GOP leaders slam the door on carbon taxes
Global Warming on Free Republic
Posted on 07/16/2012 9:04:26 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Earlier today, certain Congressional Democrats let it be known that their party would be ready and willing to take the country over the coming fiscal cliff if Republicans don’t agree to President Obama’s proposal to hike taxes on the country’s wealthiest earners (but remember: Republicans are ones refusing to cooperate and causing all of this dat gum partisan gridlock!).
A top Senate Democrat bluntly warned Monday that her party is prepared to let all the Bush-era tax cuts expire and automatic spending cuts to defense and domestic programs take place at the beginning of next year unless Republicans agree to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans.
“If Republicans won’t work with us on a balanced approach, we are not going to get a deal,” said Sen. Patty Murray from Washington, the fourth-ranking Senate Democrat.
Together, the expiring tax hikes and mandatory spending cuts, the so-called “fiscal cliff,” could hurt the economy if Congress does not work out a compromise to lessen their impact.
Well, fine then: If that’s the way it’s gonna’ be, two can play at that game. The well-circulated idea of a tax on carbon emissions as an ostensible method of reducing both global warming and the deficit is an idea long held dear by the Left, and looks like it might be getting some renewed attention in the coming deficit battle. Thankfully, the GOP leadership is once again nipping that travesty of an economic imposition in the bud:
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), speaking through aides, have stated their opposition to the concept in recent days.
Boehner spokesman Michael Steel had a one-word answer when asked, on Friday, whether the Speaker would ever consider a carbon tax to help address climate change and the deficit: “No.”
Similarly, McConnell spokesman John Ashbrook said Monday that “Leader McConnell opposes a national energy tax.”
While their positions are no surprise, the categorical opposition underscores the hurdles facing an ad hoc, left-right coalition of activists and policy wonks who have held a series of meetings in private to discuss the idea.
And a darn good thing, too. If there’s anything America doesn’t need right now, it’s any more regulatory barriers to energy development, or taxes discouraging said energy development while simultaneously causing energy prices to ‘necessarily skyrocket.’ A carbon tax would be a terrible idea at the best of times, let alone the worst of times, and if we would just stop with the ridiculous self-limitations limiting the entrepreneurial might of our own energy sector and start taking advantage of our own abundant resources in the burgeoning world market, it would be a huge boon in lifting ourselves out of recession. A carbon tax in any form is just plain counterproductive:
However, watching states loot “dedicated” eco-taxes for general revenue, seeing the emergence of more proposals for revenue-raising carbon taxes to finance continued deficit spending, and generally bearing witness to endless insincerity on the part of greens and their allies, I have to admit that my friends in the free-market movement were right: A carbon tax would simply become another general revenue raiser and a step in carbon-seduction. “Oh, come on, you’ve already accepted the tax, now let’s do cap-and-trade and regulation.” …
There would be virtually no environmental benefits to unilateral greenhouse gas emission reductions by developed countries (whose GHG levels are already flat and slowly declining), while developing countries are pouring out virtually every kind of pollutant with joyous abandon. Some argue that we’ll get “co-benefits” from reducing other pollutants, such as particulates. Well, we already have highly effective (if economically damaging) regulations for conventional pollutants. If they’re not working, they should be fixed. Establishing a new set of controls based on ancillary benefits is not simply wasteful, it’s dishonest. …
High energy costs reduce economic productivity and are passed along to consumers in everything they buy, from medical treatments to food and clothing. In fact, research at the American Enterprise Institute suggests that half of the total spending consumers do on energy is invisible to them: Its costs are embedded in the things they buy and the services they use. The more things cost, the less people consume, which means less production, less economic growth, and fewer jobs. …
The GOP needs to get some balls and start telling people that 0bama and the Dems are willing to raise everyone’s taxes just so they can increase the taxes on job creators. So just so your boss’s taxes can go up all you rank and file workers will pay more too.
Hmmmm...
Do libs, socialists and commies know the definition of blackmail?
Have they come up with a euphemism for it already?
Their base is stupid—blackmail seems pretty apparent in this.
They better come up with a helluva euphemism to fool the base.
“Hope”?
The so-called "rich" should pay their fair share - which would mean a tremendous tax cut since they already pay a disproportionately large percentage of the taxes.
So no new taxes on "the rich" no new dollars for the politicians in DC to squander. Tax cuts and spending cuts. Stop all the un-Constitutional, invasive, controlling things the feds are doing and they'll have a surplus and can start paying off debt.
Did you read that the state of Alaska has filed suit to prevent the new EPA mandates on ship bunkers from taking effect on Aug. 1?
The low sulfur fuel mandate was expected to add 8% to the cost of all shipping freight.
Consider the source of the comment: Patty Murray
She’s one Ding Dong short in a box of Ho-Ho’s. She’s the Jimmah Cartah of the Senate. If she stamps her feet again, somebody point out that she’s wearing tennis shoes!
Whoops. Twelve not ten obviously. Don’t know what I did to prematurely post before making the corrections to the original. No response required. :)
Patty ..Tea Party says NO! New Taxes.
Get back to us when you cut a trillion in spending.
Said the Republiccans wouldn't let the Dems raise taxes,...and of course the Dems were NOT going to cut any spending....so we Gridlock and someone needs to do something!
GOP leaders slam the door on carbon taxes
Global Warming on Free Republic
Every time they raise taxes, it further shifts the imbalance in the “progressive” direction, and every time they CUT taxes, they do so in a way that worsens the imbalance too (see Bush tax cuts). We got to get a lot more people with “skin in the game” or it’ll be tax-and-spend big goobermint as far as the eye can see.
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