Daily Archives: December 5, 2010

Economy, Media, Politics

Will An Articulate Republican Please Stand Up?

That class warfare and wealth envy play very well from the Left’s playbook is no surprise. Especially to the dumb masses. From Obama on down, and with the help of the media to carry the water for them, ‘tax cuts for the rich’ seem to be the mantra. Well, that and Republicans don’t want to extend unemployment benefits, yet they want tax cuts for the rich. And at Christmas time no less. Grinch!

There are two truths that blow the Left’s demagoguery out of the water, that the media has no interest in exposing. First, regarding extending unemployment. Regardless of what Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca) says, Republicans have no objection to extending unemployment. After all, it would be a spending bill. And, like all spending bills, must be paid for. That’s according to Nancy Pelosi and her party’s PayGo legislation. The concept of PayGo was to not increase the debt. So pay for it already. Pay for it by cutting some other spending from somewhere else, or better yet, pay for it from the hundreds of billions of dollars that are still unspent from the porkulus bill. Pay for it. As a matter of fact, why not throw in an extra $100 as a stocking stuffer. There’s enough money to do it. Republicans would pass it. But, Democrats would lose their demonization tool. Sorry, can’t do that.

The next truth is that cutting taxes increases revenue. Not only does it increase revenue, but the percent that the evil rich pay actually goes up, not down. It is not, contrary to popular opinion, a cost. And certainly nothing that has to be borrowed, like Ms. Pelosi says. And it does not increase the debt. Cutting taxes is an incentive to produce. Cutting taxes leaves the money where it will be of most use. With the people who earned it. The Left quotes the CBO on tax cuts as being a cost. That’s because, by law, the CBO has to calculate everything as a static, zero sum game. They can not, by law, consider changes in behavior or consequences in the market place that a tax law or tax adjustment would cause. This is a fallacy in real life. They assume that by raising taxes by X percent, that they will actually get X percent more in revenue. And if taxes are cut by X percent, then the revenue will be decreased by X percent. Well, sorry Nancy. History and the laws of free-market economics tell a contradictory story.

Thomas Sowell writes . . .

Over that long span of time, there have been many sharp cuts in tax rates under Presidents Calvin Coolidge, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. So we don’t need to argue in a vacuum. There is a track record.

What does that record say? It says, loud and clear, that cuts in tax rates do not mean cuts in tax revenues. In all four of these administrations, of both parties, so-called “tax cuts for the rich” led to increased tax revenues— with people earning high incomes paying not only a larger sum total of tax revenues, but even a higher proportion of all tax revenues.

But when confronted with this concept, President Obama acknowledged that yes, even though revenues increased, that it was more important ‘to him’ to go the wealth envy route in the name of social justice and fairness. So while Democrats claim to want to increase revenues, they really don’t.

So, where are all, or any, Republican leaders in Congress talking about this? Grow a pair and tell it like it is. Show the Democrats for the class warfare demagogues that they are. Preferring to keep people down rather than lift them up.

Link: Can Republicans Talk? |  Can Republicans Talk?: Part II

China, Economy, Energy, Florida, Media, Pensacola, Politics

Florida’s No-Energy Policy Is No Energy Policy

It’s not surprising that the St. Petersburg Times would come out with an editorial supporting the President’s about face on opening up 25 million acres of land off of Florida’s coast to oil exploration. They also thought that shutting down ALL oil drilling in the entire Gulf of Mexico by ALL oil companies was a good idea too! It reflects the knee-jerk reaction to pressure from the environmentalist lobby who, last I checked, does not produce energy.

Critics of the plan, like State Senate President Mike Haridopolos, are right to say that the Florida ban will cost jobs. It is preventing jobs from being created. Forget that ‘saved or created’ nonsense. This, like the rest of Obama’s economic policies are preventing jobs from being created and the economy from recovering.

Out of the lost wages and earnings, all of which BP is responsible for replacing, the Times did not give a number of jobs lost due to the leak. And didn’t BP put thousands of people to work (because of the leak) all over the Gulf coast to do the cleanup work? Sorry to say, but devastating hurricanes create jobs and work too! This is no more a justification for lax safety procedures than a hope for another accident. Point is, we can recover from accidents and disasters.

The jobs lost by extending this Florida waters moratorium another 12 years is real. Likewise, the jobs lost from our president and Ken Salazar putting the drilling moratorium in effect for all drilling in the Gulf in the wake of the 4/20 BP rig explosion was ignored by the St. Pete Times. But, that is to be expected of them.

It’s been 15 years since the Clinton administration put the kibosh on ANWR development, which would have long been producing energy by now had that not happened. Now we’re to wait twelve more years for Florida and the Eastern U.S. to use its resources?

Time is long overdue for an energy policy that gets some. In every area. How many new nuclear generating plants have opened in the last 20 years? How many new refineries have been built in the last 20 years? Did you know that 57% (that’s more than half for those of you educated in government schools) of our electrical energy comes from coal? How many new coal-fired electrical generating plants have been built in the last 20 years? So President Clinton made our nation’s only low sulfur coal reserves (the largest in the world) off-limits, handing China a monopoly. And banning oil development off our East and Gulf coasts, leaves OPEC to profit. Buying coal from China and oil from OPEC is not good for national security, nor is it a good energy policy.

Long story short. Unless you expect the energy industry to make environmental guidelines, don’t expect the environmentalists to make energy policy.

Link:    Shelving expanded gulf oil drilling is responsible course |  Oil spills kill jobs

China, Economy, Energy, Politics, United Nations

Climate Change Conference ‘Going Backwards’

That’s the good news. Frustrated by the competition to play God, the big U.N. climate talks in Cancun are ‘going backwards.’

They are arguing over adjusting the imaginary global thermostat down 2 degrees or 1.5 degrees. While the world’s two biggest polluters, China and India, feel it is unfair that they be forced to participate, don’t want anything to do with it. They haven’t signed on to the Kyoto Protocol either.

Then there’s the rift as to who would manage the $100 billion per year fund that they say they need in order to meet their goal. The World Bank or the United Nations? No matter who it would be, you know it would be nothing more than a slush fund for dictators and despots around the world, helping them to play God while the United States mostly foots the bill for their folly.

Meanwhile, environment ministers began flying in Saturday, hoping to put new life in the U.N. talks. Don’t you wonder about ‘the cost’ that their carbon footprint places on our green earth?

Link:  Plodding climate talks stepping up to higher level