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I have been in the energy industry for 30 years (Demand response, solar, and efficiency) and I urge "cap and trade" vs carbon tax because (I believe) it will have a better chance of getting adoption, and even though there is opportunity for manipulation (which proper regulation should hlelp mitigate), it has attractive funding potentials and may cause even fossil fuel to warm to it. They are a tough lobby. -db
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They Tighten the Pillory
{… a rhyme …}
Elections turn
on voters’ turnout, -
- so
Trumpsters yearn
for voters’ burnout
‘mongst leaners-toward-Hillary, -
- so
they tighten the pillory
‘round Hill’s and Bill’s necks,
the Democrats to hex.
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The trouble with ColoradoCare is it is a bit complicated and the average voter is not taking the time to read it and understand it. Thus they will stick with corporate America gouging them.
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Who pays the carbon tax and where does it go to?
Why do you not think carbon tax and rebate is not a positive solution? The resulting money the populace would have in their pockets (from the rebate) would have them vigorously looking for alternative energy sources.
It seems to me that a carbon tax and dividend is the most effective policy. Unfortunately, the WA prop is kind of weak on the dividend part. Can you imagine how wonderful a $200 dollar bullet train ride from LA to NYC would sound, if the air fare were $1500?
I do not believe this is a positive solution. I would prefer to see tax credits increased for those who invest in alternative energy sources. This would create decreased demand for carbon fuel from the get go.
Thom! Sorry! Carbon tax is not the answer
Please don't be foxed!?!?
That is a notion that has been created by those who have only regard for money and self interest and least for fellow humans
That is to say - created by an/or/any/ many an institution (!!!!)
What do you think it might be?
Regarding reporting and collection of taxes!
We are obviously not in a great postion in that regard
Seems our government is perhaps collusive in arragements
Thousands of records were revelaed in the "Panama Papers"
Obviously our legislators "accidentally" or "unintentionally" or "purposely" allow this to go on
You choose!
Al Gore is making a fortune promoting this carbon tax thingy!
He needs to be institutionalised
He's a danger to humans!
Barking mad... and folk listen to his verbal diarrhoea and take it serious
He must be in the pocket of some org or another self interest! (likely himself)
tiallard : I believe your observations sound!
The dumping of CO2 and other such pollutants have been going on for decades... if not a century or so!
Collecting tax and other such nonesense will not stop the change of climate or result in change of action
What we will get is yet another tier of beuraucrats who's object is to earn a "massive never going away" state pension, being as obstructive as possible and mainaining their institution at all costs
The challenge WILL need someone with testicular fortitude and total indifference to corporate greed i.e., bloated over paid execs (they are another subject) and the shareholders they purport to represent
First - we need to follow example from those countries least dependent on fossile fuel
Second - we need to advance at rapid pace new clean technology... like China is doing
Third - we need to get away from the notion that corporations are good... our founding fathers knew well that they were not
Fourth - we need to follow countries leading in renewable energy technology e.g., Denmark, Germany, Scotland
Fifth - stop subsidy to fossil fuel industries NOW (agile companies will adjust within a very short time)
Could go on!
There are just too many actions that can be taken and no one is leading on this issue... shame!
He brings up Dr. Hansen's solution I rephrased near the end of the blog.
What I know for sure GOP stands for Party over Country ! GOP 'spokesman ' Steven Schmidt said it best . Look for him on www.youtube.com Its Great to hear some truth from a Republican ! GOP judges : Money is not Speech Money is POWER !!!
They have 60-years to do nothing with the waste by current regulations !! ... sequestering CO2 is the same you can't unless wanting to have everywhere it's done on land turned into frackland earthquakes and dumped into the sea causes a benthic extinction.
Uranium miners rarely live past 60-years.
Now I am really confused Thom
re carbon tax Whats your opinion ?
The difference is simple, a "carbon tax" takes in more money at the pump and magically provides cash to fix the damage to the weekly food budget near starvation without foodstamps having made too much anyway ...
or ...
A "carbon fee" is where the money is collected from the polluters and given to those victimized by using the atmosphere as a free dumping ground from the late-70's on delaying grossly action on known risks.
They pay the "carbon tax" and the money goes to the government to distribute as the payback for those criminal actions, end subsidies and tax loopholes, offshoring of assets to avoid taxes, it's a list now.
The money is then evenly given to everyone to spend as they want booming the economy, adding income to the weekly budget it may go for food, eh?
A carbon tax levels the field for renewables and nuclear to compete. When I say nuclear that also means that they need to come up with a plan for rad waste disposal, not just leave it for the next generation to deal with it in 40 years.
THis is pretty easy math.
The annual fee for not having insurance in 2016 is $695 per adult and $347.50 per child (up to $2,085 for a family), or it's 2.5% of your household income above the tax return filing threshold for your filing status – whichever is greater.
Healthy male making 32k/year the estimate is $234 per month or $2,807 per year
in premiums (which equals 8.77% of your household income).
Here is the logic
1. I can always sign up if i get illness because I cannot be deny pre-existing illness
2. I can pay 2800 per year and get health insurance I am not going to use
3. I can pay the pentaly, pay for my minor needs as I go, and the total is appx $695/year
Conculsion is that, I get catstrophic health care for $695/year.
G3... I like having affordable access to healthcare for our family! I get your frustration with cost I have the same problem only different from yours probably.
Your comparison of 1984 and today sticks out to me. You know before you throw down on government as the great saviour think about what government has done for you. Private industry doesn't control monetary policy, print money, government does. Your/my dollar in 1984 was a lot stronger than today. What 35.00 in 1984 bought now takes over 200.00 to buy the same thing. Debt by government to subsidize all kinds of stuff we can't afford is diminishing your/my dollar and life. You want more of that? To many of us think like a frog in a pot.
We're not Europe either, we look across the pond through rose colored glasses.
What we need is a reality check!
Obama Care is awful. You pit a beaurocrat against business your gonna lose every time as a beaurocrat. The business will negotiate with the future in mind, the beaurocrat at best only sees as far out as re-election. Obama Care is a painful example of that. Subsidies to healthcare providers end this year from government. Healthcare providers pass added cost on to you/me. Business win, beurocrats lose...and retire with pension. You/me lose. The bigger the government...the smaller the people and vice versa. We have to start being big people, wise, selfless, and principled.
Colorado wants to empower government through taxation to provide healthcare. Their is no restraint in taxiation only control and plans, plans, plans. In economy their is restraint through competition and cost. Gets even better as government removes itself from the mix. Do you shop for variety and cost or do you always buy the most expensive product? Imagine their was only one product to choose and one price...expensive? That's government versus private.
It's amazing all of us as Americans are at this point to even have such a dialogue as this.
Colorado's Prop 69, otherwise known as ColoradoCare would be a test case for universal access to medical care. Like many needed progressive democratic ideas, this reform to Obamacare may start with the individual states.
ColoradoCare
Amendment 69 is a citizen-initiated constitutional amendment that would establish a political subdivision of the state called “ColoradoCare.” The measure was designed to establish a statewide program to provide universal healthcare coverage and finance healthcare services for Colorado residents. Amendment 69 would not prevent people from purchasing private health insurance. A 21-member board of trustees would govern ColoradoCare. As ColoradoCare would operate as a cooperative, members would vote for candidates to serve on the co-op's board and decide whether taxes should be increased to provide additional funding to the program. To fund ColoradoCare, a 10 percent payroll tax would be implemented, with employers paying 6.67 percent and employees paying 3.33 percent. Other non-payroll income would also be taxed at 10 percent.[1][2]
ACA and state healthcare systems
A section of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) allows states to create their own healthcare systems. If given a waiver, Colorado would be eligible to receive subsidies that would otherwise go to state residents to use on the private market. This means that Colorado could receive federal funding towards ColoradoCare.
State of the ballot measure campaigns
Opponents, organized as Coloradans for Coloradans, had outraised supporters five-to-one, as of October 18, 2016. ColoradoCare Yes had received about $836,813, while opponents raised $4,048,293. The top donor to the “Yes” campaign was Lyn Gullette, who contributed $168 thousand. The top donor to the “No” campaign was health insurance firm Anthem, Inc., which provided $1 million. Polls indicate low support for Amendment 69, with 28.5 percent of voters supporting and 60.5 percent opposing the measure.
So...it does not look good, but I think the idea is sound and needs to be advanced.
http://www.coloradocare.org/amendment-69/
http://www.coloradansforcoloradans.com/
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They are voting on single payer in Colorado (Amendment 69) this election. The Insurance companies have attacked it with millions in donations against it. The single payer movement has virtually no money and no advertising.
Obama's biggest mistake was trying to work with the insurance companies.
I'm amazed, Country. You LIKE private, for-profit health insurance, with its exorbitant premiums, lifetime caps, denials of service, death panels sitting in judgment over whether or not you'll get the cancer treatment you need, booting you out or refusing to cover you for pre-existing conditions, canceling your coverage because you didn't tell them about a hang nail you had when you were ten years old, sucking every last dollar you ever put aside for your retirement, condemning you to live on the street or die in the gutter? You like that? 'Cuz that's what you're going to get if you manage to undo Obamacare. You're correct that Obamacare isn't working right, but your analysis is backward. It isn't government that's at fault -- it's those private insurers into whose loving arms you want to run. I can remember a time back in the '70s when for-profit medical insurance was against the law, and believe me, medical insurance was very affordable. I think I paid $35 a month for it and it covered just about everything. Then Ronnie became governor of California and later president and put an end to it, telling us that "competition was good for medical insurance and drug prices." Guess the verdict on that is in, and all you need to do is look at your medical insurance premiums to know that Reagan LIED. And meanwhile, Lewis Powell became an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and lo and behold, corporations became people, my friend, and unlike most people I know, as soon as they got personhood, they assumed the right to rip you off for as much money as the economy could possibly stand. Same for Big Pharma. Do you know what a bottle of insulin cost in 1984? $35. Do you know what it costs now? Between $350 and $500. But ONLY in America, which has the greatest medical care system in the world (just ask Sean Hannity). One bottle of insulin lasts about 15 days. One bottle of long-acting insulin (Lantus) costs $750. It lasts one month and then goes into a well-timed decay. Diabetics don't have an option whether or not to take insulin, Country. They have to have it and have it right now in the prescribed quantity or they're dead. So what does Big Pharma do? They think -- "Hey, these people have to have insulin! This is a chance to make a lot of money!" This is not what the creators of insulin thought, nor what they intended. And don't talk to me about those poor Pharma companies needing all that money for research. That argument is b.s. What we're seeing in healthcare is symptomatic of a country that has run off the rails, and is now in the process of being run off a cliff by the sociopathic oligarchs who are going to ride it to the end (and then jump off). Now if corporations are people, these "people," namely these corporations, need to be arrested enjoy a brief trial, and then be executed. All of it -- ALL of it, the whole healthcare racket -- should be nationalized tomorrow, turned over to the government, and the for-profit private health insurance companies should be disbanded and their assets seized. And by the way, their CEOs should be arrested, their assets seized, and they should be imprisoned for a term of not less than 20 years and not to exceed 200 years. That's what you DO to people who've systematically killed other people. Same for the politicians they've bought and paid for. The current system cannot go on without serious, serious consequences beyond what we've already experienced. Either we stop it now, or it will stop us, the U.S.