It’s Not Just Income Tax

by Iain Murray
April 15, 2009 @ 11:42 am

Let’s not forget on this day that government has worked out a lot more ways to appropriate your money than income tax. Sales Tax is the one we come across most often, but at least it’s out in the open and you see it being added to every purchase you make (an example of tax transparency not enjoyed by most of the world). It is the hidden taxes - the “stealth taxes” - that are perhaps an even bigger problem. When government taxes a particular activity, often at the source, so that costs are passed on to the end consumer - you and me - without us appreciating it, then government has acheived revenue without responsibility.

That is why “cap and trade,” the fashionable measure for imposing fees on emitters of greenhouse gases, is such an insidious idea. Ostensibly, the fees would provide a ‘market-based’ incentive for emitters to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In practice, it would raise energy prices, as both President Obama and Rep. Henry Waxman (D. - Hollywood Millionaires) have admitted. Thankfully, the vast majority of Senators have realized that cap-and-trade is a tax, which is why on April 1 they passed by the margin of 98-0 an amendment to the budget “To protect middle-income taxpayers from tax increases by providing a point of order against legislation that increase taxes on them, including taxes that arise, directly or indirectly, from Federal revenues derived from climate change or similar legislation.” That amendment essentially recognizes cap-and-trade as a stealth tax, one that Americans for Tax Reform have calculated as amounting to $3000 for each family.

So where does this leave us? The EPA is announcing that they will hold a knife to the nation’s throat if this tax doesn’t get passed. There’s responsible government for you! The intelligent environmentalists at The Breakthrough Institute recognize the folly of this strategy, but, sad to say, intelligent voices in the environmentalist movement are very rarely listened to.

In the face of this assault of Green Taxes, there may be no alternative but to hold a Green Tea Party. Watch this space.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

Alarmists turn blind eye to global warming benefits–again

by Marlo Lewis
March 23, 2009 @ 10:03 am

Tomorrow, the House Foreign Affairs Committee will hold a hearing on the national security threats from melting Arctic ice. Greenwire (subscription required), the Online environmental news service, explains the rationale for the hearing:

In a report last year, the European Commission warned that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization must be prepared for an intensified “scramble for resources” as melting glaciers and sea ice open up previously inaccessible areas to exploitation. The report explicitly expressed concerns over “long term relations with Russia,” (ClimateWire, April 2, 2008).

Now, opening up ”previously inaccessible” areas to oil and gas development could also be a font of economic and national security benefits. One thing we know for sure about Arctic mineral resources–they aren’t owned by Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Venezuela, and never will be controlled by OPEC.

Yes, there will be competition for those resources, but since when is competition an automatic negative for the USA?

Clearly, there are opportunities here as well as risks–opportunities to create thousands of high-paying U.S. jobs, boost GDP by tens to hundreds of billions of dollars, and generate billions in deficit-reducing tax revenues and royalties.

More pertinently, exploitation of previously inaccessible resources could significantly diversify U.S. oil and gas–a longstanding objective of U.S. energy security policy.

But Gorethodoxy demands blind obedience by its votaries. Discussing the potential benefits of global warming is strictly verboten.

From http://www.globalwarming.org/

When going green means making green

By Timothy P. Carney
Examiner Columnist 3/12/09

Big business is increasingly embracing green legislation — and taking advantage of opportunities for big profits for companies with a strong lobbying presence in Washington and in state capitals.

The motivations vary for companies that are going green, said Ben Lieberman, environmental policy expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “For some it is just public relations, [but] it’s pretty clear that the companies and legislators focus on whatever benefits them,” Lieberman said.

General Electric may be the most prolific at seeking ways to profit from environmental laws. When GE Chief Executive Officer Jeff Immelt began his “Eco-magination” initiative in 2005, he declared, “It’s no longer a zero-sum game — things that are good for the environment are also good for business.” But he added that this would only work if business was about to “work in concert with government.”

The company has founded a joint venture that invests in greenhouse gas credits and plans to manage the trade in these credits. President Barack Obama’s plan to curb greenhouse emissions would instantly create demand for the credits and thus business for GE. Already, GE benefits from federal subsidies for windmills, which are touted as a clean energy.

On the score of windmills, the champion may be Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens, who owns the largest wind farm in America. He has become a vocal advocate of more wind subsidies, citing environmental benefits as a justification for his “Pickens Plan.”

Turning environmental policy into profit sometimes pits partners against one another. Fuel economy standards may make life difficult for automakers, but their suppliers can find profit in stricter rules. For instance, aluminum giant Alcoa, which has lobbied Congress for tighter Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, benefits because these standards force carmakers to turn toward aluminum frames, which are lighter but more expensive than steel.

Goldman Sachs’ bets that green investments are profitable are also based on expected or existing environmental regulations. The company in 2007 helped pass federal mandates for cellulosic ethanol — fuel made from grass, wood chips or similar materials — after investing in a Canadian cellulosic ethanol firm, which set up its U.S. headquarters in the D.C. area.

The Biotechnology Industry Organization, which includes many agricultural companies as members, is also a leading lobbyist for additional ethanol subsidies. Corn ethanol today has many environmentalist critics who point to the land, soil, fertilizer and water costs of growing corn as fuel, but it was long touted as the green replacement for gasoline.

Even the coal industry is seeing profits from the green surge. Obama supports federal subsidies for experiments on making coal burn cleaner, but the Sierra Club and other environmental groups argue that “there’s no such thing as ‘clean coal.’ ”

Nonetheless, last month’s stimulus bill included $1 billion for a clean coal plant, money that is expected to benefit an Illinois-based partnership of eight prominent coal companies.

Will these green bets pay off? In the case of climate change legislation, Heritage’s Lieberman doesn’t think so. “I don’t know whether these guys are fully taking into account the fact that cap-and-trade [climate regulations] will really hurt the economy.”

From http://www.dcexaminer.com/