Governor Sarah Palin blasts Cap and Tax
Jul 14th, 2009 by David Anderson
Governor Sarah Palin wrote on the dangers of the Cap and Trade proposal in the Washington Post today.
I am deeply concerned about President Obama’s cap-and-trade energy plan, and I believe it is an enormous threat to our economy. It would undermine our recovery over the short term and would inflict permanent damage.
American prosperity has always been driven by the steady supply of abundant, affordable energy. Particularly in Alaska, we understand the inherent link between energy and prosperity, energy and opportunity, and energy and security. Consequently, many of us in this huge, energy-rich state recognize that the president’s cap-and-trade energy tax would adversely affect every aspect of the U.S. economy.
There is no denying that as the world becomes more industrialized, we need to reform our energy policy and become less dependent on foreign energy sources. But the answer doesn’t lie in making energy scarcer and more expensive! Those who understand the issue know we can meet our energy needs and environmental challenges without destroying America’s economy.
Job losses are so certain under this new cap-and-tax plan that it includes a provision accommodating newly unemployed workers from the resulting dried-up energy sector, to the tune of $4.2 billion over eight years. So much for creating jobs.
In addition to immediately increasing unemployment in the energy sector, even more American jobs will be threatened by the rising cost of doing business under the cap-and-tax plan. For example, the cost of farming will certainly increase, driving down farm incomes while driving up grocery prices. The costs of manufacturing, warehousing and transportation will also increase.
The ironic beauty in this plan? Soon, even the most ardent liberal will understand supply-side economics.
I was thinking Governor Palin was getting serious but at the end she threw in the plug for “supply-side economics”, and I blew it.
In 2003, the Wall Street Journal declared the debate over supply-side economics to have ended “with a whimper” after extensive modeling performed by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) failed to support the most extreme claims of supply-side policies. The experts warned the Bush Tax supply side tax cuts would lead to crippling deficits.
Supply side economic policy is even less desirable in 2009. The basics of supply side are low tax rates and minimal regulation produce economic growth that pays for the tax cuts with increased revenue.
Governor Palin should be asked to define supply side economics or whether or not she thinks we should have less regulation on Wall Street.
Yeah, you almost had to compliment a Republican. I am relieved that you were able to avoid it.
Cap and Trade has never worked anywhere.
http://delawarerepublican.wordpress.com/drtv/
Mike Protack
I suppose we are to take seriously, the opinions of someone who couldn’t handle the pressure of running of a state having far fewer inhabitants than Delaware?
She enjoyed running the state, and her record of governance is one that I would gladly compare to any governor we had since DuPont. She accomplished all of the goals laid out in her campaign. Why stick around and let her enemies file false reports to bankrupt her? She and her husband are middle class folks like most of us. Being handed a half million in legal bills would force the hand of most of us. She knows that she can earn the money back, but not as governor. It was a perfectly rational choice forced by an irrational and inethical opposition. She couldn’t very well go on a book tour during the budget year when she lives in Alaska.
BTW welcome back. I hope that you go to the economics section and read the lessons from the lost decade series.
David, I voted for Goldwater, Nixon, Reagan, Bush, and Bush. It’s only since the goofy Rush Limbaugh conservatives took over, totally screwed up our fiscal world, that I started to criticize my GOP. Palin smells like more of the same crap that got us where we are now. Any comment on whether or not we need more supply side trickle down deregulation as Palin suggests?
Mike, cap and trade is how the USA cured the acid rain killing lakes and forests in the Northeast. Coal power plants in the Midwest were blowing huge amount of sulfur dioxide our way. Market forces were adapted via cap and trade. They say it worked. Acid rain is not killing us anymore, all the doomsday predictions have been long forgotten.
Cap and trade was designed, tested and proven here in the United States, as a program within the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments. The success of this program led The Economist magazine to crown it “probably the greatest green success story of the past decade.” (July 6, 2002).
In the 1990s, the U.S. acid rain cap and trade program achieved 100 percent compliance in reducing sulfur dioxide emissions. In fact, power plants took advantage of the allowance banking provision to reduce SO2 emissions 22 percent (7.3 million tons) below mandated levels for the first phase of the program.
Anyone who actually voted for Reagan twice voted for supply side economics as that was the basis of the Reagan economic program. Supply side was a term coined by economist Arthur Laffer and was developed by studying the impact of the tax cuts of John F. Kennedy. Reagan adopted the Kennedy tax philosophy and launched this nation on a 20 year period of economic growth. If you don’t like supply side why did you wait 20 years to criticize your beloved GOP. (By the way Limbaugh went National in 1988. So only now you have a problem with him??? Please start to back your rants with facts.
I suspect that if Sarah Palin were to show up in Delaware she would not be campaigning for Representative Castle. It could make things interesting.
Tennessee,
I didn’t mean to say I never liked supply side. I was all for it until we overdid it and it crashed on us. Now it’s time for something different. That’s why I think Palin’s remark about supply side sounded out of touch.
Limbaugh started as a political entertainer. I like him too – until he went from radio pitchman to intellectual foundation of GOP politics. From El Rushbo Jokester to official voice of the GOP. When George W. invited Rush to the White House for his birthday, I figured the GOP was in trouble.
Supply side trickle down says lower taxes at the top coupled with deregulation will spur growth. The added bonus is that revenue lost from tax cuts is recouped by increasing GDP.
Reagan employed that theory in a reasoned manner, as did Clinton. The GOP went extreme with supply side tax cuts in 2003. After coming near a balanced budget, we immediately started to run huge deficits. Meanwhile supply side deregulation for the financial industry was setting us up for disaster. The trickle down failed too. If you look at workers income gains / losses in the past decade that part of the theory did not hold up in the long haul either.
Not saying it’s all bad, just saying it’s over.
I think we have some clarity about your stand on supply side. Thank you. Using your standard, how did what little Gov. Palin said about supply side economics put her in the extreme of anything?
Let’s get back to subject that she expounded upon. Is this approach the best one for America or is her energy approach better?
David,
Gov. Palin says we can have plenty of energy plus a good environment without doing anything major like cap and trade. Trouble is we have been listening to that same song for three generations, now, we’re more dependent on OPEC than ever. Palin policy is – stay the course, we can drill more oil and gas.
Alaska’s a big oil producer. It would be hard for the Governor to be objective when it comes to encouraging alternatives. Cap and trade does that. It alters the cost equation of hydrocarbon energy versus alternatives.
Cap and trade is a risk worth taking. It’s the first step in freeing us from the dangers of being dependent on foreigners for energy. For me, it’s all about National Security. Palin’s claim that the President and the Congress are bent on “destroying the economy” is not constructive.
Against stimulus. Against cap and trade. Against the bail outs. Against public health insurance. Against raising new tax revenue. Against new regulations. All I hear is stay the course, defend the status quo. I’m looking for some change.
Think123, I agree with you, the problem is “we have been listening to that same song for three generations.” We have been listening, but not doing. Staying the course would be continuing to talk about drilling more and using more of our own resources in a more efficent way, instead of actually authorizing it and getting it done. So I’d say Palin is urging us to do anything but stay the course when it comes to energy.
Honestly now that the results of “change” are starting to become apparent, your pleas for it fall a bit flat. If you want change from now on you are going to have to present a clear, well thought out argument for your brand of change. More people are going to question what kind of change from now on.
Timothy,
Oil prices, including oil from Alaska and Texas, are controlled by OPEC. The price is set by the OPEC cartel. A cartel is when producers band together to control production as a method of setting prices. More U.S. drilling will not change prices. Maybe if we nationalized US oil resources, quadrupled productions, and mandated it all be sold in the USA something would change. But as it is, if we doubled output, OPEC could cut their production, our producers only see at the cartel price, not some buy American price. The price of oil drilled in Alaska is set mainly by the Arab world.
We have been on the change road for six months now. Don’t be such a negative vibe. ATM’s still work. Banks are still alive. We have new young energetic leadership. It’s not all bad.
Think123, I will go as far as to say that no matter what we do OPEC will still have a strong influence on oil prices. However, the United States is not a member of OPEC. Alaska, Texas, the Gulf of Mexico region, and other oil and natural resource rich areas belonging to the US are not subject to the prices and policies OPEC sets for its members. They influence but don’t control what the US chooses to do. Conversely American policy, both that of the private and public sectors, can and does influence OPEC policy.
We can make a significant difference in the price of oil and gas based on out choices and policies. That does go both ways though. Good policies can lower the price and bad ones can raise it.
Sorry, I am going to continue to be a reality check for the people that still have their heads in the clouds over President Obama. If that is a negative vibe then it’s a cross I will have to bear. I’ll admit, some ATM’s still work. Banks are still alive, but which ones? The 53 or so that closed, just this year aren’t. I’m not even going to go into unemployment, and other challenges you didn’t bring up, because I don’t want to deprive you of your sunshine and lollipops for too long.
Supply-side economics was a hell of a lot better than what it replaced…..the inept Mr. Peanuts’ stagflation!
Stagflation belongs to Nixon.
Inflation topped out around 5% under Nixion, and it topped around 15% under Carter. I would accept blaming the Fed and OPEC for part of it, but not saying it didn’t exist under Carter who had no answers and seem to worsen everything. Liberalism in both parties made things worse in the 1970′s. It was sort of our lost decade. Now we seem headed back.
I agree that supply side is the essence of American prosperity. But taken to extremes, everything gets screwed up. That happened during Reagan, was fixed by Bush 41 Gingrich and Clinton, then George W. took supply side to extremes again and crashed the system.
During the Reagan years the deficits doubled and the national debt topped a $1 trillion for the first time. The supply side deregulation vibe coming from the Reagan Administration caused the scandalous S & L bank collapse resulting in the first huge bail out of banks since the 1930′s. The first thing Bush 41 had to do after taking over from Reagan was a huge taxpayer bank bail out. The Keating 5. The whole deal was shocking. Getting government “off our backs” meant bank regulators were ordered to lay back while Keating did his dirty deeds ruining the lives of tens of thousands of retirees. Dereg permitted unprecedented corruption to reign in the commercial bank sector. Fraudulent loans based on non-existant deals valued by corrupt appraisals. Sound familiar?
Sure supply side is pretty much what modern Capitalism means. We all know it’s the best way to create prosperity. But when you get fanatic about it, believe that an unregulated private sector will do good by us, profit is all good and government is bad and has no role in the economy you end up screwing things up.
A new mature GOP has to recognize the public sector / private sector synergy and cease making the public sector the enemy while the private sector is God.
During this rebuilding process, guard against this anti-government fanantic approach. Were it not for our big powerful government, Capitalism would eat us alive and spit out the bones. Capitalism is kind of like a nuclear reactor. It can do a lot of good, but it has to be carefully contained and monitored, otherwise will destroy you. The GOP overdid it. The Democrats will repair things. Then we start over.
Speaking of things that topped $1 trillion, this year the national deficit topped $1 trillion for the first time ever. Yay! Is it possible that we are already going to extremes in the oposite direction?
Democrats have chosen their god. It is the public sector, and the current avatar is President Barak Obama. This new god is not the solution but another problem, and likely a far bigger one. The true God gave us agency. We can choose to give that agency up to other gods to control us, but that is not what God wanted.
Timothy, I agree to much faith in the private sector or the public sector is not a good thing. We are in unchartered territory. The Revolution. The Civil War. The Depression. World War II. The Cold War. Now this. Somehow it always turns out okay. I think we are better off working as a team. Only thing we can do is hope it works. I do not have the answers. I do have faith in our elected leadership.
A good team requires trust to function properly. We have a deficit of trust right now in America that far ecceeds our trillion dollar national trade deficit.
I think the people that voted for President Obama did so, in part, in the hopes that he would heal the broken trust that they had with their nation. If short of outright failure, he has had several severe setbacks in solving the trust issue. Every time the President either allows, or worse pressures a piece of legislation to be pushed through Congress before they have a chance to even read it that trust is broken a little more.
If you want teamwork, then work on restoring trust. I’ll be honest. I have very little faith in our elected officials or their sycophants. You have probably noticed from observing religion that blind faith of adherants does little to inspire trust in people that don’t already have it. So your own faith may help you trust the government, but it will take more to inspire the same in other.
Not blind faith, just don’t be so down on everything. We all say we love a strong coach a leader. Somebody that has a vision, takes charge blah blah. Personally, I think we are lucky to have a young energetic take charge leader in the White House. We have a crisis on our hands. I do not want to turn it over to the committees in Congress so they can bat it back and forth for a year of so. We screwed with energy policy for two generations and ended up with nothing. We have bitched about health insurance premiums killing us for twenty five years and nothing. So now, we are getting off our ass and doing stuff. I hope it works.
That old thing about lead follow or get out of way was never as true as today. I wish I was brilliant enough to say I have an alternative plan. But I don’t. I have faith in the good intentions of our leadership. This is the same democratically elected form of government that led us through the Civil War, Depression, World War II, Cold War. We have a way of rising to the challenge. Spitting at the President don’t help.
So spitting at the President don’t help when you agree with him. I noticed you didn’t include Korea, Vietnam, or Iraq in your list. I get it. I’ll have you know I have yet to spit at the President or even in his general direction, but I will continue to call him on his America killing policies.
The fact is I am part of the younger generation and I know that I am paying for debts that prior generatins left for me with no bennefit to myself. The interest payments alone are in the hundreds of billions of dollars on that debt. If you can show me how I am not an indentured servant sold into involuntary servitude by my parents and the others of their generation, and how President Obama and this Congress are not increasing the national debt therefor extending the time of my bill of indebeture then I will cheer up some.
The fact is that you can’t because Americans have been selling the next generation into servitude with government bonds for several generations now, and we are fast reaching the point of unsustainability. If we continue, we face outright slavery rather than mere involuntary servitude.
I am tired of paying for a system I did not volunteer for and has little to know bennefit to me. Yet, rather than backing up and easing off, the current government wants me to pay for yet more debt. I am done with it and I will not go along silently.
You are becoming major reminder of the distrust I have in the government. So keep it up. Keep reminding me that I don’t matter and my opinion doesn’t count because it doesn’t agree with our “leader’s” plans. I will not follow a leader down a path that is not of my choosing. That leads to dissaster.