1144 - GreenScam (Cash for Clunkers)

wizbangpop

For Clunkers" program would spur more new car sales and put more high mileage automobiles and trucks on the streets. It was intended to be a win-win business marketing program. Indeed, at least 700,000 total new units were sold during the campaign. However, the program was not without some highly negative consequences for the auto business. Many top selling used auto lots now find themselves in a real shortage for quality used cars and trucks as so many good quality vehicles that were hardly classified as true "clunkers" were turned in and destroyed in the program. Even many new car dealers who sell used cars find themselves being forced to run ads offering cash or high trade values for quality used vehicles to sell.
NY Times negative comments

Surprisingly Negative Comments re: Cash for Clunkers from NY Times readers
New York Times

Posted on Friday, July 31, 2009 7:35:53 PM by Ge0ffrey

Many NY Times readers seem to be bashing Congress's cash for clunker program. That's surprising because comments posted to NY Times articles usually run 9-1 (rough guess) in support of wacky left-wing causes.

Here's an example:

This is classic American legislation:

1. Reward the wrongdoers (i.e., those who bought and drive gas hogs). For this crowd: Drive a polluting, climate-changing, Al Qaeda-supporting pick-up or SUV for a few years, then get a $4,500 credit toward a new car.

2. Punish the responsible citizens (i.e., those who made frugal choices, but are enlisted to help pay for the free ride given to the wrongdoers). For this crowd: nothing but driving their well-made but certainly not immortal Hondas, Toyotas and Nissans toward the 200,000 mile mark, and crossing fingers that they will make it.

3. Fail to account for the true cost of the program.

What we should have in place of this boondoggle for the undeserving is a surtax on all vehicles with under 18 MPG, with all proceeds of the surtax going to renewable energy, energy conservation and mass transit projects. Rather than reward these slobs, make them pay.

1145 - GreenScam (cost kept from us)

CBS news blog

The Obama administration has privately concluded that a cap and trade law would cost American taxpayers up to $200 billion a year, the equivalent of hiking personal income taxes by about 15 percent.

A previously unreleased analysis prepared by the U.S. Department of Treasury says the total in new taxes would be between $100 billion to $200 billion a year. At the upper end of the administration's estimate, the cost per American household would be an extra $1,761 a year.

A second memorandum, which was prepared for Obama's transition team after the November election, says this about climate change policies: "Economic costs will likely be on the order of 1 percent of GDP, making them equal in scale to all existing environmental regulation."

The documents (PDF) were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute and released on Tuesday.

These disclosures will probably not aid the political prospects of the Democrats' cap and trade bill. The House of Representatives approved it by a remarkably narrow margin in June -- the bill would have failed if only six House members had switched their votes to "no" -- and it faces significant opposition in the Senate.

One reason the bill faces an uncertain future is concern about its cost. House Republican Leader John Boehner has estimated the additional tax bill would be at $366 billion a year, or $3,100 a year per family. Democrats have pointed to estimates from MIT's John Reilly, who put the cost at $800 a year per family, and noted that tax credits to low income households could offset part of the bite. The Heritage Foundation says that, by 2035, "the typical family of four will see its direct energy costs rise by over $1,500 per year."

One difference is that while Heritage's numbers are talking about 26 years in the future, the Treasury Department's figures don't have a time limit.

"Heritage is saying publicly what the administration is saying to itself privately," says Christopher Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute who filed the FOIA request. "It's nice to see they're not spinning each other behind closed doors."

"They're not telling you the cost -- they're not telling you the benefit," says Horner, who wrote the Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming. "If they don't tell you the cost, and they don't tell you the benefit, what are they telling you? They're just talking about global salvation."

The FOIA'd document written by Judson Jaffe, who joined the Treasury Department's Office of Environment and Energy in January 2009, says: "Given the administration's proposal to auction all emission allowances, a cap-and-trade program could generate federal receipts on the order of $100 to $200 billion annually." (Obviously, any final cap-and-trade system may be different from what Obama had proposed, and could yield higher or lower taxes.)

Because personal income tax revenues bring in around $1.37 trillion a year, a $200 billion additional tax would be the equivalent of a 15 percent increase a year. A $100 billion additional tax would represent a 7 or 8 percent increase a year.

One odd point: The document written by Jaffee includes this line: "It will raise energy prices and impose annual costs on the order of XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX." The Treasury Department redacted the rest of the sentence with a thick black line.

The Freedom of Information Act, of course, contains no this-might-embarrass-the-president exemption (nor, for that matter, should federal agencies be in the business of possibly suppressing dissenting climate change voices). You'd hope the presidential administration that boasts of being the "most open and transparent in history" would be more forthcoming than this.