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"Climate" and the Campaign
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The Spectacle Blog
President Obama's budget outline released today includes substantial assumed revenues from a new "global warming" tax, the largest revenue-raising measure in U.S. history - at $300 billion per year from mandating then selling "cap-n-trade" carbon dioxide ration coupons, vastly bigger than the tax to fight WWII even in present dollars ($107 billion per year). It's spectacularly larger than the last energy tax hike tried by the same crowd, the proposed (and failed) 1993 BTU tax that Al Gore now says cost the Democrats control of Congress ($47 billion as proposed). So much for Obama studying the mistakes of the Clinton-Gore administration's first year.
He plans on raising from the energy tax imposed in order to avert the end of the world to pay for his social engineering agenda.
This adds a special twist to the old conundrum of "sin taxes" - the demonized vice immediately becomes a virtuous, or at least indispensible, contributor to the public purse. Now, the (faltering) theory of catastrophic Man-made global warming is a necessary catastrophe to claim he's averting: the Obama administration needs the threat in order to offset, at the bookkeeping level, much of his agenda.
But how, precisely, does he continue the revenue stream when he succeeds at his express goal of this scheme, as told during the campaign to the San Francisco Chronicle, to "bankrupt" coal and those who try to burn it (to produce more than half of our electricity) by ensuring that electricity prices "skyrocket" for those who dare? That's a problem, but one the tax-raisers will surely find a way around, in the form of raising other taxes...a lot.
Another twist is found in various media reports today of the Obama administration's line, that some portion (up to 20%) of the annual $300 billion raised by the global warming tax "would go to tax credits for lower- and middle-income working families."
Don't forget what this largess represents. It is not aid to improve their lot from current conditions but instead, as I have previously written, in the words of legislation recently floated to implement such a scheme, "compensation, through the issuance of a monthly rebate, for the loss in purchasing power resulting from" imposing the global warming tax. It is an attempt to make some of those hardest hit by this price-hiking and job-killing measure closer to whole before imposition of the tax.
The transfer is a new entitlement and the global warming tax, the largest hike in U.S. history, is in perpetuity, requiring that government always proclaim that they are protecting you from climate catastrophe, as without that premise the revenue source for their social engineering is no more.
If opponents can't win this giant misstep, I am at a loss at to what they can win in the fight to retain our system, more successful than any of those we seek to emulate with the new rush to a social democratic state.
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More Blog Posts by Chris Horner
http://spectator.org/blog/2009/02/26/the-new-global-warming-tax-big
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JohnnySquares| 2.26.09 @ 1:54PM
I just made an appointment to have my personal CO2 Emissions Monitoring System surgically grafted to my mouth so Obama will know how much to bill me for the carbon dioxide I'm exhaling.
I'm not looking forward to the installation of my personal Methane Emissions Monitoring Unit.
But I guess we all have to make sacrafices to save our planet.
Marc Jeric| 2.26.09 @ 2:25PM
When the globaloney cooling scam of the 1970's failed to work, we had the 1990's globaloney warming hoax; now, after 11 years of substantial cooling we are faced with the "climate change" flimflam. Well, whatever works - right? But in all these 3 panics we find the same government-paid "scientists" (almost all of them rejects of private enterprise and politically correct power-hungry socialists).
Thomas| 2.26.09 @ 3:04PM
Insanity doesn't just run in Democrat politicians, it practically gallops.
kristoffer| 2.26.09 @ 5:11PM
its a good idea. the days of freeloading of natures resources are ending and thats good . the externatilaties will have to be internalised in order to have a realistic economy model fit for this century. the rest is old school crap.
Thomas| 2.26.09 @ 5:24PM
"the externatilaties will have to be internalised"...
What the heck does that mean? Not only does the word "externatilaties" not even exist, but how do you internalize externalities in the real world?
cjacworth| 2.26.09 @ 6:39PM
I'm all for cap-and trade. Since I heat my home in New Hampshire with 3 tons of wood pellets every year I must have a pile of carbon-neutral virtue in the bank, don'tcha think? Can't wait to glom my share of the green boodle. By the way, we've had a couple of pretty severe winters up here in the last few years. If this global warming gets any worse I'm going to be plowing my driveway on Independence Day!
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NH| 2.26.09 @ 11:19PM
We've given up -- if we can't pass a sovereignty bill we are in trouble and better just stockpile food, gold and guns and gather our family close because we are heading for scary times with this hitler in place.
Liberty| 2.27.09 @ 1:13AM
We have hope of winning this one. They can't say it's racist.
payingattention| 3.1.09 @ 1:35PM
How can something so easy to disprove be accepted by so many? When the global temperature increases
solid ice at the polar regions will turn to liquid and increase global sea levels. Have you been to the beach lately?
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"Doubting ones government is the sincerest form patriotism" my quote
I guess people are dumber than animals. an animal falls into a hole and avoids it the second time around but, humans must like climbing. Look around and see how many country's have fallen .Please do not misinterpret my grammar for ignorance that is a weak way to discredit a person
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