Archive for category Statism
Sucking Air: Wind Energy’s Compound Felony
Posted by Tom in Centrally Managed Economy, Energy Facts & Policies, Statism, Subsidies on January 1, 2011
T. Boone Pickens finally admitted his multi billion “Pickens Plan” to make the U.S. the “Saudi Arabia of wind” was uneconomic even with the multi billion dollar tax subsidies. Wind subsidies at $6.44 per MBTU are 160% of the $4 per MBTU price of natural gas! That’s wasted money in desperate economic times. See Robert Bryce’s WSJ article, A Wind Power Boonedoggle. Of course, our lame duck 111th Congress renewed the investment tax credit for renewable energy projects.
But compounding this taxpayer theft, is another regulatory usurpation by the Obama administration. This time by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and its imposition of a multi million dollar annual surtax on utility bills in 13 midwestern states to cover the costs of transmission lines to wind and solar projects.
This has no statutory authority. Nor is there any legal precedent for this action by these unelected leftist bureaucrats. Legally FERC’s rate schemes have been based on the principle that users pay, non-users don’t. This new tax is imposed on non-users as well as users to promote so-called “multi value projects’ that take into account broad “public policy goals.” In other words the unelected bureaucrats without congressional authority or court precedent can do just about anything they damn well please!
Thursday’s WSJ editorialized against The Midwest Wind Surtax, calling it the latest scheme to socialize the costs of renewable energy. The folly of the renewable energy proponents is getting out of hand.
“For example, a 2009 study by the California Public Utilities Commission finds that to meet the state’s “33% RPS by 2020 target, seven additional [transmission] lines at a cost of $12 billion would be required.” By some estimates, electricity from the Cape Wind project off Massachusetts will cost about two to three times more per kilowatt hour than electricity from coal or natural gas. The wind industry has essentially conceded that without the ability to socialize the cost of multibillion dollar transmission lines, its projects can’t compete with coal, natural gas and nuclear power.”
“The FERC pricing scheme is politically insidious, and arguably unconstitutional, because it enables states with renewable standards to export the costs of those policies to other states without these laws. Why should a factory in Pontiac, Michigan subsidize the wind energy costs of a plant in Elgin, Illinois? Michigan has a renewable energy standard, but it is already complying through instate renewables.”
No doubt that true renewable energy should be used where available without subsidy, hydroelectric and geothermal power are examples. Nuclear power should be promoted for base load purposes throughout the country. But the waste of taxpayer money on part-time renewable boondoggles like wind and solar compounded by the imposition of transmission taxes on non-users by FERC is truly a compound wrong against taxpayers and common sense.
Shades of George Orwell
Posted by Tom in Centrally Managed Economy, Constitution, Federalism, Government Regulation, Individual Freedom, Law, Morality & Religion in the Public Square, National Character, Statism on December 28, 2010
Hopefully only a bad dream from which we shall awake!
Merry Christmas…but for how long?
Posted by Tom in Bankruptcy, Centrally Managed Economy, Congress, Deficit, Fiscal Policy, National Debt, Statism on December 25, 2010
Check out OweNo.com, a project of the Peter J. Peterson foundation. Here’s a sample:
Foreign Debt from Hugh Jidette on Vimeo.
Obama’s Leftist NLRB Run Amuck
Posted by Tom in Centrally Managed Economy, Congress, Statism, Unions on December 23, 2010
As we all know the unions own a big piece of Obama and he acknowledged this with his sponsorship of the Employee Free Choice Act permitting “card-check” unionization which eliminated those messy secret ballot elections. This passed in Pelosi’s House but failed to pass the Senate arguable because of the high unemployment rate of almost 10%. If this indeed was a reason for the failure, it’s a rare and happy sense of economics out of this august body. Unionization causes unemployment just as the minimum wage causes unemployment.
When legislation fails Obama shifts to the regulatory arena which he did at the NLRB by appointing Lafe Solomon, a career board lawyer, as “acting general counsel.” Now, the NLRB General Counsel is a position that requires Senate confirmation, but Obama has nominated no one as general counsel!
Why, you ask? Because Solomon is a radical leftist labor organizer. Without nomination or confirmation this wild man has started a rule making process which inter alia would require open shop employers to give the unions the names and addresses of the workers to promote unionization.
Is it fair to conclude that Obama favors economic barriers to full employment? This regulatory subterfuge would support that conclusion. Favor unions over the economy. The GM government takeover is another example of this.
Diana Furchtgott-Roth, an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute, posted an excellent RCP article today, Where Unions Are, Americans Aren’t. In it she demonstrates how right-to-work states have gained congressional representation while forced unionization states have lost it. Winners like Texas and Florida are in the south and west, losers like New York and Illinois are in the northeast and midwest. In fact this has been the case for the last 25 years with right-to-work states growth more than double the growth of the forced unionization states. The recent Republican surge in the House, Senate and state governments confirms the voters attitude toward Obama’s more radical statist agenda.
Obama from the get-go has embarked on a statist, economy killing, job killing agenda. Whether it was Obamacare, cap and trade, or financial regulation, everything he and his minions along with Pelosi and Reid have created drag and uncertainties in the economy.
Despite his press conference Wednesday where he stated that “we now have to pivot and focus on jobs and growth,” he still tolerates radicals like Solomon in critical positions. Methinks that paleface speaks with forked tongue.
Everything government does beyond its legitimate scope, increases uncertainty and decreases growth and employment. Unionization and minimum wages are prime examples! That he ignores the law to pay back the unions he owes, is all the more damnable!
Another Usurpation Under, What Else? Obamacare!
Posted by Tom in Centrally Managed Economy, Democrats, Federalism, Government Regulation, Nationalized Health Care, Statism on December 22, 2010
It seem that under the new Obamacare law, Tsar Sebelius can do whatever the hell she wants, without statutory authority. As today’s WSJ article, Sebelius’s Price Controls, indicates, she has instructed the states to approve medical insurance rate increases only to the extent of 10% or less and block others. This, despite the fact that the new Obamacare law has increased required covered care which mandates will cost well beyond 10%!
We have reached Communist level control in this country under Obama and his leftists thugs. They dictate services increases and price controls without any economic justification.
Tom Sullivan in Connecticut, against Tzar Sebelius’s mandate, approved a 20% increase justified by required increased services. “I find myself in an unprecedented place and time, as do my counterparts throughout the country,” Mr. Sullivan wrote to Mr. Blumenthal, “in overseeing the implementation of one of the most far-reaching policy initiatives enacted by the federal government in recent history.” State regulators, he continued, are “in an unenviable position as we are required by Congress to approve richer benefit packages, while simultaneously being called upon by you to reduce rates.” He ultimately resigned and his predecessor reversed his decision.
“Congress, which by some miracle declined to give HHS the formal legal authority to explicitly block premium increases, despite a direct appeal from President Obama. Instead, Ms. Sebelius is creating by regulatory fiat larger de facto powers to achieve the same end.”
Yesterday, we saw the FCC grant itself authority to regulate the internet and expropriate private property in the name of net neutrality. No statutory authority. Here we see Comrade Sebelius grant herself authority to block justified premium increases. No statutory authority.
Is it any wonder that businesses won’t invest, won’t hire, while the economic recovery is stuck in “slow” and unemployment in “high?” This regulatory uncertainty is as bad as legislative uncertainty. Investors and businesses don’t know what will come next. These unelected bureaucrats can grant themselves power and exercise it at will!
Our nation will not recover until we rid ourselves of this leftist scum.
Christmas Surprise: FCC Expropriation & Internet Control
Posted by Tom in Centrally Managed Economy, Congress, Constitution, FCC, Free Speech, Government Regulation, Statism on December 20, 2010
It’s been long brewing but Obama’s unelected regulators at the FCC will tomorrow issue the order for “net neutrality” and internet regulation. As discussed in a prior post, net neutrality forces carriers to favor bandwidth hogs at no additional costs. Even though those carriers have invested significant dollars in their infrastructure, they will not be allowed to charge an appropriate return on their investment. This is a pure and simple a taking of property without just compensation, a confiscation of invested capital.
Worse, it is a first step to regulatory assertion of the right to regulate the internet without specific statutory authority to do so. It is legally an ultra vires action of government bureaucrats. Commissioner Robert McDowell tells the story in yesterday’s WSJ, The FCC’s Threat to Internet Freedom.
So why the Christmas surprise in this busy season as the infamous 111th Congress draws to a close? The usurpers of power, the Democratic dictators at the FCC know that the congress only has 60 days to review and potentially stop this illegal FCC action. If the holidays occupy 10 of those days, and organization of the new 112th Congress occupies another 10 or so days, then there will only be 40 days left for review. And as we all know there are more pressing national fiscal problems that will command higher congressional priority. Obama’s expropriators are hoping to float this usurpation under the radar.
Indeed it is the regulatory regime that will sustain this lame duck president during the next two years. And it is in this arena that major uncertainty will be created which will further damage the economy, indeed, the republic. The FCC will potentially damage our freedom of speech and freedom of the press, while the EPA can proceed to bankrupt our nation with cap and trade regulation of CO2!
Internet Freedom Coalition posted an excellent article on the subject, Silencing the voices of Internet dissent. It is a call to action to alert congressional representatives to review and reject the threat to free speech and free press. This is a critical effort.
Absent internet criticism of Obama and his ilk, we will become another Russia or China.
SHUT IT DOWN!
Posted by Tom in Congress, Entitlements, Federalism, Individual Freedom, Law, Morality & Religion in the Public Square, National Character, Statism, Subsidies, Welfare on December 15, 2010
It just burns money. It’s fraught with fraud and waste. It is not in touch with the will of the governed. It has little if any legitimacy. That’s our federal government which will shut down without the passage of an omnibus spending bill of 1,924 pages, pages that no legislator has read or fully understands.
Republicans want earmarks stripped from the bill before they will support it. That’s what the results of the last election would indicate the voters of America are demanding. This seems a reasonable interpretation of the November election results.
The existing stopgap measure that funds the current government operation is set to expire at midnight on Saturday. Absent legislation the government stops.
What a concept! The government stops! How would we function without a government? We would need to conduct our affairs with regard to others. We would need to help others in need. We would need to promote the general welfare of our immediate communities. We would need to come together to settle our private disputes, or, failing that, find a neutral arbitrator to settle them.
Now, the congregate victim class would have no ready bankroll and would need to deal with others on a reasonable basis. There would be no automatic handouts to the entitlement class, but those in need would be required to demonstrate that need.
Commerce would be conducted on a market basis. There would be no subsidies to favor one product or solution over another. Competition would prevail in quality, price, availability, etc. Markets would be allowed to work.
People who wanted services like education, medical treatment, transportation, etc. would pay for them, unless they could claim a real hardship, in which case others would help them. In other words, everyone would pay for what he gets.
If our nation were attacked we would need to take up arms to defend our hearth and home. If hooligans ran roughshod in our streets, we would need to band together to collar them and bring them to local justice.
On balance, all this might not be too bad. A teachable moment as our president is wont to say! Think what burdens would be lifted and what responsibilities would be replaced!
The Fox article today reports the brouhaha as well as any. McCain’s take is enlightening:
“Sen. John McCain tweeted the top 10 earmarks in the spending bill, including $247,000 for virus free wine grapes in Washington State, $413,000 for peanut research in Alabama, $235,000 for noxious weed management in Nevada and $400,000 for solar parking canopies and plug-in electric stations in Kansas.”
“McCain expressed disbelief about the projects.”
“Are we tone deaf? Are we stricken with amnesia?” he said, adding that voters made it clear in last month’s midterm elections that they’re tired of business as usual in Washington.”
When left a choice between stealing from other taxpayers with earmarks and continuing to steal from our grandchildren with every thing else or alternatively shutting down a government that doesn’t work, I say, SHUT IT DOWN!
Stalin’s Ghost is Alive and Well in the FCC’s Michael Copps
Posted by Tom in Constitution, Government Regulation, Individual Freedom, Press, Statism on December 8, 2010
Democrat Michael Copps of the FCC wants to impose a “public welfare test” on broadcasters forcing upon them “a renewed commitment to serious news and journalism,” according to today’s IBD editorial, A Tyrant’s Thinking!
Recall that the Communists to complete the takeover of a country needed to control the media and the universities. Copps, a good student, has learned the Communist lesson. Here’s a guy that has sucked at the public teat all his life, never known a real job, and in a brief foray into private life worked in government relations.
He is the perfect leftist liberal, a member of the governing elite that fits in the Obama, Reid, Pelosi cabal. Besides wanting to control news content, he is a strong advocate of “net-neutrality.” That is the concept where content providers can expropriate bandwidth from carriers who have invested heavily in it.
This guy’s positions are right in line with this leftist administration. He opposes the First Amendment’s freedom of speech and the Fifth/Fourteenth Amendments’ freedom from unjust takings.
We need to fear for our nation when unelected bureaucrats like this have the power they have.
Time for an Obamacare Lesson
Posted by Tom in Humor, Nationalized Health Care, Statism, Welfare on December 7, 2010
Specifically for Texas but with generic application:
Hope And Change
With condolences to my liberal friends……..