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NYT, WaPo, Time, CNN Praise ‘Republican’ Calls for Carbon Tax [Fake News Alert]
Newsbusters ^ | 2/23/17 | James Powers

Posted on 02/23/2017 1:00:48 PM PST by markomalley

Columnists and editorial boards of national news outlets hope President Donald Trump will institute taxation of carbon dioxide, citing “prominent” Republican support for such “climate action.”

In February, The New York Times editorial board, a Washington Post columnist, Time magazine and a CNN.com opinion columnist all ran pieces endorsing a carbon tax. Post columnist Robert Samuelson cried “two cheers for a carbon tax” in his headline. In order to sell the idea, the media used descriptions like “blue-collar climate plan” and labeled it a tax that “could win over” Trump.

The general premise of a carbon tax is that energy companies will be taxed for every ton of carbon they emit, making the price of carbon based energy increase and the demand decrease.

Those liberal media outlets had a specific reason for bringing the issue up again. Time published Yale economics professor Matthew Kotchen’s endorsement of the idea on Feb. 21. As Kotchen noted, a plan was put forward recently by people he called “conservative giants.” The list included James Baker, Henry Paulson, Jr. and George Shultz. On Feb. 8, those men held an event to explain their plan to repeal Obama’s Clean Power Plan and replace it with a carbon tax.

But the “conservative giants” he listed weren’t exactly household names. More well-known conservatives including Sen. Ted Cruz, and radio hosts Mark Levin and Rush Limbaugh have all opposed carbon taxes.

CNN columnist John Sutter claimed the plan would be “simple, popular and effective.” He also lauded carbon taxes as the “holy grail” of “climate policy experts.”

Many disagree with that assessment. Mercatus Center senior research fellow Veronique de Rugy condemned the Republicans’ “misguided” attempts to implement a carbon tax. She called the idea that it is economically “advantageous” a “seductive but ultimately unconvincing argument.”

“History has repeatedly shown that when new taxes are adopted in exchange for reducing the scope of government, we always get the tax increases and rarely see the promised returns,” de Rugy wrote at Reason.com.

A study from the Cato Institute had other objections. It cited MIT economist Robert Pindyck who criticized the methodology used to determine the negative effects of carbon emission. He argued their process is “close to useless” for determining policy.

Nevertheless, Kotchen asserted that if Trump’s GOP failed to adopt the carbon tax plan, Republicans would be a party of “destruction” rather than a party of  “solutions.”

Even though Donald Trump opposed the carbon tax on the campaign trail, the liberal media were literally cheering for him to be persuaded to adopt one. Kotchen said Republican endorsements “may help Trump” buy into the idea. The Times described the proponents as a “gang of Republican elder statesmen.”

“They call themselves the Climate Leadership Council ... not made up of the usual environmentalists, which is why their proposal might gain traction, though probably not right away,” the Times’ editorial board wrote on Feb. 13.

Samuelson was the least enthusiastic. He wrote, “By all means, let’s have a carbon tax. It’s the best way to deal with global climate change ... But let’s not pretend that a carbon tax is a panacea for either climate change or too much debt.”

Kotchen mentioned that Trump’s Press Secretary Sean Spicer said the administration would not enact environmental laws that come “at the detriment of economic growth and job creation.”

The Cato study argued that the carbon tax would harm growth warning that “Even a revenue neutral carbon tax swap will probably reduce conventional GDP growth.”  


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: junknews
James Baker, Henry Paulson, Jr. and George Shultz…c'mon Lamestreams...don't you think you could do a LITTLE better than that?

They must think that conservatives are as mind-numbed as their brain-damaged leftie cultists.

1 posted on 02/23/2017 1:00:48 PM PST by markomalley
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To: markomalley

The NYT, WaPo and Time - all three anti-tree.


2 posted on 02/23/2017 1:09:19 PM PST by Brian Griffin
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To: markomalley

Just how much carbon tax should the tree-killing trio have to pay?


3 posted on 02/23/2017 1:12:38 PM PST by Brian Griffin
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To: markomalley

Junk News like junk food will kill you...................eventually................

Dr. Oz: EEG Brain Scans Reveal Fake News Threatens Your Health
Observer ^ | 2/23/17 | Dr. Mehmet Oz

Posted on 2/23/2017, 9:55:44 AM by Mozilla

Our show will spotlight a first-of-its-kind social experiment to identify the dangerous and disruptive effect of fake news on our brains. We had high profile fake news creator Jestin Coler craft two fictional stories: one designed to prey on liberals and another on conservatives.

Women read the articles, not knowing they were fake, as neuropsychiatrist Dr. Daniel Amen gathered quantitative EEG assessments. The findings supported results of a functional MRI study recently published in Nature Scientific Reports, which showed how challenging a person’s political beliefs could activate the parts of the brain associated with emotion and self-identity.

A self-described liberal woman in our social experiment reported feeling sad after reading a fictional article on illegal immigrants, but revealed stronger irritation and anger when processing a fake story about a jailed climate change researcher. Simultaneous changes in her brain activity were also much greater when processing the climate change story and correlated with a strong emotional response of angst and fear.

A conservative woman demonstrated opposite reactions. For her, the article on illegal immigration elicited changes in brain activity changes that you would see during a physical threat.

The women were not told that the articles were fake until they were seated on stage. What happened next was startling. First, the women understandably, but awkwardly, tried to defend why they believed the false stories, rather than expressing frustration that they had been duped. This natural human tendency was highlighted by one woman’s comment that while the news was fake, it reinforced a truth she felt about our country—so the piece was tolerable.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3528304/posts

So protect your mental health by never watching ABCNNBCBS and some Faux liberals.

Never read any article by the NY or LA Slimes, Compost, SF Gay Rhonical, WSJ supposedly about President Trump.

Then: Donate Monthly to Free Republic and don’t read posts labeled as Fake News, Junk News or Not Even News. Let Trump drive the liberals and their mediots even more insane and depressed with his real news from Tweets and his controlled Press Conferences!


4 posted on 02/23/2017 1:13:42 PM PST by Grampa Dave (No country has a right to ship their poverty laden, killers, rapists & criminals to our/my country!!)
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To: markomalley

The left ARe enemies of the United States- man’s CO2 amounts to just 0.00136% of our atmosphere- that’s it folks- there is no damn thick blanket conversion the globe trapping heat- there isn’t enough CO2 to do so- The left simply want to STEAL your money from you under the guise of ‘saving the planet’- that is one hell of a scam they’ve dreamed up there! Emphasis on hell- )

I have new for them- the planets is GUARUNTEED to be around for at the very least, another 1007 years- the planet isn’t going to burst into flames- and there is absolutely nothing we can do to change the temperature one way or another - Even if we poured trillions of dollars into the effort- it would reduce man’s CO2 to what? 0.00135% of the atmosphere? Big freakin deal!


5 posted on 02/23/2017 2:49:59 PM PST by Bob434
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To: markomalley

Just knowing who is pushing us toward a carbon tax is reason enough not to consider it. Making new problems & not solving any old ones at the same time hardly seems the way to go.


6 posted on 02/23/2017 4:35:09 PM PST by oldtech
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