Thumbs up for Cap & Trade, err, Tax & Spend

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

Props to all you Obama nuthuggers. This thing will send our economy into the ditch, rise unemployment rates to probably upwards of 20%, oh, and all you Texans that are part of the cult get to do your part for socialism and wealth redistribution disguised as tree hugging and pay more than anyone else for it.

That's change you can all believe in, and have less of in your pocket :tu

http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/2665/waxmanmap771.jpg


Edit: This comes from the National Miners Association. I couldn't link their presentation so I screen capped the 'fun' part.

[clambake]

the miners, huh.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

In SEC. 432. ENERGY REFUND PROGRAM FOR LOW-INCOME CONSUMERS.

(a) Energy Refund Program-…
(2) At the request of the State agency, eligible low-income households within the State shall receive a monthly cash energy refund equal to the estimated loss in purchasing power resulting from this Act.



Hooray for more wealth redistribution. Fuck these assholes. :td

[clambake]

do you hate low-income consumers?

will this make them wealthy?

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

do you hate low-income consumers?

will this make them wealthy?

I don't hate anyone except for the pricks in Congress.

I'm sorry that you don't realize that everyone is going to be paying a lot higher prices for everything due to this bill.

It's so bad that they are specifying three years of unemployment benefits for anyone who loses their job as a product of this bill. Three freakin' years! And how do you determine if someone lost their job because of this.

Some of you Obamaniacs would be pumped if the government showed up at your home, took all your belongs and food, and told you to be sure to hit up the local HEB once a week for your government ration of an aspirin, a loaf of bread, and a bucket of water.

Why do you hate capitalism? Socialism's a great idea until you run out of other people's money, which the asshats in D.C., including the Messiah, are hellbent on accomplishing in record time.

I do have to hand it to them though - they aren't putting this economic albatross into action until after the 2011 elections. They know their asses are toast once We the People get the bill for this shit.

[clambake]

I don't hate anyone except for the pricks in Congress.
they are a bit on edge at the moment.

Some of you Obamaniacs would be pumped if the government showed up at your home, took all your belongs and food, and told you to be sure to hit up the local HEB once a week for your government ration of an aspirin, a loaf of bread, and a bucket of water.
paranoia never solved anything.


Why do you hate capitalism?
i'm all about making money, but he's averted (so far) a bottomless pit.

[SnakeBoy]

Hopefully the Dems will get it passed.

[Wild Cobra]

Props to all you Obama nuthuggers. This thing will send our economy into the ditch, rise unemployment rates to probably upwards of 20%, oh, and all you Texans that are part of the cult get to do your part for socialism and wealth redistribution disguised as tree hugging and pay more than anyone else for it.

That's change you can all believe in, and have less of in your pocket :tu

Why do you think some out there are calling it the "Full Chinese Employment Act?"

[SonOfAGun]

Health-care, cap&trade...it blows my mind that the people are going to let the country go down this road.

This is scary stuff.

[coyotes_geek]

Health-care, cap&trade...it blows my mind that the people are going to let the country go down this road.

This is scary stuff.

Don't worry. At least social security and medicare are in good shape.

[DarkReign]

Don't worry. At least social security and medicare are in good shape.

:lmao

[implacable44]

Don't worry. At least social security and medicare are in good shape.

exactly -- and yet we want to make it worse by grating the government - who couldnt manage SSI or Medicare -- more power ? more control ? more taxes ? -- right.. that philosophy has always worked...

I hate G.E.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124588837560750781.html

So we know what we have to look forward to:


During the brief few days in which the bill was debated in the House Energy Committee, Republicans offered three amendments: one to suspend the program if gas hit $5 a gallon; one to suspend the program if electricity prices rose 10% over 2009; and one to suspend the program if unemployment rates hit 15%. Democrats defeated all of them.

[DarrinS]

Why is Texas' share so fuckin high?

[sam1617]

Why is Texas' share so fuckin high?

Because we have a real economy that makes real money.

[DarrinS]

Because we have a real economy that makes real money.


In that case, Michigan shouldn't have to pay a dime.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

Why is Texas' share so fuckin high?

Because of all the electric companies here. The kicker: last I saw, we exported electricity to the likes of California.

Yep, we are going to pay more to subsidize Cali's electric bills. Any time that earthquake wants to dump half of Cali into the Pacific, be my guest...

[coyotes_geek]

Why is Texas' share so fuckin high?

The petrochemical industry. The businesses in Texas are going to get hit hard, but since so much of their product gets exported people in other states are going to be helping Texans pick up the tab. I doubt that the discrepancy between Texas and other states woudl really be that big. Not that it makes this any less sucky for the nation as a whole.

[101A]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124588837560750781.html



The Cap and Tax Fiction

Democrats off-loading economics to pass climate change bill.


House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has put cap-and-trade legislation on a forced march through the House, and the bill may get a full vote as early as Friday. It looks as if the Democrats will have to destroy the discipline of economics to get it done.
Despite House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman's many payoffs to Members, rural and Blue Dog Democrats remain wary of voting for a bill that will impose crushing costs on their home-district businesses and consumers. The leadership's solution to this problem is to simply claim the bill defies the laws of economics.
Their gambit got a boost this week, when the Congressional Budget Office did an analysis of what has come to be known as the Waxman-Markey bill. According to the CBO, the climate legislation would cost the average household only $175 a year by 2020. Edward Markey, Mr. Waxman's co-author, instantly set to crowing that the cost of upending the entire energy economy would be no more than a postage stamp a day for the average household. Amazing. A closer look at the CBO analysis finds that it contains so many caveats as to render it useless.
For starters, the CBO estimate is a one-year snapshot of taxes that will extend to infinity. Under a cap-and-trade system, government sets a cap on the total amount of carbon that can be emitted nationally; companies then buy or sell permits to emit CO2. The cap gets cranked down over time to reduce total carbon emissions.
To get support for his bill, Mr. Waxman was forced to water down the cap in early years to please rural Democrats, and then severely ratchet it up in later years to please liberal Democrats. The CBO's analysis looks solely at the year 2020, before most of the tough restrictions kick in. As the cap is tightened and companies are stripped of initial opportunities to "offset" their emissions, the price of permits will skyrocket beyond the CBO estimate of $28 per ton of carbon. The corporate costs of buying these expensive permits will be passed to consumers.
The biggest doozy in the CBO analysis was its extraordinary decision to look only at the day-to-day costs of operating a trading program, rather than the wider consequences energy restriction would have on the economy. The CBO acknowledges this in a footnote: "The resource cost does not indicate the potential decrease in gross domestic product (GDP) that could result from the cap."
The hit to GDP is the real threat in this bill. The whole point of cap and trade is to hike the price of electricity and gas so that Americans will use less. These higher prices will show up not just in electricity bills or at the gas station but in every manufactured good, from food to cars. Consumers will cut back on spending, which in turn will cut back on production, which results in fewer jobs created or higher unemployment. Some companies will instead move their operations overseas, with the same result.
When the Heritage Foundation did its analysis of Waxman-Markey, it broadly compared the economy with and without the carbon tax. Under this more comprehensive scenario, it found Waxman-Markey would cost the economy $161 billion in 2020, which is $1,870 for a family of four. As the bill's restrictions kick in, that number rises to $6,800 for a family of four by 2035.
Note also that the CBO analysis is an average for the country as a whole. It doesn't take into account the fact that certain regions and populations will be more severely hit than others -- manufacturing states more than service states; coal producing states more than states that rely on hydro or natural gas. Low-income Americans, who devote more of their disposable income to energy, have more to lose than high-income families.
Even as Democrats have promised that this cap-and-trade legislation won't pinch wallets, behind the scenes they've acknowledged the energy price tsunami that is coming. During the brief few days in which the bill was debated in the House Energy Committee, Republicans offered three amendments: one to suspend the program if gas hit $5 a gallon; one to suspend the program if electricity prices rose 10% over 2009; and one to suspend the program if unemployment rates hit 15%. Democrats defeated all of them.
The reality is that cost estimates for climate legislation are as unreliable as the models predicting climate change. What comes out of the computer is a function of what politicians type in. A better indicator might be what other countries are already experiencing. Britain's Taxpayer Alliance estimates the average family there is paying nearly $1,300 a year in green taxes for carbon-cutting programs in effect only a few years.
Americans should know that those Members who vote for this climate bill are voting for what is likely to be the biggest tax in American history. Even Democrats can't repeal that reality.

[ElNono]

Why is Texas' share so fuckin high?

Are you talking about the amount of federal funding they get?

[Wild Cobra]

Are you talking about the amount of federal funding they get?
No, he's talking about the $1159.10 cost per Texas citizen. The cost is so high because of the energy usage and source of energy. Looks like the citizens of Texas will have to stop using their air conditioners in the summer. The West Coast is green, returning money to energy users I guess, because our primary source is hydroelectric. No CO2 creation with those.

[ElNono]

No, he's talking about the $1159.10 cost per Texas citizen. The cost is so high because of the energy usage and source of energy. Looks like the citizens of Texas will have to stop using their air conditioners in the summer. The West Coast is green, returning money to energy users I guess, because our primary source is hydroelectric. No CO2 creation with those.

Good thing I'm in the NE, and you're on the NW!

[Wild Cobra]

Good thing I'm in the NE, and you're on the NW!
Just because those calculations are a net gain for me, it doesn't mean I like the idea. I am a patriot and I agree or disagree with national policies I believe are best for the nation. Not me as an individual.

[sabar]

Question: would it be possible for say Texas to import cheap electricity from Mexico which doesn't have a bunch of artificial economic barriers? I tried to look up energy import/export across nations, but I didn't find out much.

[Wild Cobra]

Question: would it be possible for say Texas to import cheap electricity from Mexico which doesn't have a bunch of artificial economic barriers? I tried to look up energy import/export across nations, but I didn't find out much.
I doubt it. Part of Cap and Trade allows us to be ripped off. Green credits for example are paid for not cutting trees down Apparently, all someone has to do is say they plan to cut down 1000 acres, then only cut 10 acres, and get paid for not cutting 990 acres!

Funny thing is that young trees are better CO2 sinks than old trees because they grow faster. The real way to be green is cut the trees and use them for construction, then plant new ones.

[101A]

Well, at least the science in indisputable....

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124597505076157449.html



The Climate Change Climate Change

The number of skeptics is swelling everywhere.



Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure him on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change legislation.
If you haven't heard of this politician, it's because he's a member of the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again doubt the science of human-caused global warming.
Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.
In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of the population believes humans play a role. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country's new ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old cap-and-trade program.
The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists' open letter.)
The collapse of the "consensus" has been driven by reality. The inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures have flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.
Credit for Australia's own era of renewed enlightenment goes to Dr. Ian Plimer, a well-known Australian geologist. Earlier this year he published "Heaven and Earth," a damning critique of the "evidence" underpinning man-made global warming. The book is already in its fifth printing. So compelling is it that Paul Sheehan, a noted Australian columnist -- and ardent global warming believer -- in April humbly pronounced it "an evidence-based attack on conformity and orthodoxy, including my own, and a reminder to respect informed dissent and beware of ideology subverting evidence." Australian polls have shown a sharp uptick in public skepticism; the press is back to questioning scientific dogma; blogs are having a field day.
The rise in skepticism also came as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, elected like Mr. Obama on promises to combat global warming, was attempting his own emissions-reduction scheme. His administration was forced to delay the implementation of the program until at least 2011, just to get the legislation through Australia's House. The Senate was not so easily swayed.
Mr. Fielding, a crucial vote on the bill, was so alarmed by the renewed science debate that he made a fact-finding trip to the U.S., attending the Heartland Institute's annual conference for climate skeptics. He also visited with Joseph Aldy, Mr. Obama's special assistant on energy and the environment, where he challenged the Obama team to address his doubts. They apparently didn't.
This week Mr. Fielding issued a statement: He would not be voting for the bill. He would not risk job losses on "unconvincing green science." The bill is set to founder as the Australian parliament breaks for the winter.
Republicans in the U.S. have, in recent years, turned ever more to the cost arguments against climate legislation. That's made sense in light of the economic crisis. If Speaker Nancy Pelosi fails to push through her bill, it will be because rural and Blue Dog Democrats fret about the economic ramifications. Yet if the rest of the world is any indication, now might be the time for U.S. politicians to re-engage on the science. One thing for sure: They won't be alone.

[SonOfAGun]

The EPA is already on record (via internal e-mails) as saying they wish to move on with agenda instead of focusing on data/science that disputes the basis for this movement.