RSS Feed MenuToday the Obama administration let loose two big exploratory ideas in a first (but surely not the last!) nervous attempt to wring more revenues out of a distressed economy.
Idea 1: Use the revenues generated by cap and trade to pay for health care tax credits for lower-income people.
Idea 2: Disallow about 25% of itemized deductions for upper income taxpayers.
What do these ideas have in common?
First, they are very sneaky.
Idea 1 for example is being labeled an attempt to shift tax collection from individuals to corporations. It’s nothing of the kind! Taxes on carbon emissions do not fall on “corporations.” They fall on users of electricity.
Idea 2 amounts to a concealed attempt to push the top rate of tax past the 39.6% that prevailed in the 1990s. It’s a violation of Obama’s campaign promise to return to Clinton rates, but no higher.
Second, they are likely to prove ineffective.
Idea 1 only generates revenue if American utilities emit more carbon in future years than they have done in past years – in other words, if cap and trade fails to produce any new efficiencies. That seems unlikely.
Idea 2 rolls back the home mortgage deduction and the state and local property tax deduction for high-income taxpayers. It will create further incentives for upper-income people to migrate from high-tax, high-cost states like California to states with lower taxes and cheaper housing, like Texas.
Third, in an attempt to raise taxes without acknowledging the fact, both ideas introduce costly new complexity into American economic life. Cap and trade is a worse idea than a carbon tax. Less lucrative too. The only merit of cap and trade is that it enables the government to collect revenue without admitting that a new tax has been imposed. Likewise, the roll back of deductions empowers accountants and tax-shelter specialists – creating costs to society likely to dwarf the revenues collected, again only in order to enable the government to deny that it has raised tax rates.
I’ve been traveling the country promoting my new book on politics, Comeback.
More and more though I’m wondering if the book most relevant to the present moment is not my history of the 1970s …. We certainly seem to be heading back that way!
jlloyd // Feb 26, 2009 at 12:33 pm
JJWF
Per Richard Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Senate testimony from 2001:
* doubling CO2 alone will only lead to about a 2F increase in global mean temperature. Predictions of greater warming due to doubling CO2 are based on positive feedbacks from poorly handled water vapor and clouds (the atmospheres main greenhouse
substances) in current computer models. Such positive feedbacks have neither empirical nor theoretical foundations.
* that the most important energy source for extratropical storms is the temperature difference between the tropics and the poles which is predicted by computer models to
decrease with global warming. This also implies reduced temperature variation associated with weather since such variations result from air moving from one latitude to
another. Consistent with this, even the IPCC olicymakers Summary notes that no significant trends have been identified in tropical or extratropical storm intensity and
frequence.
* that warming is likely to be concentrated in winters and at night. This is an empirical result based on data from the past century. It represents what is on the whole a beneficial pattern.
* that temperature increases observed thus far are less than what models have suggested should have occurred even if they were totally due to increasing greenhouse emissions. The invocation of very uncertain (and unmeasured) aerosol effects is frequently used to
disguise this. Such an invocation makes it impossible to check models. Rather, one is reduced to the claim that it is possible that models are correct.
* that claims that man has contributed any of the observed warming (ie attribution) are based on the assumption that models correctly predict natural variability. Such claims,therefore, do not constitute independent verifications of models. Note that natural
variability does not require any external forcing natural or anthropogenic.
* that large computer climate models are unable to even simulate major features of pastclimate such as the 100 thousand year cycles of ice ages that have dominated climate for the past 700 thousand years, and the very warm climates of the Miocene, Eocene, and Cretaceous. Neither do they do well at accounting for shorter period and less dramaticphenomena like El Nios, quasi-biennial oscillations, or intraseasonal oscillations all of
which are well documented in the data.
* that major past climate changes were either uncorrelated with changes in CO2 or were
characterized by temperature changes which preceded changes in CO2 by 100’s to thousands of years.
* that increases in temperature on the order of 1F are not catastrophic and may be beneficial.
I’ll believe a PHD from MIT over you
JJWFromME // Feb 26, 2009 at 12:45 pm
2001 science from Richard Lindzen, unfortunately, does not a consensus make. Check out this article with its 91 references:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change
Lindzen, by the way, is one of the few usual suspects on these matters:
http://articles.latimes.com/2006/jul/24/opinion/oe-oreskes24
And Lindzen served on the board that produced a Bush-administration-commissioned NAS report stating: ”Greenhouse gases are accumulating in earth’s atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise. Temperatures are, in fact, rising.”
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B05E6D91E3FF934A35755C0A9679C8B63
jlloyd // Feb 26, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Temperatures are always either going to be rising or falling. And what does “consensus” have to do with science? Science is based on experiment and reproducable results. Some of the greatest scientists in history were ones who challenged the so-called consensus. My points are that temperature increase, or decreases are always happening, and are not uniformly bad or even catastrophic (although global cooling would seem to be more dangerous. Having a mile-high glacier sitting on top of what is now Chicago as was the case previously would be a significant problem). All of the predictions of doom are based on unverified or unverifiable models. And finally, the earth has been both a lot warmer and cooler in its history before man even appeared on the scene. Clearly, this normal temperature variation was not caused by man, but by other mechanisms
JJWFromME // Feb 26, 2009 at 1:16 pm
“All of the predictions of doom are based on unverified or unverifiable models.” Since this shows that you didn’t even bother to read the stuff I posted or linked to here, this will be my last comment. A lot of the science wasn’t done using models (see below). No one is predicting doom will happen. There is a *chance* bad things will happen. So the rational thing to do, if we’re worth our salt to future generations, is buy insurance. Temperatures rise, and that doesn’t necessarily mean an anthropogenic cause, but you can detect the “signal”, in various ways, that CO2 is causing the warming, and then you know humans are contributing. This, in fact, has been done (see my link below). You might have heard other arguments about why it’s not happening. There are only a limited number of these and just about all of them are cataloged here:
http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2008/07/how_to_talk_to_a_sceptic.php#Stages of Denial
But again, since you’re probably not bothering to read what I link to here, this is probably a wasted effort.
jlloyd // Feb 26, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Look, we can argue all day about “the science” There have been several well-publicized examples of what would be normal scientific measurments being falsified, but even so, I never said the earth isn’t getting warmer (although in the last few years it seems to be getting cooler). I don’t even disagree with buying insurance, but that is predicated on knowing the cost of the premium versus the potential loss. There are many people who think what is being proposed in regards to Kyoto, Kyoto II, cap and trade, etc., is going to cost a lot more that any “potential” benefit. CO2 is a relativelty minor greenhouse gas (compared to methane, water vapor etc.) I suppose water is now going to be classified as a pollutant too, so it can be taxed. I am just stating that I can’t see any real reason to just “do something” about global warming just for the sake of doing something, because ther is a “chance” that it might be bad. There is a chance that a comet might hit the earth too, but is that a reason to completely reorder human civilization and economies? We go through “climate change every year (i.e. the four season), and we seem to adapt quite well to it (except for drivers in DC when it snows). People live all over the planet in many differnt climates, and generally thrive. I just think the “solution” to this “problem” which, as you point out a “chance” is just another power grab by the elites and leftists.
debs // Feb 26, 2009 at 1:36 pm
There are several inaccuracies in my friend David’s post regarding the cap and trade and what it will fund. Ezra Klein addresses them here:
http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=02&year=2009&base_name=david_frum_and_cap_and_trade
But the most problematic argument David makes is asserting that eliminating some tax *deductions* is an underhanded way to “push the top rate past 39.6%….” This makes no sense at all. The rate is what the rate is, and the budget doesn’t address the rate. Itemized deduction enable taxpayers to pay *less* then the marginal tax rate–something I thought conservatives opposed. Eliminating deductions don’t increase the rate–it only allows the government to obtain payments closer to the % that the rate stipulates. And there’s nothing at all “sneaky” about this. It’s rather prominently featured, isn’t it, on the front page of the New York Times, in fact? So prominently that David can, in turn, prominently attack it right here on his blog, albeit inaccurately.
gblittle // Feb 26, 2009 at 4:16 pm
jlloyd, why waste your time. I wish that some people here would go back to the Huffington Post, Daily Kos, Talkingpointsmemo, Salon, etc. Plus enough of the links to “lefty” sites, please.
fact based // Feb 26, 2009 at 5:41 pm
wish that some people here would go back to the Huffington Post, Daily Kos, Talkingpointsmemo, Salon, etc. Plus enough of the links to “lefty” sites, please.
I agree leave us alone so we can exchange rnc/talk radio/foxie echo chamber sound bites with each other so we can build the “new majority” can we start a “bobby jindal was great” thread ? Rush says he was so it must be so.
sinz54 // Feb 26, 2009 at 6:28 pm
Science should be left to the scientists; formulating policy is the job of politicians. It is unconscionable for any political movement to make a political controversy out of a scientific THEORY, whether it’s AGW or Darwin’s theory of evolution or the theory that smoking causes lung cancer. If the overwhelming majority of the world’s climatologists, including the academies of science of all the major industrialized nations including America, say that AGW is a real phenomenon, that should be good enough for all non-scientists–and it’s certainly good enough for me. To continue to try to obstruct perfectly good science just because we don’t like its political implications is appalling. I certainly won’t be a part of any political movement that does that. The issue of whether AGW is occurring is closed, unless and until the world’s climatologists change their minds about it themselves. What we do about AGW, however, is an issue of policy. The Left is insistent that we must bankrupt ourselves, if necessary, to keep AGW from occurring–when it’s probably already too late for that. Yet they have rejected nuclear power, which is the only nonpolluting energy source PROVEN to work on the massive scale required for an industrial nation like France, or Japan, or the United States. I believe that a combination of mitigation measures (build dikes along coastal areas, etc.) and reasonable measures to convert to nuclear power are the right answer. I’ll believe in the pie-in-the-sky left-wing dreams of wind and solar power, when I see them being used to power a significant portion of any country on earth. France, so beloved of the Left, continues to get much of its energy from nuclear power–but they’re France, so the Left gives them a pass. Only America, that hated capitalist-imperialist-racist aggressor, must be denied this vital energy by the Left.
Keegan // Feb 27, 2009 at 12:12 am
I’m a conservative and I like cap and trade.
Limiting emissions of pollution is the government’s perrogative, and a good cap/trade is the best way to do that without imposing inflexible limits.
It gives an incentive to the development of new technology without forcing the transition on any indivisual businesses.
Chekote // Feb 27, 2009 at 6:45 am
Haven’t you guys gotten the memo? It is not Global Waming anymore. It is Climate Chage. The world is cooling too much to sustain the Global Warming terminology. So now it is Climate Change. Newsbreak: The world is constantly going through Climate Change. Did you guys ever hear of the Ice Age? Did the have SUVs back then? or the smokestack industry?
jlloyd // Feb 27, 2009 at 7:00 am
Keegan – Why like cap and trade? Is CO2 a “pollutant”? It is a natural by product of the respiration of every animal on this planet (including polar bears). It is not toxic. It is necessary for plant life, and an intergral part of making the planet habitable. Is it the governments’ “perrogative” to limit our breathing? Are we going to invest billions coming up with new respiration technologies? Chekote is right – the climate is constantly changing, and just because humans, and every other species on this planet has an effect on climate doesn’t justify the naked power grab being proposed. The real issues are that all of the doom and gloom scenarios being put forth by the so called greenies are based on unproven and unverifieable projections spewed out by computer models that are constantly being proven to be wrong, and that the so called “solutions”, such as Kyoto, and cap and trade, will not have any effect whatsoever on the problems these models are predicting. What we do know is that the “solutions” will be expensive, will limit freedom, will hurt economic development, will hurt the poor, and will increase the power of government. No thanks.
Chekote // Feb 27, 2009 at 7:12 am
Perhaps people here should take a look at today’s GDPs numbers? The economy is contracting rapidly. The last we need is to start a new round of taxes and environmental regulations.
sinz54 // Feb 27, 2009 at 10:40 am
jiloyd: Are you a climatologist? Have you researched those climate models yourself? I’ll repeat what I said before: If you are not a climatologist, then you should NOT play back-seat driver to those who are. Science is done by scientists. Scientific questions are NOT decided by debates in front of non-scientists; those are for the edification of the audience but the scientists themselves gain no additional scientific insight from them. And scientific questions are NEVER decided by political activism.
jlloyd // Feb 27, 2009 at 11:18 am
Sinz – Are you a climatologist? If not, matybe you are the one who should stop pretending to be. There is actually a lot of questions concerning the climate – and I don’t think there is anything wrong with me or anyone welse raising them, particularly when the affect all of us and when there are no apparent answers. Please refer me to the one proven, verifiable “scientific” climate model that has proven that not only is all climate change caused by man, but all the terrible things that people say are going to happen are going to happen. You can’t, so stop hiding behind science and pretending that you can. I also thought this place was to be a forum for debate, not stiffling debate.
jlloyd // Feb 27, 2009 at 11:26 am
Sinz – My comments were largely based on a post I made yesterday, that repeated, verbatim, testimony given by Richard Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2001: You can scroll down and read the whol thing, but this is in part what he said regarding the computer models. I’d say this raises some serious questions as to whether we should be relying on them to define a problem that requires us to destroy our economy in order to “solve”.
that large computer climate models are unable to even simulate major features of pastclimate such as the 100 thousand year cycles of ice ages that have dominated climate for the past 700 thousand years, and the very warm climates of the Miocene, Eocene, and Cretaceous. Neither do they do well at accounting for shorter period and less dramaticphenomena like El Nios, quasi-biennial oscillations, or intraseasonal oscillations all of which are well documented in the data. * that major past climate changes were either uncorrelated with changes in CO2 or were characterized by temperature changes which preceded changes in CO2 by 100’s to thousands of years. * that increases in temperature on the order of 1F are not catastrophic and may be beneficial. I’ll believe a PHD from MIT over you
JJWFromME // Feb 27, 2009 at 12:02 pm
And I’ll believe the rest of the scientific community over an eight year old statement from Richard Lindzen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change
jlloyd // Feb 27, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Not to beat a dead horse, but who in the scientific community has demonstrated that “that large computer climate models are unable to even simulate major features of pastclimate such as the 100 thousand year cycles of ice ages that have dominated climate for the past 700 thousand years, and the very warm climates of the Miocene, Eocene, and Cretaceous. Neither do they do well at accounting for shorter period and less dramaticphenomena like El Nios, quasi-biennial oscillations, or intraseasonal oscillations all of which are well documented in the data”? There are numerous models out there, and they all produce different results. Clearly, they all can’t be right – but it is certainly possible that they all could be wrong. Even if one of them occassionally produced “verifiable” results, it could be for the wrong reasons. A broken watch is, after all, right twice a day. I am not disputing science – but you can’t just say that “science” says something without being specific. I can accept the proposition that mankind has an effect on the climate (so do trees, ants, bacteria, etc.). But what we are talking about is public policy. no one has “proven” that any of the steps being proposed as public policy will have any effect on the problem, or even if there really is a problem. Even assuming some of the proposed solutions are desirable does not make them desirable at any cost. When someone is proposing solutions that are likely to cost trillions of dollars over an extended period of time, shouldn’t we at least ask if those resources could be better spent addressing other real problems? We do not have infinite resources. I don’t see how these sort of questions really have anything to do with “science”.
JJWFromME // Feb 27, 2009 at 2:11 pm
I already answered the question about models.