Blame the Political Institutions, Not Political Will for Climate Action Problems
European leaders are certainly right to be disturbed by the apparently poor legislative prospects for cap and trade in the United States. And of course nobody in the world wants to move forward without American leadership.
But to blame the problem on a lack of “political will” strikes me as quite misleading. The House of Representatives has, after all, passed a pretty ambitious climate change bill with the support of the President of the United States. The difference between the U.S. and Europe in this regard isn’t fundamentally that we lack the will, it’s that the same amount of will gets more done in Europe than it does in the United States where you nowadays need 60 votes in an unrepresentative and largely ineffectual but hyper-empowered upper house of the legislature in order to pass bills. Where will does come into play is that the leadership of the Democratic Party does seem extremely reluctant to use the tools at their disposal—reconciliation and the “nuclear option”—to lower some of these hurdles. But the fact remains that Barack Obama and co. face an objectively different challenge from their colleagues operating in parliamentary systems.
In Germany, even right-of-center parties acknowledge the reality of climate change. They worry that if they didn’t, they would lose elections. Which is exactly what happened to the right-of-center party in the US. But in Germany if you lose the election, then the governing coalition that beat you gets to enact its agenda. It doesn’t work like that in America.
58 Responses to “Blame the Political Institutions, Not Political Will for Climate Action Problems”
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September 21st, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Well, surely you’re not saying that Obama and the Democrats have made a full-court press to the public on this issue. And yes, they’re consumed by health care reform, and maybe both can’t be done simultaneously. But the prioritization — which I’m not taking issue with — is clearly within their control. For all of its problems, and they are myriad, let’s not pretend like our system is so fucked up that there’s just nothing that the party in control of the White House and substantial majorities in both houses of Congress can do.
September 21st, 2009 at 3:36 pm
This is just denial of the true nature of the democratic party.
With the creation of the DLC, democratic party leaders made a conscious decision to accomodate the desires of big money contributors. That meant that a political party representative of the common people disappeared from the earth.
September 21st, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Maybe Matthew can explain what structure in the US Senate explains why Obama was defending the BAUCUS BILL on Sunday Morning Talk Shows — instead of the Bill from the Senate HELP Committee. HELP has jurisdiction because it deals with..you know..HEALTH.
So why is that CAP Advert on the right margin of this page not saying “Obama Defends HELP Bill”???
September 21st, 2009 at 3:47 pm
We all remember what a stone WALL Senate Democrats formed in blocking Bush from passing a $2 Trillion tax cut for the Rich, don’t we.
And we gazed on in awe as Senate Democrats stopped Bush’s headlong rush into an unnecessary war that would have killed 4500+ Americans, didn’t we?
Seems to me Matthew is running out of excuses.
September 21st, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Sadly, I doubt the GOP’s denial of Global Warming played any role in costing them the election in 2009. I doubt the Germans think that either.
September 21st, 2009 at 3:49 pm
For some reason, I don’t recall Socrates trying to rationalize the corrupt acts of the Athenian government.
But then we all know what happened to Socrates, don’t we?
Socrates was a military vet –but he didn’t have a healthcare plan, either.
September 21st, 2009 at 3:50 pm
“in Germany if you lose the election, then the governing coalition that beat you gets to enact its agenda”.
Germany looks set to usher in another grand coalition of the two main parties. Disregarding the actual merits of the policies enacted since the current CDU-CSU/SPD coalition began in 2005, it’d be hard to argue that either major party has been able to “enact its agenda”.
So I’m just trying to say that it’s not always so cut-and-dry with parliamentary systems. Each system has its merits and issues (the issues of the Senate being known and intended since day one–Washington calling it the saucer to the House’s teacup, etc.).
September 21st, 2009 at 3:53 pm
56% of Americans won’t pay a cent to cure alleged climate change. 21% might agree to pay $100 a year. That leaves 23% of the population as hysterics. And that’s with the almost pure GW hysterical story playing in the mainstream (pro bank-bailout) media for at least a decade.
September 21st, 2009 at 4:00 pm
Yes, the senate is an egregiously unrepresentative body where 5 recalcitrants can ruin the entire world. Knowing this and not fixing it implies that the US lacks the political will to deal with the problem. If you can’t go “nuclear” to provide a solution to the world’s most important and urgent issue, what else is it, but cowardice and lack of political will? If a majority of senators cannot bring themselves to voluntarily reduce their power a teensy weensy bit in order to work in a democratic fashion, it is lack of political will.
These institutions were not handed down from God, they are “designed” and can be changed any time there is political will to change them.
September 21st, 2009 at 4:03 pm
The House of Representatives has, after all, passed a pretty ambitious climate change bill with the support of the President of the United States.
The fact that the climate bill that passed the house is considered “pretty ambitious” by people who actually purport to be concerned with climate change says it all.
If a bill like this were enacted 15-20 years ago it might have amounted to a modestly good start. Enacting the bill passed by the House (which isn’t going to happen) is too little too late.
September 21st, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Cap & Trade advocates claim its a lack of ‘political will’ that is the main stumbling block to enacting this idiotic legislation – as opposed to the actual merits (or lack there-of) of the bill.
I don’t recall any grand debate on the merits of Cap & Trade. Did I miss something? I see lefty liberals wanting to ram this through without any debate on the impacts or benefits. I’ve seen some highly questionable bar graphs claiming it won’t hurt the economy at all – as if a massive tax increase on industry and manufacturing won’t hurt said industries. But an honest debate? No.
If Europe is ‘disturbed’ that the US isn’t willing to commit economic suicide, let them be disturbed. If every idea that came out of Europe was a good one for America, we’d have tried Nazism and Communism.
September 21st, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Where will does come into play is that the leadership of the Democratic Party does seem extremely reluctant to use the tools at their disposal—reconciliation and the “nuclear option”—to lower some of these hurdles.
Those aren’t tools the leadership of the Democratic Party can use at will either. Instead, they need at least 50 Senators willing to go along. And the 50th Senator is thinking about all the times they might be the 51st to 60th Senator, or sometimes in the minority, and thinking maybe that ain’t such a hot idea.
September 21st, 2009 at 4:12 pm
I think it’s pretty obvious that it’s both a lack of political will and the institution of the Senate, no? If we had either a Westminster-style or Germany-style system, then the House bill would be law. In fact, something similar to the House bill would have been law in 2007. Also, if Democrats had the political will to make the Senate as majoritarian as the Senate can be, then a somewhat weaker version of the House bill would be law. What also matters is, apropos on the recent post on Rockefeller’s take on Snowe is that the Repubs have a great deal more will to pull Snowe (and other would-be moderate Senate Repubs) significantly to the right of what I’d wager would be her heart-of-hearts and certainly to the right of her constituents. And of course, if America as a socio-polity were more like the rest of the developed world, then even with the institution of the Senate, the weak will of the Dems, and the strong will of the Repubs, there would only be 25 instead of 40 Republican Senators, and we’d get a House-style (or stronger) climate bill passed. So a number of factors are responsible for American foot-dragging on climate change.
September 21st, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Jason L,
If all those twits didn’t vote for Nader in 2000, we’d have had climate change legislation since 2001.
But that’s the curse of the left isn’t it? They won’t accept anything but an idealized fantasy world which will never be real. Because the second you compromise towards, you know, actually getting something done – you’re a sellout. To hell with the left.
September 21st, 2009 at 4:24 pm
The US Congress HAS in fact passed a bill to regulate greenhouse gasses. It’s call the Clean Air Act. And the Supreme Court has held that the Obama Administration is REQUIRED to regulate greenhouse gasses under that law.
So the idea that the political institutions are inhibiting the government’s regulation of greenhouse gasses is ludicrous. All that is needed is the Obama Administration’s will.
September 21st, 2009 at 4:27 pm
working pre emitted sun reductions colleagues
September 21st, 2009 at 4:29 pm
Cap and Trade is tremendously unpopular in the US. It really is as simple as that. I know Matt loves to harp on the myriad deficiencies of an American style republic, but this time he is too eager to pull out that trusty hammer.
From a Zogby poll in March:
If there is a newer poll that contradicts this, I’m open to changing my mind.
September 21st, 2009 at 4:31 pm
I blame Americans. Only in America does ignorance rule. Moronic conservatives still think that cap and trade is a disaster. It as been 20 years since the ACID rain cap and trade program succeeded and the results showed conservatives to be full of shit and ignorance like always. How can you be so damn dumb that you think cap and trade will end the world when we have had a cap and trade system for 20 years and nothing went wrong with it?
September 21st, 2009 at 4:40 pm
heedless: Speaking as someone who’s designed a few public opinion polls, I can tell you that the Zogby poll you’re quoting was probably designed to elicit the response it got.
September 21st, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Oopsie.
It appears that yet another line by the denialists – “ China and India will never make meaningful cuts in their carbon emissions, so it’s useless for us to do anything – has turned out to be about at reality-based and prescient as…well…pretty much everything else they’ve ever told us about global warming.
September 21st, 2009 at 4:50 pm
LOL. Quick, what does Rasmussen say?
September 21st, 2009 at 4:50 pm
arbitrista,
My impression (again, I stand ready to be corrected) is that the information on costs in the Zogby poll is pretty accurate. Given that, and the lack of inflammatory language, I’m not sure what suggests to you that the poll results are slanted.
September 21st, 2009 at 5:00 pm
And that’s with the almost pure GW hysterical story playing in the mainstream (pro bank-bailout) media for at least a decade.
Shorter Bobbis: Zombie Mises will return from Xenu and chill the atmosphere with his breath.
Silly cult.
September 21st, 2009 at 5:09 pm
Hmm…
Another Zogby poll from August 11:
As an aside, a majority of respondents thought that the bill would create jobs, which is pretty clearly false. Let’s hear it for the informed voter I guess…
Still, clear majority in favor.
So I withdraw my first post – I haven’t the numbers to support it.
September 21st, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Bob Roddis would come out again “alleged germ theory” if we lived in a world where people just threw their trash into the streets. “69% of Americans refuse to pay for trash disposal, see biology as communist conspiracy against freedom.”
September 21st, 2009 at 5:56 pm
And the Supreme Court has held that the Obama Administration is REQUIRED to regulate greenhouse gasses under that law.
Al, fyi it’s greenhouse gases. Use Gasses when referring to multiple Gass family members.
September 21st, 2009 at 6:17 pm
“It appears that yet another line by the denialists – “ China and India will never make meaningful cuts in their carbon emissions, so it’s useless for us to do anything – has turned out to be about at reality-based and prescient as…well…pretty much everything else they’ve ever told us about global warming.”
Fair enough,. At the same time, the line by the other side was that nobody anywhere would make meaningful cuts unless we do first.
We didn’t first. They cut anyway. So the next time someone says, “Europe will never, ever make meaningful cuts unless we do something first, even if it’s ineffective,” we can bust out the “reality based” jibe.
What’s worse, it’s not really even a jobe. It’s the whole basis of the argument. Seems everywhere you turn, you see someone admitting that the changes, while hugely expensive, won’t do much. The response is that Americans just need to “lead.”
Well, it seems that’s not true.
September 21st, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Re: If all those twits didn’t vote for Nader in 2000, we’d have had climate change legislation since 2001.
Al Gore would likely have been president but he would have faced a GOP House and a divided or slightly GOP-dominated Senate. What makes you think he would have gotten climate change legislation out of such a Congress?
September 21st, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Resources for the Future (RFF) has released a primer on climate mitigation policies. Two of the papers’ authors now work for the Obama administration.
Designing Climate Mitigation Policy
by Joseph E. Aldy, Alan J. Krupnick, Richard G. Newell, Ian W.H. Parry, and William A. Pizer
Page 5:
September 21st, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Al Gore would likely have been president but he would have faced a GOP House and a divided or slightly GOP-dominated Senate. What makes you think he would have gotten climate change legislation out of such a Congress?
A) He would have tried, which is infinitely more than what the Bush administration attempted.
B) He could have made a powerful argument indeed in the aftermath of 9/11 (assuming his administration didn’t stop the attacks) that moving our economy away from carbon-based fuels was in the national interest.
I think we all agree that the abysmally poor policy choices and general governing philosophy of the Bush years left the country poorly prepared for today’s challenges. But what always got me — even before the financial crisis hit — was his utter squandering of the national security emergency of 2001. I don’t mean to seem crass and suggest one should hope for widespread death and destruction as a means to effect domestic policy reforms. But if such a national security challenge should appear, it will often cast the country’s domestic shortcomings in sharp relief. And the political will to do something about them often materializes. Bottom line, American political leadership should have been concerned with strengthening the country after 911. Instead they set about weakening it.
To put it another way, Americans were hungering for a president to ask them to sacrifice for the national good in the dark days after September 11, 2001. I believe a rational global warming and energy policy could have gotten through Congress. Instead what we got were tax cuts, gas guzzlers, dodgy mortgages, and a president begging us to go shopping.
September 21st, 2009 at 6:48 pm
In the late Seventies, the major scientific issue was Global Cooling, we were threatened with a climate disaster due to gases causing the atmosphere to cool. Now the faith-based program is Global Warming. It is NOTHING but a power grab by politicians aided by mass media to scare us into stupid, thoughtless reactions.
Wait about 5 years for the next Big Problem solvable only by Big Government. Grow the F Up, already.
September 21st, 2009 at 7:04 pm
Well, we DID elect a president who ran on taking strong action to reduce carbon emissions, and we DID pass a stimulus bill that contained significant investments intended to move us towards that end, and we DO have a cap-and-trade bill in Congress.
Perhaps “Go first” was an overstatement, and all we needed to do was demonstrate our intent. Still…this didn’t happen under Bush.
September 21st, 2009 at 7:06 pm
I agree with some of what Mike K says. I don’t deny the existence of global warming but I am adamantly, 1000% opposed to cap & trade – as obvious and thinly veiled a scam as I’ve ever seen. Bob Roddis above sites a study saying this idea will cost the economy 1.5 – 5% loss of GDP per year for decades. I think that’s generous to Cap & Trade supporters. Why are liberals so trusting of government? I don’t get it. It’s like the last eight incompetent years taught no one anything.
Cap & Trade is a scam and pushing it would be a disaster both for the Democratic Party and any meaningful attempt to reduce our country’s dependency on fossil fuels.
September 21st, 2009 at 7:17 pm
mike k, did you drop out of primary school? Your talking point is older than Taipei 101. Did Steven Milloy eat your brain, or are you just behind the times?
September 21st, 2009 at 7:17 pm
Why are liberals so trusting of government? I don’t get it. It’s like the last eight incompetent years taught no one anything.
No, it taught us not vote Republican. The eight years prior to that were really quite successful. We have to have a government at the end of the day. We might as well have one that works well, and crafts and implements desirable policies. Citing the Bush administration as proof that government in general is “incompetent” is just stupid concern trolling. But you knew that.
September 21st, 2009 at 7:30 pm
Dear Editor,
As a lifelong member of the Democrat Party, I’m concerned that Barack HUSSEIN Obama will not be as a strong a candidate against war hero John McCain as the She-beast, Hitlery…
September 21st, 2009 at 7:48 pm
Jasper,
Keep pushing Cap & Trade and you’ll have Republican controlled government in no time. To address your argument, Cap & Trade will vastly increase government resources – at least until a large sector of the economy evaporates – but I fail to see how more money leads to better government.
Joe From Lowell,
I don’t get your argument at all. Skepticism that passing a massive tax increase that affects the most vulnerable sectors of our economy (manufacturing, farming and industry) and having blind, unquestioning faith that this will magically reverse global warming is not the same as doubts about Obama’s chances against John McCain in the 2008 election.
No, I’d say it’s more like doubting that invading Iraq in 2003 would lead to catching Osama bin Laden, making Muslims around the world love us and curing cancer.
September 21st, 2009 at 8:34 pm
So, N, what do you think should be done about global warming? Because eventually doing nothing will cost us a lot more than 1.5% GDP per year. And we can recover growth later, but we have no way of reversing most of the damage from climate change.
September 21st, 2009 at 8:49 pm
Realist,
Good question and I’d be a liar if I said I know. One step is to stop pretending we’re going to ’stop’ global warming. It’s a fantasy to pretend the trends will start reversing any time in the next twenty years even with concerted effort from the primary polluting nations. Likely, the best we can do is deal with the damage caused by a warmer planet.
Second, this needs to have a different approach so that serious minded conservatives and – more importantly – moderates can get on board. Maybe move the argument more towards a reduction of dependence on fossil fuels which any fool knows is in finite supply and even right wingers can acknowledge does us no favors visa vis the middle east, Iraq/Iran etc – as opposed to talking about a ‘carbon footprint’ which is a silly barometer anyway. Just because you outsource your carbon production (think of all the crap in a Prius) doesn’t mean you’re a guiltless saint.
Third, the economy has to get back on track before we can even start talking about climate change initiatives that cost anything more than lip service. First things first. This is going to take time, its going to require compromise and an adjustment of expectations. The US actually has it easy. Countries like Bangladesh are going to suffer far worse than us.
Cap & Trade will do nothing more than waste valuable time, resources and attention spans. Kill this loser of a bill which will never pass anyway, and lets move onto something that might actually do some good.
September 21st, 2009 at 9:11 pm
Sanford Levinson from UT-Austin is visiting Harvard this year, teaching “The Constitution and the American Political System”. The point: the Senate sure is fucked up, and I come from one of the smallest states.
September 21st, 2009 at 9:13 pm
Mike K. is a paid political operative.
September 21st, 2009 at 10:33 pm
Of course those that rely on alternative fuel sources necessarily being cheaper than fossil fuels when you get to ignore the hidden costs of fossil fuels aren’t being conservative at all. It’s almost as radical a position as you can take on the matter. You’re basically the denialist’s lazy cousin.
Do you favor a carbon tax and import tariffs contingent on carbon emission reductions to make China play ball? No, that would harm the economy and make puppies cry. Plus the developing world will suffer, and that should make you feel badly, because everyone knows they’ll be doing just great if warming hinders the rice crop. Serious concerns from serious people, for sure.
I don’t like cap and trade either, but it’s a byproduct of years of deriding experts and conflating them with ecoterrorists and communists, making anything better politically impossible. So if you can get the right-wing to accept that climatology isn’t a fictional discipline, accept that dealing with fossil fuels will require taxing them in some manner, and convince them to, for the first time in decades, actually work to solve real problems instead of dragging their heels, then let us know. Otherwise what we have to work with is the current turd sandwich. Which if things continue to progress in the Senate as they have with health care, pretty much means that the U.S. will continue to do nothing about carbon emissions and putting the world on track for those rosy outcomes in the IPCC reports.
September 21st, 2009 at 10:46 pm
As a paleoclmatologist, let me again state the facts: While the hypothesis that human-made carbon dioxide emission will raise global temperature is an interesting one, the preponderance of evidence is that it is false.
September 21st, 2009 at 10:57 pm
Thanks for clearing that up for us, Steve. We sure dodged a bullet on that one.
September 21st, 2009 at 11:07 pm
N, the whole point of cap-and-trade is to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. That’s exactly what it will do–price fossil fuels more in accordance with their true cost (i.e., the cost including externalities) such that other sources of energy are allowed fair competition. How else are you going to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels?
I agree we can’t stop global warming–it’s already started. But the more greenhouse gasses we emit, the more damage there is. So it’s really not an argument for inaction.
September 22nd, 2009 at 12:07 am
@43: bwahahahahahaha!
“Paleoclmatologist” indeed.
September 22nd, 2009 at 12:54 am
Cap & Trade will never pass. It’s ridiculous to even debate it’s merits, assuming it has any.
Fossil fuels are already taxed – Cap & Trade is a proposed tax on ‘carbon emissions’ – essentially a double tax out the back end that penalizes manufacturers, farmers and heavy industry while favoring lawyers, accountants and government beaurocrats. Sorry to be simplistic, but that’s how it will be portrayed and that’s basically what it is.
If you’re savvy and well positioned, you can make a quick killing as a ‘carbon credit trader’. Mike Huckabee called this a modern equivalent of selling indulgences. Regardless of your views on Mr. Huckabee, that’s a fair description.
Basically, cap & trade would cause unknown but substantial economic upheaval, create a huge amount of money for our government to waste (at least temporarily), make some ENRON type energy traders rich – and not do one thing whatsoever to reduce carbon emissions for a variety of reasons not addressed by this crumby bill.
And the whole time we even discuss this, there’s a better chance of this (technically fillibuster proof) Democratic majority in congress naming Glen Beck president for life than there is in them passing Cap & Trade.
I am very aware of the reality of global arming and I agree something substantive has to be done. I agree lifestyles need to change and our basic economic model will inevitably have to change. I just smell a big stinking rat with regards to cap & trade. Based on opinion polls, I’d say most people when they understand the bill and what it does, they oppose it too.
September 22nd, 2009 at 1:13 am
N, want to bet? I think cap-and-trade has a very good chance of passing.
I’m not sure why you’re talking about indulgences–perhaps you’re confusing voluntary purchases of carbon offsets with cap-and-trade? The main purpose of cap-and-trade is direct reduction of use, not offset.
You seem to agree that cap-and-trade is a tax on ghg emissions, but you don’t think it will reduce emissions any. Do you think, then, that the law of demand is false; i.e., that increased prices doesn’t lead to reduced demand?
September 22nd, 2009 at 2:08 am
You don’t favor doing anything if you oppose imposing some mechanism that prices fossil fuels commiserate with the costs of the negative externalities that burning them impose. That means farmers, manufacturers, you, me, and everyone else must be made to price energy and everything we do that makes use of it in an honest fashion, rather than to continue pretending that the market rates are presently functioning as effective signals. There is already an account deficit between what we have paid for our energy and what hidden costs we’ve foisted upon ourselves and our descendants. The gasoline tax you pay goes to road maintenance and has nothing to do with the burdens we put on the availability of fresh water, the disruptions we impose upon our agricultural capacity, the costs to our fish stocks that acidification of the oceans present, and so on.
Emissions trading is one scheme to use market mechanisms to perform price discovery while definitively lowering emissions, and its appeal is that it takes a common good prone to the tragedy of the commons and turns it into a private good. Your insistence that Mike Huckabee’s comparison to indulgences is apt, is quite frankly, ridiculous. Indulgences don’t do anything, they didn’t have any accounting, and there wasn’t a proper market for them. If you want an adult comparison, it’s like the Acid Rain provision of the Clean Air Act, not some practice of superstitious scheming. Maybe consulting someone whose only formal education is in religion on such economic matters is not the wisest course of action.
September 22nd, 2009 at 9:21 am
The House of Representatives has, after all, passed a pretty ambitious climate change bill
You’ve got to be shitting me. Are you even aware of what’s in the House bill? It gives away 85% of carbon credits, strips the EPA of its ability to regulate agribusiness, and creates a loophole that allows polluters to meet their emission standards not by actually reducing emissions, but by buying carbon offsets – which effectively renders the entire cap and trade framework useless. A number of environmentalists and climate experts, including James Hansen, have argued that it would be better to let Waxman-Markey die than to see it become law at this point. The problem isn’t just the Senate. The problem is that Democrats care more about pleasing their corporate sponsors than they do about avoiding catastrophic climate change.
September 22nd, 2009 at 11:02 am
M,
I’m a little tired of this championing of the great acid rain cap and trade system and holding it up as a wonderful success. The American steel industry was failing at the time those caps were enacted. Basically you’re giving the acid rain cap and trade credit for a decline in sulfur emissions that was happening anyway because the once great American steel industry was closing it’s doors.
Unless you’re suggesting a carbon cap and trade system will wipe out America’s manufacturing and farming sector, I fail to see how ‘pricing fossil fuels honestly’ does anything more than create a giant wad of money for the government to waste and become addicted to.
And at the end of the day, you’re simply favoring one group of people (accountants, lawyers, government bureaucrats) over another (farmers, manufacturers) and you haven’t reduced carbon emissions by a fig. All you’re doing is wasting time, pissing people off and making the vast majority of Americans hostile to environmental policies.
September 22nd, 2009 at 12:44 pm
I fail to see how ‘pricing fossil fuels honestly’ does anything more than create a giant wad of money for the government to waste and become addicted to.
That’s because you’re a stupid climate change denialist.
If you’re savvy and well positioned, you can make a quick killing as a ‘carbon credit trader’. Mike Huckabee called this a modern equivalent of selling indulgences.
Oh great. Let’s fortify our absurd “arguments” with a centuries old anti–Catholic trope.
Basically, cap & trade would cause unknown but substantial economic upheaval, create a huge amount of money for our government to waste
N, thanks to the deplorable state of the economy Bush left us with, the US government is facing structural deficits approaching $1 trillion annually for a long, long time, absent pretty substantial tax increases. Even if climate change were a complete hoax, taxing carbon would be a plausible way to reduce the deficit. Most Americans don’t regard money spent on children’s healthcare, or national parks, or cancer research, or anti-terrorism efforts, or keeping old people out of poverty to be “wasted.”
September 22nd, 2009 at 1:33 pm
I love it. “unknown but substantial”. Classic.
A great set of arguments you have N. We should attack global warming with political platitudes.
The real solution all along was to change our lifestyles and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, not to implement policy to achieve those goals!
September 22nd, 2009 at 2:09 pm
I wasn’t championing anything, walnut-brain. I was giving you something to compare it to that wasn’t completely retarded. If you prefer, you can compare it to taking a common good (land) dividing it up with deeds, and then letting people buy and sell deeds to land. Oh, the similarities to indulgences are astounding!
I bet the success of Montreal Protocol is just a big coincidence, too.
Probably because you’re a clueless wanker. Since the government actually gives away the bulk of the credits under the currently proposed bill, it doesn’t make squat from it. Which is actually one of the reasons I think it’s a terrible proposal, since the money from selling the credits should be earmarked for alternative energy research and development.
If your business isn’t profitable without you being able to throw your trash through the your neighboring businesses’ windows, you aren’t profitable. Cry me a river, looter.
That’s precisely what the gradual reduction in caps on emissions do. So in total you don’t actually have any legitimate gripe with either emissions trading in general, or the particular cap and trade bill that will be the kernel for future legislation. Just a bunch of concern-trolling from an intellectually-bankrupt inactivist that thinks everything will happen for freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
September 22nd, 2009 at 5:27 pm
Jasper,
It;’s the government’s responsibility to balance its budget. That one trillion plus deficit is a disgrace of bad management and incompetence – not an excuse to go strip mining the taxpayers. BTW – you might want to read up on your history. Indulgences were many things but calling them an ‘anti-catholic trope’ is the dumbest thing I’ve heard all day.
Kenny B,
Even the conservative estimates put the cap and trade bill’s price tag at about $1,700 per taxpayer with farmers and manufacturers – already struggling to survive – paying the lions share. Don’t pretend this won’t put a lot of people out of work and shrink the very tax base this piece of crap legislation is trying fleece. I’m being generous when I say it will cause unknown but substantial upheaval. Basically, cap & trade will ass-rape the American economy.
M,
First off, I thought it was obvious but I’ll just go ahead and say it. Farmers grow food so that all the fat asses in cities and college towns can eat. It makes sense to me at least to try to, I don’t know, maybe not put farmers out of business. Man cannot subsist on self righteousness alone.
Funny, I always thought Democrats were the party of the working class. That’s why I’ve always been proud to be a Democrat – because they cared about such people. Cap & Trade essentially declares war on farmers and manufacturers, will cause a massive wave of layoffs – and I repeat – does not one goddamn thing to reduce carbon emissions. Some folks go bankrupt so that some other, already rich folks, can get a lot richer.
And I further repeat, just because you export your pollution – which cqap and trade will cause the US to do – doesn’t make you a saint. Maybe you drive a Prius, maybe you have solar panels in your house. Maybe your technically ‘carbon neutral’ – but something had to burn to make all that stuff. Just because it happened in a foreign land doesn’t make you blameless. Nobody in this country is carbon neutral.
September 22nd, 2009 at 6:25 pm
N, you have absolutely no idea what you’re yammering about. For all of your inane working-class populist drivel, where the viability of U.S. agriculture depends solely on their continued theft of others’ welfare, despite it already being a ward of the state with no signs of that ever changing, you seem rather unconcerned with anyone’s actual welfare. If your business (say a manufacturing plant) cannot be competitive without dumping your problems on other people, then it shouldn’t exist; it’s already a failure. Since any system to reduce carbon emissions will inevitably require global cooperation, the carrot and stick come out. You impose tariffs according to compliance with carbon emission reduction plans to neutralize any competitive advantage to defecting from global carbon emission reductions. You engage in the liberal dissemination of carbon-reduction research efforts funded by the government, instead of giving the fruits to some company to monopolize, so that developing nations can modernize with a lower footprint. What you propose, through an insistence that nothing works because it hurts the poor farmers and manufacturing sector, is myopic, unbounded subsidies without any controls or accounting, paid in large part by South Americans, Asians, and Africans without their consent (for all your bleating about ‘the rich’).
Personally I don’t care why you’re a Democrat. My only interest in Democrats is that they are, on average, more interested in the real world than the Republicans. Not so much you, though, since you seem to prefer suffering the tragedy of the commons. Now go find someone else to defecate on the Prius and ‘fatasses in cities’ (who could stand to eat a lot less, it sounds). I don’t deal in self-righteousness and I could give two rotten eggs what you drive. Stop getting your remedial education from Mike Huckabee.
September 22nd, 2009 at 8:43 pm
keep pushing on this issue; you know it’s important. now you’re going to have to repeat yourself (although try to keep us from figuring out that you’re really saying the same thing over and over) until we build momentum to change them.
September 22nd, 2009 at 9:07 pm
It;’s the government’s responsibility to balance its budget. That one trillion plus deficit is a disgrace of bad management and incompetence – not an excuse to go strip mining the taxpayers.
Indeed, and the bad management and incompetence you’re referring to belong to the Bush administration. In any event I do agree with you that it is the responsibility of the government to begin moving towards a balanced budget (once the economy is strong enough — and that could be several years or more). And that means raising taxes. There’s no feasible means of moving toward balance solely via cuts, and in any event I think the federal government’s share of GDP needs to rise, given the presence of long-neglected national priorities.
Indulgences were many things but calling them an ‘anti-catholic trope’ is the dumbest thing I’ve heard all day.
You might want to read up on the Huckster’s relationship with the the Popish Religion before you make that claim again.