Warren Buffett Opposes the Energy Tax
By dipinion on Jun 28, 2009 in Politics
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett supported Barack Obama’s Presidential bid last year, and has never been a proponent of major tax cuts. But in an interview today with CNBC, Buffet slammed the new Energy Tax being voted on in Congress this week saying it is a “huge tax” that will “harm an awful lot of people”.
When contacting your Senators there are two bill numbers this falls under the originial which I see all over as the original one at H R and the new one is HR 2998 http://bit.ly/155zlK
Energy Bills and Taxes at: http://bit.ly/11xFyo
Speak up!
NO MORE!!!
STOP NOW!
THE PEOPLE EARNED THEIR FREEDOM AND LIBERTY!
MAKE NO APOLOGIES!
If you say it mean it!
Camouflaging the Costs of Cap and Trade
In an attempt to whitewash the devastating energy tax, Media Matters recently attacked the newest American Solutions television ad highlighting the pitfalls of cap and trade. Media Matters uses the Congressional Budget Office’s most recent analysis, which concluded that the average annual cost of Waxman-Markey would be about $175 per household.
The problem, though, is that CBO ignored key costs of the legislation.
The Heritage Foundation has an excellent summation of the problems with CBO’s analysis. The most significant one is highlighted here:
“Most problematic is their complete omission of economic damage from restricting energy use. Footnote three on page four reads,
‘The resource cost does not indicate the potential decrease in gross domestic product (GDP) that could result from the cap. The reduction in GDP would also include indirect general equilibrium effects, such as changes in the labor supply resulting from reductions in real wages and potential reductions in the productivity of capital and labor).’
That’s a pretty big chunk of change to ignore. In The Heritage Foundation’s analysis of the Waxman-Markey climate change legislation, the GDP hit in 2020 was $161 billion (2009 dollars). For a family of four, that is $1,870 that they ignore.”
CBO also indicates that the federal government would “incur additional costs of about $12 billion” to pay for low-income households’ rebates and the energy tax credit. These costs would fall on households either through higher taxes or reduced government services. Yet again, “CBO did not distribute those costs across households.”
On the question of job creation under Waxman-Markey, CBO concludes that some industries and certain regions of the country “would experience substantially higher rates of unemployment and job turnover as the program became increasingly stringent. That transition could be particularly difficult for individuals employed in those industries (such as the coal industry) or living in those regions (such as Appalachia).”
Heritage actually found that by 2035, Waxman-Markey would destroy 2.5 million jobs.
But energy tax supporters like Media Matters and the Center for American Progress gloss over this reality by only emphasizing job creation under Waxman-Markey.
In other words, don’t worry about losing your job in West Virginia or Kentucky or the Midwest, because there will be job creation on the West Coast and in the Northeast. It’s fitting that the sponsors of the bill are Henry Waxman from California and Ed Markey from Massachusetts, and that the loudest opposition is coming from Collin Peterson of Minnesota.
Media Matters also emphasizes that, according to CBO, the cost of Waxman-Markey will likely be lower because federal subsidies were not taken into account.
But a federal subsidy is real money that the government spends, which has to come from somewhere. This actually proves the point that the Waxman-Markey bill is nothing more than a redistribution of wealth through taxation.
In fact, the report concludes by suggesting that the costs could also be higher than predicted: “For example, if most of the omitted costs were to fall on lower-income households while most of the omitted benefits were to fall on higher-income households, the distributional outcomes could be significantly different” from what the CBO concluded.
Of course, the central pillar of the energy tax scam all along has been that all of the money taxed away will be returned, dollar for dollar, and that we will create millions of new “green jobs.” Once we impose higher costs on everyone, we will all get our money back (and somehow end up paying less overall in the process), we will all find new jobs that can’t be outsourced, and everyone will live happily ever after. It’s all gain and no pain.
But as Heritage points out: “When have Americans ever seen all of a tax returned to them? It’s like suggesting your tax rebate will be as large as the amount taken from your paycheck every year.”
Bernie Madoff would be proud.
http://www.americansolutions.com/energy/2009/06/camouflaging-the-costs-of-cap-and-trade.php
Many links to research this for yourself, WE KNOW THIS IS NOT GOOD FOR AMERICA!!!! IT IS A SCAM!!!
Natural Resources, Environment, and Science
• Waxman-Markey Global Warming Bill: Economic Impact by Congressional District – The Heritage Foundation
• CBO Grossly Underestimates Cost of Cap and Trade – The Heritage Foundation
• Nuclear Energy Renaissance: Global Supply Chain Critical – The Heritage Foundation
• Who Pays for Climate Policy? New Estimates of the Household Burden and Economic Impact of U.S. Cap-and-Trade System – Tax Foundation
Budget & Taxation
• A Fat Tax That’s Hard to Swallow – American Enterprise Institute
• In Defense of Doing Nothing – Cato Institute
• Kicking the Soda Can: Hard Truths about a Soft Drink Tax – Washington Legal Foundation
• Denial of Federal Tax Deduction for Punitive Damages Threatens Job Growth – Washington Legal Foundation
• Understanding the Stimulus: A Primer for Connecticut Citizens on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 – Yankee Institute for Public Policy
Waxman-Markey Bill Is An Energy Tax That Doesn’t Work Heritage Foundation
