Taxes

Excel Energy, the biggest wind energy producer in America, says that it may not sign up for more wind energy because the subsidies extended as part of the bill that saved 99% of Americans from income tax increases inclluded some $40 billion in pork for developers of wind power farms and their suppliers like General Electric.

The wind production tax credit (PTC) disguises the cost of wind energy and exacerbates the costs of other types of enery sources, Excel's lobbyist said in a statement reported by The Foundry blog, which is part of the Heritage Network..

Excel has raised rates to pay for its "clean energy" investments in Colorado and Minnesota. Many of its wind farms are around our farm in SW Minnesota. That it isn't likely to buy more towers is another reason for us to not put towers on our farm. I've been agaisnt the towers because they're ugly, noisy and likely to be eyesores for decades after they wear out and cease to produce energy. Most important, we don't like being part of an uneconomic enterprise subsidized at the rate of $8.5 billion $10 billion a year by consumers and taxpayers for no good reasons. 

LINKS:

The Hidden Costs of Wind Energy; Why the full cost of wind generation is unlikely to match the cost of natural gas, coal or nuclear generation, By American Tradition Institute.

The hidden costs of wind power, by Institute for Energy Research.

Top wind utility: Wind subsidy benefits industry, not consumers, by Lachlan Markay, The Foundry blog.

Wind turbines 'Only lasting for half as long as previously thought,' by Energy Tribune.

The Democratic war on science, by Steven Hayward at Powerline blog.

Science must be seen to bridge the political divide; Scientists in the United States are often perceived as a Democratic interest grouip. For science's sake this has to change, by Daniel Sarewitz @ http://www.nature.com.

Divider-in-Chief Obama is sending America over the fiscal cliff he created and is trying to use to turn America into a one-party, Chicago style corrupt and bankrupt country. Sec. of Treasury Geithner, a leading liar for Obama, says the country will reach the debt ceiling on Dec. 31, 2012, Previously he had warned the ceiling would be reached in February.  All House GOP Members should sign a letter to Obama that says the debt ceiling will be raised for one year when: 

Democrats and Republicans are deeply divided within each party as well as between parties on how to avert putting the country over the "fiscal cliff," which really is a slope, not a cliff. As a Small Government Republican Medicare beneficiary who's benefited from the free gift of Part D, cheap Medicare premiums, tax credits on home mortgages and coverage of primary care services that I should be paying for out of pocket, here's the deal I would like to see:

1. Make Medicare and Medicaid catastrophic programs only. Drop all the wellness and primary care nonsense that enriches providers and often hurts patients with false positives and harmful procedures.

2. Take all Congressionally imposed mandated benefits out of M/M.

3. Take all payments for teaching and medical research out of M/M. Fund them in separate bills and programs.

4. Breakup regional and metro hospital systems, medical groups and national health insurers.

5. Free seniors to buy non Medicare health insurance plans that cover primary care, wellness care and alternative care services without any Medicare subsidies for those premiums.

6. Raise premiums on all parts of Medicare. They're ridiculously low. 

7. Raise co-pays for all primary/preventive care and lower co/pays on catastrophically expensive cases.

8. Make Medicare Advantage enrollees pay the full premiums for the expanded coverage. 

9. Use money saved by eliminating coverage of provider-enriching preventive and wellness services to cover long-term care expenses that become catastrophically expensive as a percentage of the beneficiary's wealth, including the value of a a home or other investments. If someone is worth, say, $5 million, and long-term care costs, say, $80,000 to $100,000 a year, let that person pay for that care. If the person is worth $500,000 or less, Medicare could pay. That's the Moocher Nation way, of course.

10. Eliminate the death tax. Keep taxes on capital gains and dividends at 15%. No tax increases on the rich unless everyone gets income tax increases. Shrink the number of people who don't pay income taxes, get food stamps and are fraudulently filing disability claims.

11. Keep SS/Medicare enrollments at current ages. Change CPI calculations to reflect real inflation, which is a lot higher than the CPI shows today.

Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) is a leading spend and tax environmental extremist who is bragging about inflating the Defense Dept.'s budget with an amendment that will force it to waste billions on uneconomic green energy. 

In a letter to constituents, he wrote:

Last week, the U.S. Senate voted 62-37 in favor of my amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013, authorizing the Defense Department to continue its efforts to develop and use alternative fuels. I worked across the aisle to secure this bipartisan victory. Passage of this amendment, when signed into law, will ensure that our military has the resources it needs to develop and use advanced alternative fuels that bring down costs, improve mission capabilities and reduce the strategic vulnerabilities associated with a reliance on foreign fossil fuels.

Udall's up for re-election in 2014. Sadly, the GOP doesn't seem to have a strong challenger in the wings. So Udall can safely   promote unwise government spending and higher taxes to pay for that spending.

The greedy Moocher Nation voted for Divider-in-Chief Obama. Now he is signalling that he is taking them over the fiscal cliff.  If Obama takes us over the cliff, way less than 47% of Americans will not pay income taxes. And most of those who will write income tax checks for the first time in years will get what they voted for. Going over the cliff will cost most of us a lot of money.  So be it. Downsize government. Tea Party II will win in 2014.

The "monied suburbs" voted Obama. Let them pay for their Moocher Nation greed.

As Jennifer Rubin reports, a Gallup poll confirms that most Democrats are socialists and most Republicans are capitalists.

For Democrats, profits are all about greed. That's because the people who believe this in general have never risked anything or lost anything in their efforts to make profits. They think there is a straight line from startup to profitability and that once profitable, you've got it made. 
 
Not so. Most new ventures lose money, sometimes for years. Sports Illustrated lost money for decades before turning profitable. Amazon still is basically a dark hole because it's plowing all of its positive cash flow into building the company. Its socialist customers applaud its small profit margins. When and IF it starts to make money, Amazon's customers will be very angry. Discounted books and stuff are a right for them. 
 
As for profitability, look at Hewlett-Packar, Nokia, Dell and some of their suppliers like AMD, the chip maker. They're on the ropes due to changes in technology and consumer demand (iPads v. laptops). Socialists overlook the hard times that businesses and investors go through when markets change and they make mistakes.  
 
Successful companies weather their bad days while they restructure. See GE, IBM, CAT, Goldman Sachs, Macy's, etc. Unsuccessfull businesses go into chapter 7 bankruptcy. See Hostess, Borders, etc.

Monetary economists say monetary policy, not fiscal policy, affects the health of the U.S. economy. Now we have Keynesian Republicans like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) saying they'd raise taxes or cut tax deductions and cut entitlement spending if that would be good for the country.

Would cutting entitlement spending, raising tax revenues and holding defense spending near current levels help or hurt the economy? Or would all of the "doing something" churning in Washington do nothing but roil the stocks, bonds, currencies and commodities markets and put more people out of work? Would all of this affect the budget deficit or national debt?

LINKS:

Lindsey Graham: I would violate Norquist's pledge, By Tim Mak, 11.25.2012

Why the fiscal cliff matters, By Diana Furchtgott-Roth, 11. 23.2012

Because he's so political and intellectually corrupted by power, it's hard to believe anything former Obama economic adviser, Larry Summers, says. But one thing he's saying probably signals Obama's plans to impose carbon and sweets taxes after using the fiscal cliff to hike taxes and cut defense spending. Nanny state Obama Democrats always are looking for new opportunities to tax, but it won't happen as long as Republicans control the U.S. House of Representatives.

LINKS:

President Obama wants to kill the Republican Party by getting the House GOP to renege on its 20-year-old pledge to not raise taxes. There is a 25% to 35% chance he may get them to commit political suicide. If the House GOP caves on the fiscal cliff, a lot of economic conservatives will stay home in 2014. But there are some interesting questions about  the fiscal cliff and what would happen if we went over it next year.

1. Whose tax credits, tax loopholes, depreciation schedules, government contracts and government subsidies is Norquist protecting?
2. If we go over the cliff, what percent of working Americans will NOT pay income taxes? 47%, 35%, 30%, or what?
3. If we go over the cliff, wouldn't it advance future tax votes if more Americans had to pay the increased taxes and pressed Congress to NOT raise taxes again?
4. If defense is cut another $500 billion, what welfare programs, health benefits, retirement benefits and pork for contractors would be cut first?
5. What kind of security threat would it take to get Congress to reinstate most defense spending? Isn't the Middle East mess enough as it is?
6. Since the fiscal stimulus bill of 2009 and ObamaCare upped spending some $1 trillion over 10 years, maybe $2T, wouldn't it be easy to cut spending under sequestration?
7. If Sequestration made Obama stop picking energy winners and losers with his crony capitalism spending on his favored few ethanol and wind tower makeris, wouldn't we see revivals in petroleum exploration and coal? Wouldn't markets work?
8. With sequestration, would infrastructure spending increase and use up the increased tax revenues? Or would the need to pay down the debt, House refusals to spend on infrastructure unless defense spending was increased again cause more gridlock and help reduce all spending? 
9. While stock markets might drop 5% or so if we went over the cliff, would there be enough certainty for businesses to begin investing and hiring again as the economy recovered?

If we go over the cliff, I blame Obama more than the GOP. Obama Democrats are so greedy for political power that they'll do anything to win it, including putting lots of Americans out of work in the process. Obama Democrats are just like the Hostess union leaders who fund them.

The problem is that few trust or believe Obama Democrats or Republicans. That makes it hard to get anything done. The markets have to clear out the dead wood in a bunch of markets before there can be a recovery.

Mitt Romney introduced his economic reform plan today in USAToday. The 59 points follow:

Every Friday, Jennifer Rubin, the Right Turn blogger on the Washington Post web site, asks her readers a question. On Sundays, she picks one or two answers posted by commenters on her blog and comments on the thread that she started.

This week's question: "What does [Rick] Perry need to do to maintain his momentum and begin to minimize doubts about his electability?"

This morning she picked two answers. My post about my eight ideas for stimulating consumer spending and hiring was one of the two answers she picked out of a bunch of good comments that followed her question. That thread is here. My slightly edited and expanded version of my comment, which I posted on this blog, is here.

Rubin summarized the answers this way:

I was struck by two important assumptions running through the answers. First, unlike many in the right blogosphere, the readers did not dismiss criticisms of Perry out of hand or characterize them as creations of the liberal media. They want to put Perry through the paces, and they understand there are real concerns about his candidacy. Second, it is apparent that readers are sick of platitudes and one-liners; they want detailed proposals and an explanation as to how the candidate’s background equips him to deal with our current national challenges. If Right Turn readers are representative of the Republican primary electorate, the party is in very good hands. The primary process is a time for not only choosing, but probing and testing.

U.S. House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) is promising to work with President Obama to stimulate consumer spending that is needed to create jobs, and he asked for comments on his response to Friday's dismal jobs report. I doubt that President Zero really wants to work with Cantor or the Republicans, because that would cost him the support of the House Progressive Caucus and the Hard Left.

I posted this comment, which I've edited and expanded a bit:

How to stimulate consumption that will cause businesses to hire more people:

What's interesting is that Perry, Bachmann and Romney all are Big Intrusive Government Republicans on both fiscal and social issues. 

Perry has a long record of using state 

Why is Warren Buffett backing Obama's higher taxes?

Motivations are important. So we have to ask why 

John Andrews has written a book, Responsibility Reborn, that many Small Government Americans will want to read.