macinnis
Active Member
You can spell, good for you. Do you know what that one means, or do you need me to explain it to you like I did Fascism?Cap AND trade.Now go eat your cap'n crunch.
Glen Beck's a Douche!
- Thread starter macinnis
- Start date
macinnis
Active Member
Just in case, here is what Cap and Trade is
The goal: To steadily reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions economy-wide in a cost-effective manner.
The cap: Each large-scale emitter, or company, will have a limit on the amount of greenhouse gas that it can emit. The firm must have an “emissions permit” for every ton of carbon dioxide it releases into the atmosphere. These permits set an enforceable limit, or cap, on the amount of greenhouse gas pollution that the company is allowed to emit. Over time, the limits become stricter, allowing less and less pollution, until the ultimate reduction goal is met. This is similar to the cap and trade program enacted by the Clean Air Act of 1990, which reduced the sulfur emissions that cause acid rain, and it met the goals at a much lower cost than industry or government predicted.
The trade: It will be relatively cheaper or easier for some companies to reduce their emissions below their required limit than others. These more efficient companies, who emit less than their allowance, can sell their extra permits to companies that are not able to make reductions as easily. This creates a system that guarantees a set level of overall reductions, while rewarding the most efficient companies and ensuring that the cap can be met at the lowest possible cost to the economy.
The profits: If the federal government auctions the emissions permits to the companies required to reduce their emissions, it would create a large and dependable revenue stream. These financial resources could be used to achieve critical public policy objectives related to climate change mitigation and economic development. The federal government can also choose to “grandfather” allowances to the polluting firms by handing them out free based on historic or projected emissions. This would give the most benefits to those companies with higher baseline emissions that have historically done the least to reduce their pollution.
What Would a Successful Cap-and-Trade Program Look Like?
The goal: To limit the rise in global temperature to approximately 2.0 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels by 2050 by reducing carbon dioxide and other emissions from companies as part of a larger plan for curbing global warming.
The cap: To achieve this goal, the U.S. government should steadily tighten the cap until emissions are reduced to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. Businesses would have to obtain permits entitling them to emit a certain quantity of carbon dioxide or its equivalent in other greenhouse gases. All permits would be auctioned off by the government. Emissions permits in the near term would likely fall in the range of $10 to $15 per metric ton of carbon dioxide or its equivalent.
The trade: Companies unable to meet their emissions quotas could purchase allowances from other companies that have acquired more permits than they need to account for their emissions. The cost of buying and selling these credits would be determined by the marketplace, which over time would reduce the cost of trading the credits as trading becomes more widespread and efficient.
The profits: Initial estimates by the Congressional Budget Office project that an economy-wide cap-and-trade program would generate at least $50 billion per year, but could reach up to $300 billion. Approximately 10 percent of this revenue should be allocated to help offset costs to businesses and shareholders of affected industries. Of the remaining revenue, approximately half should be devoted to help offset any energy price increases for low- and middle-income Americans that may occur as a result of the transition to more efficient energy sources. The other half of the remaining revenue should be used to invest in renewable energy, efficiency, low-carbon transportation technologies, green-collar job training, and the transition to a low-carbon economy. Some resources should also be invested in the energy, environment, and infrastructure sectors in developing nations to alleviate energy poverty with low-carbon energy systems and help these nations adapt to the inevitable effects of global warming. Revenues from the permit auction would essentially be “recycled” back into the economy to facilitate the transition to an efficient, low-carbon energy economy and ensure that consumers are not unduly burdened by potentially higher energy costs.
The goal: To steadily reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions economy-wide in a cost-effective manner.
The cap: Each large-scale emitter, or company, will have a limit on the amount of greenhouse gas that it can emit. The firm must have an “emissions permit” for every ton of carbon dioxide it releases into the atmosphere. These permits set an enforceable limit, or cap, on the amount of greenhouse gas pollution that the company is allowed to emit. Over time, the limits become stricter, allowing less and less pollution, until the ultimate reduction goal is met. This is similar to the cap and trade program enacted by the Clean Air Act of 1990, which reduced the sulfur emissions that cause acid rain, and it met the goals at a much lower cost than industry or government predicted.
The trade: It will be relatively cheaper or easier for some companies to reduce their emissions below their required limit than others. These more efficient companies, who emit less than their allowance, can sell their extra permits to companies that are not able to make reductions as easily. This creates a system that guarantees a set level of overall reductions, while rewarding the most efficient companies and ensuring that the cap can be met at the lowest possible cost to the economy.
The profits: If the federal government auctions the emissions permits to the companies required to reduce their emissions, it would create a large and dependable revenue stream. These financial resources could be used to achieve critical public policy objectives related to climate change mitigation and economic development. The federal government can also choose to “grandfather” allowances to the polluting firms by handing them out free based on historic or projected emissions. This would give the most benefits to those companies with higher baseline emissions that have historically done the least to reduce their pollution.
What Would a Successful Cap-and-Trade Program Look Like?
The goal: To limit the rise in global temperature to approximately 2.0 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels by 2050 by reducing carbon dioxide and other emissions from companies as part of a larger plan for curbing global warming.
The cap: To achieve this goal, the U.S. government should steadily tighten the cap until emissions are reduced to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. Businesses would have to obtain permits entitling them to emit a certain quantity of carbon dioxide or its equivalent in other greenhouse gases. All permits would be auctioned off by the government. Emissions permits in the near term would likely fall in the range of $10 to $15 per metric ton of carbon dioxide or its equivalent.
The trade: Companies unable to meet their emissions quotas could purchase allowances from other companies that have acquired more permits than they need to account for their emissions. The cost of buying and selling these credits would be determined by the marketplace, which over time would reduce the cost of trading the credits as trading becomes more widespread and efficient.
The profits: Initial estimates by the Congressional Budget Office project that an economy-wide cap-and-trade program would generate at least $50 billion per year, but could reach up to $300 billion. Approximately 10 percent of this revenue should be allocated to help offset costs to businesses and shareholders of affected industries. Of the remaining revenue, approximately half should be devoted to help offset any energy price increases for low- and middle-income Americans that may occur as a result of the transition to more efficient energy sources. The other half of the remaining revenue should be used to invest in renewable energy, efficiency, low-carbon transportation technologies, green-collar job training, and the transition to a low-carbon economy. Some resources should also be invested in the energy, environment, and infrastructure sectors in developing nations to alleviate energy poverty with low-carbon energy systems and help these nations adapt to the inevitable effects of global warming. Revenues from the permit auction would essentially be “recycled” back into the economy to facilitate the transition to an efficient, low-carbon energy economy and ensure that consumers are not unduly burdened by potentially higher energy costs.
CrackerJax
New Member
hahahah.... please.... hahaha.... be serious.
tinyTURTLE
Well-Known Member
cap and trade encourages progress.
progress makes anti-intellectuals uncomfortable.
so they gripe, big deal.
progress makes anti-intellectuals uncomfortable.
so they gripe, big deal.
CrackerJax
New Member
hahahahahh!!! MORE JOKES!!!!
Please go over the part where it saves money!! Wait !!! Wait!! Let me get a tissue first...my eyes are watering from the laughter.
Please go over the part where it saves money!! Wait !!! Wait!! Let me get a tissue first...my eyes are watering from the laughter.
macinnis
Active Member
Another brilliant argument by CrackerJax (LOL)!
maxamus1
Well-Known Member
hey macinnis have you seen the vid's of obama saying that cap and trade will make our electric bill sky rocket, or how all the people around obama would have made billions of dollars with the olympics but cost the economy billions. now as far as beck goes hes the only one that tells you to do ur own research and make ur own conclusions and not to go by what he says, but hes the crazy one OKAY.
macinnis
Active Member
I'm glad he tells his followers to do their own research, maybe you should follow his advice. I'll put my sources against yours any day. At least mine aren't a national joke outside of those that watch them. I have seen the video where Obama tells us our electricity bill will skyrocket a whole $35 a year. As far as the Olympics, that's just retarded to say. Yes, some people around them would have made money. It would also have brought in at least $22 billion to the region and created at least 350,000 jobs. But I'm sure in your world that's a bad thing. If you rooted against America getting the Olympics, you are flat out UNPATRIOTIC!
CrackerJax
New Member
Believe me... I'm being VERY KIND to you right now.
You don't want me to argue this do you?
it's a JOKE!!!
I'll destroy it with facts if you wish.... no worries there.... none at all.
I really thought you all were pulling my leg!!!!
You don't want me to argue this do you?
it's a JOKE!!!
I'll destroy it with facts if you wish.... no worries there.... none at all.
I really thought you all were pulling my leg!!!!
macinnis
Active Member
Please by all means, all I care about are facts, I thought that was clear by now. Show me the errors of my thinking if you can, but you gotta support it with facts and tangible evidence not hearsay and opinions
CrackerJax
New Member
Okay, give me some time... I'm going to go outside and get very stoned for this one....
Stoney McFried
Well-Known Member
Glenn Beck.
[youtube]wKtAPT9KEfM[/youtube]
And a response.http://www.exmormon.org/mormon/mormon530.htm
Subject: A Response to Glenn Beck's Mormon Conversion Story Date: Jun 22, 2008 Author: bob mccue This is a lightly edited note I sent to a friend who in a fit of insanity included me on a group email to which Beck's sincere, pathetic Mormon conversion story was attached. This is my gentle way of discouraging receipt of information of this kind.
best,
bob
Dear XXXXX,
Re. Glenn Becks Mormon Conversion Story at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKtAPT9KEfM
Unless you want an analytical response, don't send me things like this. If you dont want to read an analytical response to Becks sincere, uninformed, deceptive pap, stop reading here.
Every religious organization is populated by sincere people who have important social needs met by the organization, and who confuse the strong feelings that come from that experience with a divine encounter that justifies belief that their organization has "the truth". So, you find one of those people who perceives the institution to be particularly important for him ("Without Mormonism, I would be a drunk with no family and no job", says Beck), get him to tell his story using the usual, formulaic salvation narrative - "Things were going really bad in my life; then I fell into a crisis of some kind; then I found [insert name of religion]; then I had a powerful emotion experience [insert tears]; then some really great things started to happen in my life that are a sign from God; and now things are wonderful for me and my family", and you have poster boy that is highly useful for marketing purposes. The more high profile the individual, the better this works.
A large part of LDS inspiration these days comes from a marketing firm named Edelman on Madison Avenue in NYC. Seriously. The Mormons are trying to catch up with the Evangelicals who for years have been using relatively sophisticated marketing tools, and largely as a result far outperform the Mormons in terms of conversions. Richard Bushman explained, in part, how this works to a crowd of well heeled Mormons at a dinner in Calgary recently. He did not name Edelman, but laid out the LDS marketing strategy in some detail. I know from other sources that this information is provided to LDS leaders, at high cost using tithing money of course, by Edelman. A Mormon who was at the Busman meeting summarized it for me. With typically naïve Mormon hubris, he was thrilled that his church was getting more sophisticated in terms of marketing and communications. That is prophetic inspiration for you. Call the gurus on Madison Avenue when you need to find out what to do. God must be leading each and every major business in North America, because they all use this strategy too. My acquaintance somehow missed this irony.
With a few minutes of goggling I could find you this kind of written or video presentation on behalf of many different religious groups. These are made with greater or lesser degrees of consciousness re. their manipulative, perspective distorting nature.
No religious (or other) group has a corner on this experience. It is a human universal.
While wishing Glenn Beck and his family well, I found his video repugnant. It presents a false picture of Mormonism, and will be used to dupe innocent people. The "true love" Beck talks about is at the root of countless religious and secular movements. That fact that this is a revelation to him says something about him, but not about how Mormonism is special or different from other religious groups. Members of Jim Jones' and other cults say the same kind of thing about their groups as Beck does about Mormonism.
Beck's favorites day of week is Sunday because that is a family day. That is the case at my house too, and only since leaving Mormonism. While Mormon, I was seldom at home with my kids on Sunday, and when I was I tended to be exhausted and hence far less of a father than I could have been. You, I know, were in the same position. You and I gave our energy to the Mormon institution instead of our families. Glenn Beck has not yet experienced that side of his new faith.
Beck's fear based claim that he would be on the human trash heap without Mormonism is a pathetic, but unfortunately well-used religious claim. It is designed to scare people into the fold, and into staying in the fold. I reject life lived on the basis of fear, and want nothing to do with organizations that promote that point of view. This is a virus that weakens human beings, and makes them dependant on manmade authority.
I could break Beck's presentation down and tear it apart sentence by sentence. It is nonsense. I have better things to do with my time today.
And, Beck does not address the most important question about religious groups. That is, "How reliable is the authority of the institution that asks for our allegiance, and how much do they ask of us?" The more the institution asks, the more reliable its authority should be proven to be before we go along for the ride.
We know how much Mormonism asks. Ultimately, it wants full commitment. It is designed to push us as far in that direction as we will go. But perhaps Glenn Beck does not know that yet. This is because Mormonism uses sales pitches like his to get people in the door and on the train on the basis of attractive "milk". Then the train starts to move, social commitments are made, roots go down, the forces of cognitive dissonance kick in, and the more momentum the train has the harder it is to get off. The Moonies, Hare Krishna and many other cults explicitly recruit on this basis. So do the Mormons, though most Mormons don't realize it until the facts are pointed out to them. That is, the "hard doctrines", the "meat", the "mysteries" ("Why did God tell the Mormon leaders to lie about so many things!?"), the commitments required of those who attend the temple and become Mormon leaders, and a host of other aspects of Mormonism, are kept purposefully hidden until the convert gradually becomes "ready". Why is that? Well, by that time the train will be moving so fast that it will be very hard for the convert to de-couple his life from it. The forces of denial and cognitive dissonance will then hide Mormonism's flaws from him.
There is no need to review the reliability of Mormon authority with you. You should be as familiar as I am with that. "Lying for the Lord", "Faithful History" and other well established Mormon leadership traditions clearly indicate that the Mormon brand of authority should not be trusted as an accurate guide to reality. It is designed to further the interest of the Mormon institution at the expense of individual members, or whomever else must be sacrificed in this regard.
John D. Lee is a good example. When Brigham Young needed a scapegoat re. the Mountain Meadows Massacre, his faithful foot soldier and adopted son John was sold down the river in a heart beat, and eventually executed as a result. The "greater good" justifies this just as it did Laban's death in the Book of Mormon. I reject this form of utilitarianiam.
The plight of gays, intellectuals and anyone else who stands in the Mormon way and is against its interest is a more mundane, and better, example of how the individual interest is sacrificed to the institutional interest within Mormonism.
In sum, Beck's video is disgusting. If you are going to share garbage like this, keep it within your tribe. You embarrass yourself when you show things like this to well informed people who do not already share your beliefs, and you potentially abuse the less well informed. This is therefore both unwise and immoral.
My response to this video, by the way, explains why you and other fine Mormons I know have had virtually no missionary success after a lifetime of trying. You have been dealing with well informed people who had enough perspective that it was easily predictable that they would not find naive tripe of this kind attractive.
You were trying to do Mormon missionary work in Canada in a mostly university community. The charts at www.worldvaluessurvey.org (a U. of Michigan project) as well as other sources, predict that Mormon missionary work will only be successful where magical thinking is as bad or worse than the Mormon level. Your community is far better than the Mormon standard in terms of magical thinking, and hence unreceptive to the Mormon message.
Beck's histronics will tend to get you polite, sad smiles at best when dealing with the kind of people in your community who are within Mormonism's target market. It has been well over a decade since the last time I heard of one of those joining the Mormon Church where I live. That period includes my stint as Stake Mission President and High Councilman.
Ironically, the same youtube page I brought up to see Beck features Oprah as well (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwGLNbiw1gk&feature=related). While I am not one of her fans, I agree with her on this one.
I hope you enjoy your Sabbath. I am about to start enjoying mine.
best,
bob
[youtube]wKtAPT9KEfM[/youtube]
And a response.http://www.exmormon.org/mormon/mormon530.htm
Subject: A Response to Glenn Beck's Mormon Conversion Story Date: Jun 22, 2008 Author: bob mccue This is a lightly edited note I sent to a friend who in a fit of insanity included me on a group email to which Beck's sincere, pathetic Mormon conversion story was attached. This is my gentle way of discouraging receipt of information of this kind.
best,
bob
Dear XXXXX,
Re. Glenn Becks Mormon Conversion Story at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKtAPT9KEfM
Unless you want an analytical response, don't send me things like this. If you dont want to read an analytical response to Becks sincere, uninformed, deceptive pap, stop reading here.
Every religious organization is populated by sincere people who have important social needs met by the organization, and who confuse the strong feelings that come from that experience with a divine encounter that justifies belief that their organization has "the truth". So, you find one of those people who perceives the institution to be particularly important for him ("Without Mormonism, I would be a drunk with no family and no job", says Beck), get him to tell his story using the usual, formulaic salvation narrative - "Things were going really bad in my life; then I fell into a crisis of some kind; then I found [insert name of religion]; then I had a powerful emotion experience [insert tears]; then some really great things started to happen in my life that are a sign from God; and now things are wonderful for me and my family", and you have poster boy that is highly useful for marketing purposes. The more high profile the individual, the better this works.
A large part of LDS inspiration these days comes from a marketing firm named Edelman on Madison Avenue in NYC. Seriously. The Mormons are trying to catch up with the Evangelicals who for years have been using relatively sophisticated marketing tools, and largely as a result far outperform the Mormons in terms of conversions. Richard Bushman explained, in part, how this works to a crowd of well heeled Mormons at a dinner in Calgary recently. He did not name Edelman, but laid out the LDS marketing strategy in some detail. I know from other sources that this information is provided to LDS leaders, at high cost using tithing money of course, by Edelman. A Mormon who was at the Busman meeting summarized it for me. With typically naïve Mormon hubris, he was thrilled that his church was getting more sophisticated in terms of marketing and communications. That is prophetic inspiration for you. Call the gurus on Madison Avenue when you need to find out what to do. God must be leading each and every major business in North America, because they all use this strategy too. My acquaintance somehow missed this irony.
With a few minutes of goggling I could find you this kind of written or video presentation on behalf of many different religious groups. These are made with greater or lesser degrees of consciousness re. their manipulative, perspective distorting nature.
No religious (or other) group has a corner on this experience. It is a human universal.
While wishing Glenn Beck and his family well, I found his video repugnant. It presents a false picture of Mormonism, and will be used to dupe innocent people. The "true love" Beck talks about is at the root of countless religious and secular movements. That fact that this is a revelation to him says something about him, but not about how Mormonism is special or different from other religious groups. Members of Jim Jones' and other cults say the same kind of thing about their groups as Beck does about Mormonism.
Beck's favorites day of week is Sunday because that is a family day. That is the case at my house too, and only since leaving Mormonism. While Mormon, I was seldom at home with my kids on Sunday, and when I was I tended to be exhausted and hence far less of a father than I could have been. You, I know, were in the same position. You and I gave our energy to the Mormon institution instead of our families. Glenn Beck has not yet experienced that side of his new faith.
Beck's fear based claim that he would be on the human trash heap without Mormonism is a pathetic, but unfortunately well-used religious claim. It is designed to scare people into the fold, and into staying in the fold. I reject life lived on the basis of fear, and want nothing to do with organizations that promote that point of view. This is a virus that weakens human beings, and makes them dependant on manmade authority.
I could break Beck's presentation down and tear it apart sentence by sentence. It is nonsense. I have better things to do with my time today.
And, Beck does not address the most important question about religious groups. That is, "How reliable is the authority of the institution that asks for our allegiance, and how much do they ask of us?" The more the institution asks, the more reliable its authority should be proven to be before we go along for the ride.
We know how much Mormonism asks. Ultimately, it wants full commitment. It is designed to push us as far in that direction as we will go. But perhaps Glenn Beck does not know that yet. This is because Mormonism uses sales pitches like his to get people in the door and on the train on the basis of attractive "milk". Then the train starts to move, social commitments are made, roots go down, the forces of cognitive dissonance kick in, and the more momentum the train has the harder it is to get off. The Moonies, Hare Krishna and many other cults explicitly recruit on this basis. So do the Mormons, though most Mormons don't realize it until the facts are pointed out to them. That is, the "hard doctrines", the "meat", the "mysteries" ("Why did God tell the Mormon leaders to lie about so many things!?"), the commitments required of those who attend the temple and become Mormon leaders, and a host of other aspects of Mormonism, are kept purposefully hidden until the convert gradually becomes "ready". Why is that? Well, by that time the train will be moving so fast that it will be very hard for the convert to de-couple his life from it. The forces of denial and cognitive dissonance will then hide Mormonism's flaws from him.
There is no need to review the reliability of Mormon authority with you. You should be as familiar as I am with that. "Lying for the Lord", "Faithful History" and other well established Mormon leadership traditions clearly indicate that the Mormon brand of authority should not be trusted as an accurate guide to reality. It is designed to further the interest of the Mormon institution at the expense of individual members, or whomever else must be sacrificed in this regard.
John D. Lee is a good example. When Brigham Young needed a scapegoat re. the Mountain Meadows Massacre, his faithful foot soldier and adopted son John was sold down the river in a heart beat, and eventually executed as a result. The "greater good" justifies this just as it did Laban's death in the Book of Mormon. I reject this form of utilitarianiam.
The plight of gays, intellectuals and anyone else who stands in the Mormon way and is against its interest is a more mundane, and better, example of how the individual interest is sacrificed to the institutional interest within Mormonism.
In sum, Beck's video is disgusting. If you are going to share garbage like this, keep it within your tribe. You embarrass yourself when you show things like this to well informed people who do not already share your beliefs, and you potentially abuse the less well informed. This is therefore both unwise and immoral.
My response to this video, by the way, explains why you and other fine Mormons I know have had virtually no missionary success after a lifetime of trying. You have been dealing with well informed people who had enough perspective that it was easily predictable that they would not find naive tripe of this kind attractive.
You were trying to do Mormon missionary work in Canada in a mostly university community. The charts at www.worldvaluessurvey.org (a U. of Michigan project) as well as other sources, predict that Mormon missionary work will only be successful where magical thinking is as bad or worse than the Mormon level. Your community is far better than the Mormon standard in terms of magical thinking, and hence unreceptive to the Mormon message.
Beck's histronics will tend to get you polite, sad smiles at best when dealing with the kind of people in your community who are within Mormonism's target market. It has been well over a decade since the last time I heard of one of those joining the Mormon Church where I live. That period includes my stint as Stake Mission President and High Councilman.
Ironically, the same youtube page I brought up to see Beck features Oprah as well (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwGLNbiw1gk&feature=related). While I am not one of her fans, I agree with her on this one.
I hope you enjoy your Sabbath. I am about to start enjoying mine.
best,
bob
ViRedd
New Member
I know you claim to be a facts orientated guy, but I've seen that video clip about ten times now and I don't recall any mention of $35.00. Can you provide evidence of this "fact?"
Stoney McFried
Well-Known Member
Yeah, too bad it wasn't me that wrote that,lol.But it bears repeating: Always take anything a Mormon says with a grain of salt.Anyone who actually believes that crap is clearly not a person who is thinking rationally.
As a former Mormon myself indoctrinated from birth until I was 17. Yes the LDS church lies about their past, yes they gloss over the BS, yes they have outrageous claims. They are not evil though, misguided yes.
They are also the richest corporation west of the Mississippi.
They are also the richest corporation west of the Mississippi.
macinnis
Active Member
You're right, I got that one wrong. But, the CBO scores it that Americans will only pay the equivalent of a postage stamps worth per day which breaks down to about $150 per year. It's worth it for me for a cleaner environment, less foreign oil, and the creation of green jobs. As you know I like facts, here are some for you
Claims that the CBO predicts cap-and-trade will cost about as much as a stamp a day
Buzz up!
ShareThis
Responding to Republicans who have said a cap-and-trade bill could cost thousands of dollars a year for the average family, the Democratic sponsors of the bill are citing a new study from the Congressional Budget Office that they say shows their plan will be affordable.
"For the cost of about a postage stamp a day, all American families will see a return on their investment as our nation breaks our dependence on foreign oil, cuts dangerous carbon pollution and creates millions of new clean-energy jobs that can't be shipped overseas," Rep. Edward Markey said in a June 22, 2009, news release jointly issued with the co-sponsor, Rep. Henry Waxman.
Waxman and Markey, from California and Massachusetts respectively, are the authors of a bill that would set up a market for power companies and other polluters to buy and trade carbon credits. The goal is to force them to cut their harmful emissions and lower carbon pollution 83 percent by 2050. But critics say polluters will inevitably pass the cost of buying credits or cleaner technologies on to the consumer.
Putting a price tag on such a complex plan is tricky and controversial, as we note in our article Your Guide to the Cap-and-Trade Estimates . The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, says that cap-and-trade could raise the average family's annual energy bill by $1,241. House Republicans have said that cap-and-trade could cost consumers up to $3,100, a figure they say came from a Massachusetts Institute of Technology report. But the writers of that report admonished the GOP for incorrectly interpreting their work; intially, the authors predicted it would cost consumers about $340 annually, and have since updated that estimate to $800.
Waxman and Markey are relying on a June 19 Congressional Budget Office analysis of their bill. The CBO is a well-respected, independent arm of Congress, but we have found its findings are occasionally mischaracterized by members of Congress. So we wanted to check whether Waxman is correctly summarizing the CBO's findings.
Indeed, the report cited by Markey and Waxman predicts the bill would have a net annual economywide cost of $22 billion — or about $175 per household — in 2020. Divide that number by 365 days, and you get about 48 cents. A first-class stamp costs 44 cents, so Waxman is close.
The CBO's estimate includes several assumptions about important decisions that still must be made by Congress, such as how much energy companies will pay to buy and trade polluting credits. But it's worth reading the fine print on this one, because CBO notes that the actual cost per family will vary depending on income. For example, low-income consumers could expect to save $40 a year, while wealthy people will see a net increase for energy costs of $235 to $340 every year. And the analysis does not include the costs or benefits of other parts of the bill, such as government efforts to quickly develop new technology, wrote CBO director Douglas Elmendorf in a June 20 blog post.
It's also important to note that the costs will vary year to year. As the bill stands, polluting allowances will initially be given away for free. But by 2035, about 70 percent of those allocations will be sold by the government. Supporters of the bill say federal revenue from the program would be used to pay for tax credits and rebates for the middle class.
CBO chose 2020 as a milestone for its analysis because it's a point at which the program would have been in effect for eight years, giving the economy and polluters time to adjust. But had CBO chosen a later date, the cost per family may have been higher because the government would gradually be charging polluters more.
Waxman and Markey are clear about these variables and omissions in their press statement. They note that the poorest people will gain from the bill, and point out that the study does not include every element that could contribute to cap-and-trade's cost.
But critics are more skeptical of the report. By not including all variables, the CBO report "grossly underestimates costs of cap-and-trade," said a memo from the Heritage Foundation, which has published many articles opposing the proposal. Among other things, Heritage says the study is flawed because it doesn't address economic changes resulting from restricted energy use and potential job losses.
For this Truth-O-Meter item, we are not addressing which study is best, but focusing on whether Markey correctly described the CBO's findings. He was close — off by just 4 cents — and he indicated it was an approximation because he said "about a postage stamp a day." So we find the statement True.
macinnis
Active Member
Evil was commited in the past though for sure. The Mountain Meadows Massacre ordered by their revered Brigham Young, where woman and children were murdered. I am glad we kicked them out of Missouri back then, unfortunately they came back to keep knocking at my door.
macinnis
Active Member
It's fact checked by an independent group based on the CBO estimates. The group fact checks claims by both sides and verifies as true or not. http://www.politifact.com they won a 2009 Pulitzer Prize. I recommend it to everyone, at least check it out