NoaIzumiMore on Cap-N-Trade
March 20th 2009 14:41
The attacks on President Obama’s cap and trade plan continue on all fronts.
The group Americans for Prosperity fired a salvo recently.
White House admit cap-and-trade energy tax is triple the size they claimed!
And started lying right away, right there in the title. Take a look at the article that they refer to:
Really Long Link
“Is triple the size they claimed” sounds a lot different from “could raise "two-to-three times" the administration's existing $646 billion revenue estimate,” At least to me, and I’m a native speaker and everything.
Arguably worse is the other lie, the one of omission. Like most other right-leaning articles, this one doesn’t mention the plan to compensate those most affected by the plan: “excess revenues from any cap and trade bill that passes Congress will be used to compensate vulnerable families, communities and businesses.”
They probably think it’s BS, but it’s right there in the plan.
Really Long Link
And no matter what they think of the promise, to not acknowledge it at all is still dishonest.
Of course, if they did acknowledge it, it would remove their rationale for righteous indignation. It doesn’t matter how much revenue the government takes in if it just goes back to the people that it ultimately comes from.
The Spectator is no better.
Cap-and-Trade Socialism
Certainty about the increase, check. No mention of compensation for taxpayers, check. No mention of the time frame (so that true believers can assume that it’s $2 trillion all in one year rather than over eight years), also check. Throw in some half-truths (depending on what you think of by “nearly every European country”) about the effectiveness of the Kyoto Protocol and some snide remarks about chilly it is (in winter), and you’ve got yourself a hit job.
Finally, we come to Townhall.com, which ran a piece from Jilian Bandes.
Cap-and-Trade’s Regressive Tax
To her credit, Ms. Bandes does point out the counter-claims of offsets to the assumed increases in energy costs. But she dismisses them as vague possibilities, and did you notice that instead of quoting the Obama proposal directly, she cited statements from Greenpeace, the right wing’s favorite environmental extremists? Then she follows with a rebuttal from the Heartland Institute (in what has to be the first recorded instance of the HI being referred to as an “environmental organization”), which uses cherry-picked (if not totally false) data to claim that cap-and-trade doesn’t work.
The last word in the Bandes piece goes to Rep. Joe Pitts of Pennsylvania. A hard-core conservative from a coal state who never saw a pro-fossil fuel bill he didn’t like is against cap-and-trade. Who’d have thought?
On a final note, who else noticed that Jilian Bandes slams the plan for putting the burden on the backs of the poor, while Mr. Tyrrell of the Spectator slams it as evidence of the president’s “socialism”?
Maybe we should pull back and just let them debate each other.
The group Americans for Prosperity fired a salvo recently.
White House admit cap-and-trade energy tax is triple the size they claimed!
And started lying right away, right there in the title. Take a look at the article that they refer to:
Really Long Link
“Is triple the size they claimed” sounds a lot different from “could raise "two-to-three times" the administration's existing $646 billion revenue estimate,” At least to me, and I’m a native speaker and everything.
Arguably worse is the other lie, the one of omission. Like most other right-leaning articles, this one doesn’t mention the plan to compensate those most affected by the plan: “excess revenues from any cap and trade bill that passes Congress will be used to compensate vulnerable families, communities and businesses.”
They probably think it’s BS, but it’s right there in the plan.
Really Long Link
And no matter what they think of the promise, to not acknowledge it at all is still dishonest.
Of course, if they did acknowledge it, it would remove their rationale for righteous indignation. It doesn’t matter how much revenue the government takes in if it just goes back to the people that it ultimately comes from.
The Spectator is no better.
Cap-and-Trade Socialism
Certainty about the increase, check. No mention of compensation for taxpayers, check. No mention of the time frame (so that true believers can assume that it’s $2 trillion all in one year rather than over eight years), also check. Throw in some half-truths (depending on what you think of by “nearly every European country”) about the effectiveness of the Kyoto Protocol and some snide remarks about chilly it is (in winter), and you’ve got yourself a hit job.
Finally, we come to Townhall.com, which ran a piece from Jilian Bandes.
Cap-and-Trade’s Regressive Tax
To her credit, Ms. Bandes does point out the counter-claims of offsets to the assumed increases in energy costs. But she dismisses them as vague possibilities, and did you notice that instead of quoting the Obama proposal directly, she cited statements from Greenpeace, the right wing’s favorite environmental extremists? Then she follows with a rebuttal from the Heartland Institute (in what has to be the first recorded instance of the HI being referred to as an “environmental organization”), which uses cherry-picked (if not totally false) data to claim that cap-and-trade doesn’t work.
The last word in the Bandes piece goes to Rep. Joe Pitts of Pennsylvania. A hard-core conservative from a coal state who never saw a pro-fossil fuel bill he didn’t like is against cap-and-trade. Who’d have thought?
On a final note, who else noticed that Jilian Bandes slams the plan for putting the burden on the backs of the poor, while Mr. Tyrrell of the Spectator slams it as evidence of the president’s “socialism”?
Maybe we should pull back and just let them debate each other.
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Comment by Jonathan Biviano
Marriage Bits
Two things this acknowledges about it:
1) That this will push up energy costs significantly.
2) That it is socialist: It redistributes money from those who have to those who haven't. It's another tax on the "rich" to give to the poor.
Comment by NoaIzumi
Fine Politics
Anime Bottle
1. It will raise energy prices, but if the cap-and-trade system works, the increase will be short-term, and go down as energy use goes down (due to increased efficiency) and new sources of energy become more cost-effective.
2. a. If no redistribution took place, then it would effectively be a regressive tax.
b. Since when is a progressive tax system socialist?