Tag Archives: Cap and Trade

What economic policies do left-wing and right-wing economists agree on?

This article is from Harvard economist Greg Mankiw. (H/T Michael)

Excerpt:

Here is the list, together with the percentage of economists who agree:

  1. A ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available. (93%)
  2. Tariffs and import quotas usually reduce general economic welfare. (93%)
  3. Flexible and floating exchange rates offer an effective international monetary arrangement. (90%)
  4. Fiscal policy (e.g., tax cut and/or government expenditure increase) has a significant stimulative impact on a less than fully employed economy. (90%)
  5. The United States should not restrict employers from outsourcing work to foreign countries. (90%)
  6. The United States should eliminate agricultural subsidies. (85%)
  7. Local and state governments should eliminate subsidies to professional sports franchises. (85%)
  8. If the federal budget is to be balanced, it should be done over the business cycle rather than yearly. (85%)
  9. The gap between Social Security funds and expenditures will become unsustainably large within the next fifty years if current policies remain unchanged. (85%)
  10. Cash payments increase the welfare of recipients to a greater degree than do transfers-in-kind of equal cash value. (84%)
  11. A large federal budget deficit has an adverse effect on the economy. (83%)
  12. A minimum wage increases unemployment among young and unskilled workers. (79%)
  13. The government should restructure the welfare system along the lines of a “negative income tax.” (79%)
  14. Effluent taxes and marketable pollution permits represent a better approach to pollution control than imposition of pollution ceilings. (78%)

I wonder which political party believes in most or all of these positions?

Hmmmmn.

Bill Whittle scores the Obama presidency at half-time

This is pretty good.

Here are the promises that Obama made when he was running for president:

  1. Roll back the Bush tax cuts
  2. Repeal the PATRIOT Act
  3. Pass cap-and-trade legislation
  4. Pass an amnesty bill for illegal immigrants
  5. Close the Guantanamo Bay prison
  6. Provide civilian trials for terrorists
  7. Sign the pro-abortion “Freedom of Choice Act”
  8. End warrantless wire-tapping
  9. Limit the influence of lobbyists in Washington
  10. Cut income tax rates for seniors

So how did he do so far? He had the House, the Senate and the Presidency.

 

“Clean energy” plant closes after receiving 58 million in subsidies

From CNS News. (H/T ECM)

Full text:

A clean energy company is closing its factory in Massachusetts, just two years after it opened the solar plant with about $58-million in taxpayer subsidies, the Boston Globe reported. Evergreen Solar calls itself a victim of weak demand and competition from cheaper suppliers in China.

The newspaper describes Evergreen Solar’s closing a major hit to Democratic Governor Deval Patrick’s efforts to make Massachusetts a hub of the emerging clean-energy industry.

“The administration persuaded Evergreen to build at Devens with a package of grants, land, loans, and other aid originally valued at $76 million. The company ended up taking about $58 million, one of the largest aid packages Massachusetts has provided to a private company,” the newspaper reported.

Gov. Patrick, a VIP at Evergreen’s 2008 ribbon cutting, was heavily criticized by his rivals in 2010 for providing so much public aid to a company during tight fiscal times.

The Evergreen closing will eliminate 800 jobs in the commonwealth, the Globe reported.

This reminds me of the Liberal government in Ontario, Canada – they wasted tons of money on green energy as well, and since the province owns the electricity company (Ontario Hydro), all the people have to pay double what they were paying before the green energy initiatives.

Obama raises gas prices by choking oil supply

Meanwhile, at the federal level, Obama is raising gas prices to appease his environmentalist faction. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

For the past nine months, Pres. Barack Obama has unilaterally taken steps that will lead to higher gas prices for struggling consumers, and fewer jobs and economic growth for our nation. Now Obama’s handpicked oil-spill commission (made up of environmentalists and political allies) has recommended more steps that will take us farther down that path of needless economic chaos — and, unsurprisingly, President Obama has responded to this report by looking into additional unilateral actions he can take outside the oversight of Congress.

The commission report took its cues from President Obama, calling for more regulation, more government control, and less drilling.

[…]But the Obama commission apparently failed to consider the impact of reforms on taxpayers and on our energy industry. While the commission correctly included a focus on risk-based assessment for all individual offshore activities and operations, they spent entirely too much time appeasing environmental activists with proposals for ways to slow the industry down, like expanding the time it takes for a lease application to be reviewed and recommending a vast amount of new industry-wide regulations.

This is exactly what President Obama aims to do: slow down or stop entirely the drilling of fossil fuels in the U.S., raise the price of existing and new supply wherever it comes from, and use unilateral executive-branch action to make gas so expensive that alternative energy sources will become viable dollar-to-dollar.

Do you see now why people shouldn’t vote for the best looking or youngest candidate? It actually matters who the President is – because the President’s decisions affect the prices of the things you use every day.

That is why making voting decisions based on emotions and happy-clappy talk about helping the poor and helping the environment is such a bad idea. It’s anti-marriage and anti-family. If the government is taking people’s money and wasting it, then people can’t afford marriage and children. The people who whine the most about men not wanting to marry fail to see that it is exactly these feel-good policies that made marriage and parenting UNAFFORDABLE. Either vote based on emotions, or vote for family. There is no third way.

Either the government spends the worker’s money, or the worker spends his own money. What is it going to be? Either policy is meant to make us congratulate ourselves on our moral superiority, or it is meant to enable us to afford to do what we ought to do – marry and raise children. What is it going to be?