite Boxer’s repeated attempts to promote cap and trade as a jobs bill, Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) still has concerns: “My message over all is that for us to support what needs to be done in addressing global warming we need to demonstrate that, in fact, jobs are created.”
They won’t be; they will be destroyed. It’s important to stress that of the organizations that modeled cap and trade, not one scenario, including the EPA’s after generous assumptions, projected a net increase in income or employment from cap and trade. The entire debate was over the magnitude of income, consumption and job losses.
The Senate has a lot of problems with cap and trade. But there aren’t any solutions. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| "There is no happiness, there is no liberty, there is no enjoyment of life,
unless a man can say, when he rises in the morning, I shall be subject to the
decision of no unwise judge today."
-- Daniel Webster
(1782-1852), US Senator
Source: Speech, 10 March 1931
"An oppressed people are authorized, whenever they can, to rise and break their
fetters."
-- Henry Clay
(1777-1852) U. S. Senator, Speaker of the House of Representatives
Source: Speech, 24 March 1818 | | comments: Leave a comment |
| The EPA's Economic Analysis of Boxer-Kerry
Cap and trade proposes a new national tax of historic proportions
“Second verse same as the first, a little bit louder and a little bit worse.” This is the basic theme of the EPA’s analysis of the shrouded Boxer-Kerry Bill (S. 1733).
Given just 12 days to analyze the Boxer-Kerry climate bill (that others were not allowed to review), the EPA relied on previous analysis and the similarities between Boxer-Kerry and previous climate bills, most notably Waxman-Markey (H.R. 2454). Comparing S. 1733 to H.R. 2454 they conclude (page 28):
“While there are some minor differences in the bills in several areas that will likely result in slightly higher costs for S. 1733, these differences are overshadowed by the fundamental similarities in approach, caps, offsets, and other critical design parameters that affect the costs.”
Preliminary analysis by the Heritage’s Center for Data Analysis comes to the same basic conclusion: Though we disagree on the magnitudes, we agree that the Senate bill is very similar and a little worse than the House version.
The numbers most likely to be repeated from the EPA analysis are the same misleading numbers repeated from the analysis of Waxman-Markey. However, before reviewing the analysis, one point needs to be made crystal clear—there is no green stimulus here.
Even the most generous scenario in this EPA report shows that there will be costs forced on the economy—higher energy prices and lost income. For every year reported, household consumption drops compared to a world without Boxer-Kerry. This is a climate bill and, even according to the EPA, it will reduce economic activity. Spinning this as a job-creating, green stimulus bill is an act of fraud.
What will be the real costs? The Heritage analysis finds aggregate GDP losses (adjusted for inflation to 2009) grow to $9.6 trillion—an average loss of about $400 billion per year. Note that Heritage only projects impacts for the first 24 years of the 40-year program. The full 40-year cost will obviously be much higher.
The legislation pushes more than 1.8 million onto the unemployment rolls in 2012 and ultimately raises unemployment by over 2.7 million. This is net of any green jobs.
Energy costs rise. Even after adjusting for the purchase of more expensive energy-saving appliances, even after consumers drive less and adjust their thermostats, family energy expenditure rises by nearly $900 dollars per year—a total of more than $21,000 for the 24 years analyzed. Again, these figures have already been adjusted for inflation.
The EPA on the other hand reports results that amount to tens of billions of dollars per year. As with their analysis of Waxman-Markey, the EPA analyzed the economic impacts of several scenarios for Boxer-Kerry—from extremely unrealistic on one end to much more realist on the other. However, in the current report they present the economic cost of only one unrealistic scenario.
This particular scenario depends on three extreme assumptions. First, nuclear power generation must nearly double in the first 25 years. This is the equivalent of about 100 additional nuclear power plants. In the past 30 years, not one new nuclear power plant has been licensed and Boxer-Kerry (like Waxman-Markey) makes little to no provision for eliminating the legal and political barriers to the nuclear renaissance necessary for this EPA analysis.
Second, the EPA assumes that technology for capturing and storing the carbon dioxide emitted from coal-fired power plants will be fully commercialized in the next 15 years. Pilot projects are still on the drawing boards. Further, even after the extraordinary technological and economic hurdles have been cleared, the political and environmental obstacles to storing tens or hundreds of millions of gallons of liquid CO2 each day must be overcome.
Third, the EPA assumes nearly two billion tons of CO2 can be emitted beyond the caps set by the legislation because we will pay others to cut their CO2 emissions. Known as offsets, some of these cuts are to be made in the U.S., while many more are expected to be provided abroad. The results from current offset programs elsewhere are so unsatisfactory, that Boxer-Kerry devotes 90 pages to specifying the structure for establishing the stultifying regulations for offset certification, verification and trading. The theoretical availability as outlined in the earlier part of the bill is a long way from the actual availability of the offsets necessary for the EPA’s analysis. On page 20 of their report, the EPA makes clear that offsets are not a done deal:
“There are many institutional design issues, including the measurement, monitoring, reporting and verification requirements, surrounding estimates of offset availability. These issues must be addressed to ensure that the offset reductions are truly incremental, and represent real reductions.”
On the same page, the EPA acknowledges the great uncertainty of offsets and their projected economic impacts:
“Additionally, the cost and availability of offsets, particularly international offsets, is one of the greatest uncertainties in forecasting the cost of climate legislation.”
Gambling trillions of dollars in family income and millions of jobs on any of these strained assumptions would be a great risk. Relying on all three seems unconscionable.
Please call your elected idiots and tell them NO | | comments: Leave a comment |
| A Second Call for Transparency
Cap and trade proposes a new national tax of historic proportions
Our Tuesday rendition of Cap and Trade Calamities discussed how only the EPA was given the semi-draft form of the Boxer-Kerry cap and trade bill to model the economic effects. The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis, along with several other organizations (including other government organizations) that modeled the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill, do not have access. We have another call for transparency – this time from the House side.
On October 2, Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee Henry Waxman sent a letter to Heritage’s David Kreutzer, lead author of our analysis of the Waxman-Markey cap and trade legislation. The letter included 33 questions about the details of our model, the details of our assumptions, the details of our policy assumptions and the interpretation and presentation of our results.
As David Kreutzer writes in his Politico op-ed, “We were delighted to engage. Our study had reached conclusions not at all pleasant to the eyes of the bill sponsors. It showed that, when all the tax impacts were added up, the Waxman-Markey legislation would cost the average per-family-of-four cost almost $3,000 per year. Over the 2012-2035 time period, we forecast total per-family-of-four costs would tally roughly $71,500.
This back and forth is not only a civic obligation as Congress debates this legislation, but it is also a useful exercise in transparency. There has been a shroud of secrecy over negotiations on energy taxes, health care reform and stimulus legislation this year. Closed door meetings and private backroom negotiations have largely prevailed, while the general public and most of Congress are left outside.
We commend Chairman Waxman and Chairman Markey for opening these doors. We humbly believe that our research models are second to none, and welcome the chance to share our research and results with anyone who is interested, regardless of their political affiliation.”
All of the questions, as well as our detailed answers, are publicly available here. (see below)
Several other organizations that modeled the effects of cap and trade were sent the same letter. These include: Charles River Associates (commissioned by National Black Chamber of Commerce), The American Council for Capital Formation (commissioned by National Association of Manufacturers), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Energy Information Administration, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Interestingly, some groups such as the Political Economy Research Institute, the Congressional Budget Office and the Brookings Institute were omitted from Chairman Waxman’s request. In an effort to promote transparency, we sent letters to these organizations asking them to respond to the same questions where we can post them for the public to see on Heritage.org. We also formally invited the other organizations who were asked these questions by Chairman Waxman to post their responses, in the interest of full transparency.
http://www.heritage.org/cda/upload/responsetochairmanwaxman.pdf | | comments: Leave a comment |
| A Call for Transparency
Waxman-Markey proposes a new national tax of historic proportions
As you read this, the Environmental Protection Agency is modeling the economic impacts of a semi-draft form of the Boxer-Kerry cap and trade legislation. “Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer said a bill EPA is analyzing should be marked up in her panel by the second week in November. An EPA official said the agency has pledged to deliver the cost analysis Friday, in time for a three-day set of hearings starting Oct. 27.”
We’d do it too. But we can’t. According to Congressional Quarterly, the senators “produced a ‘semi-final draft’ of the legislation -- including the critical formula for distributing billions of dollars’ worth of pollution credits to different industries and interest groups.” But that draft is unavailable to the public. It has only been given to the EPA to model the economic impacts.
President Obama, in his memorandum for the heads of executive departments and agencies, wrote that “Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing. Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use.”
Bill Beach, the director of The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis, wrote a letter to Senator Boxer (CCing Senator Kerry, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and Senator Inhofe) asking for a copy of the semi-draft legislation to model the economic effects of the bill.
Charles River Associates (commissioned by the National Black Chamber of Commerce), The American Council for Capital Formation (commissioned by National Association of Manufacturers) The Brookings Institution, the Energy Information Administration, the Congressional Budget Office, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Political Economy Research Institute and The Heritage Foundation all produced economic analyses of the Waxman-Markey House cap and trade bill, but only the EPA has the semi-draft legislation of the Boxer-Kerry version.
For the sake of transparency, we’d like the EPA or Senator Boxer to publicly release the most recent version of the Boxer-Kerry cap and trade bill that includes the all-important allocation of billions of dollars of allowances. Clearly the more details we have about the bill, the better economic analysis we can provide in a timely manner for Members of Congress and for the general public.
And:
Another Mao lover?
Manufacturing Czar Ron Bloom is the latest in a long line of White House officials who seem to just love Chairman Mao. Mao, of course, is the loving former Chinese dictator who killed 70 million people during peacetime, so what's not to love? Bloom also mocked capitalism, "We know that the free market is nonsense." This is of course the sentiment you want from the guy trying to create jobs in the manufacturing sector.
And:some quotes
Every State is known by the rights it maintains."
-- Harold J. Laski
(1893-1950)
Source: A Grammar of Politics, 1925
"Early in 1979, I and several other young nurses from my ward were summoned to a mass meeting. All sixty-odd of us were young married women who had not yet been sterilized. Secretary Wang arrived and took up a position in front of the assembly. His round little face, normally the picture of conviviality, was set in an expression of the utmost gravity. 'Today we have a matter of extreme urgency,' he began, 'a toudeng dashi, to discuss. It concerns the population of the motherland. The People's Republic of China has within its borders nearly a billion people, or one-fifth of the world's population. This is a big burden for the people's government. ... Having children is not a question that we can afford to let each family, each household, decide for itself. ... It is a question that should be decided at the national level. China is a socialist country. This means that the interests of the individual must be subordinated to the interests of the state. Where there is conflict between the interests of the state in reducing population and the interests of the individual in having children, it must be resolved in favor of the state.'"
-- Chi An
Source: quoted in A Mother's Ordeal: One Woman's fight Against China's One-child Policy, Steven W. Mosher ( New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1993), p. 212-213.
"Consequently, any activity that is potentially harmful to others and requires
certain demonstrated competence for its safe performance, is subject to
regulation that is, it is theoretically desirable that we regulate it. ... In
fact, I dare say that parenting is a paradigm of such activities since the
potential for harm is great (both in the extent of harm any one person can
suffer and in the number of people potentially harmed) and the need for
competence is so evident. Consequently, there is good reason to believe that
parents should be licensed."
-- Hugh LaFollette
Source: "Licensing Parents", Philosophy and Public Affairs, Winter 1980 | | comments: Leave a comment |
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