Extending the Bush tax cuts on people earning more than $250,000 annually would cost us $60 billion, Dave Leonhardt points out. And he has a list of what that money could do for us otherwise. Some of the possibilities:
•Twice as much money for clean-energy research as suggested by a recent bipartisan plan.
•Free college, including room and board, for about half of all full-time students, at both four- and two-year colleges.
•A $500 tax cut for all households.
Those are just a few of the things an additional $60 billion could fund. But congressional Republicans want it to keep on going to give a tiny percentage of the wealthiest people an average of $25,000 each year.
Priorities, people.
Tags: clean energy, Education, taxes
The current oil spill on the Gulf of Mexico will kill birds and fish and animals, possibly entire populations of them. It will pollute the waters in which people swim and fish and possibly the water they drink. It will devastate the economies of the states it hits—good-bye to commercial fishing, tourism, and who knows what else.
Add those to the arguments for clean energy and green jobs. The choice is so clear—oil flooding the ocean and devastating the economy, or building a new, clean energy economy that employs millions, moves us away from dependence on foreign oil, and leaves the world a better place for future generations.
Tags: clean energy, green jobs
As I wrote last week, the Chamber of Commerce pretends to represent small business as a screen for really representing the largest corporations. Now, yet another energy company leaving the Chamber shows how false its claims about the economic effects of a cap-and-trade program are.
The Chamber wants us to believe be afraid that cap-and-trade would kill the economy. But the very companies that make their money on energy are calling foul.
The latest exit from the Chamber isn’t just any energy company, either. It’s the largest electric utility in the country: Exelon.
Exelon’s CEO said:
The carbon-based free lunch is over. But while we can’t fix our climate problems for free, the price signal sent through a cap-and-trade system will drive low-carbon investments in the most inexpensive and efficient way possible. Putting a price on carbon is essential, because it will force us to do the cheapest things, like energy efficiency, first.
That is not some dirty f’ing hippie. That is a businessman speaking the language of capitalism. And he’s saying that, as ThinkProgress summarizes, “the Chamber’s multi-million-dollar campaign against clean energy legislation is incompatible with Exelon’s commitment to climate change leadership.”
Extremists. Extremists on clean energy, and extremists on workers’ rights.
Tags: Chamber of Commerce, clean energy
