Thursday, November 20, 2008

State and Local Government Bailouts Unfair to Taxpayers

Americans for the Preservation of Liberty has joined 58 other organizations in calling upon the U.S. Congress to refuse to use federal taxpayer funds to bail out states and local governments that are spending more than they take in.

Why should taxpayers in states and localities that balance their budgets be forced to bail out state and local governments than overspent?

A better solution is spending cuts.

The New Congress: Raising Your Prices and Hurting the Economy

David Ridenour, writing for the National Center for Public Policy Research, has an op-ed in today's Washington Times on the damage that would be done if the new ever-more-liberal Congress puts a curb on greenhouse gas emissions.

After the vote today among Democrats in Congress to replace somewhat moderately liberal Rep. John Dingell (D-CA) as chairman of the House Commerce Committee with off-the-wall left-wing partisan Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), you can bet energy curbs are on the fast track, especially in the House.

An excerpt from Ridenour's op-ed:
When our economic bus is teetering at the edge of a cliff, it's a bad time to throw on some extra weight...

...A study by the National Association of Manufacturers projected that emissions caps similar to those rejected earlier this year by the U.S. Senate calling for a 63-percent cut in emissions by 2050, would reduce U.S. gross domestic product by up to $269 billion and cost 850,000 jobs by 2014.

The Heritage Foundation estimated such restrictions would result in cumulative GDP losses of up to $4.8 trillion and employment losses of more than 500,000 a year by 2030.

...Duke University's Nicholas Institute estimates a GDP loss of $245 billion by 2030 while the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates a GDP drop of $238 billion to $983 billion.

...According to a study conducted by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the restrictions could raise gasoline prices 29 percent, electricity prices 55 percent and natural-gas prices 15 percent by 2015.

...And it appears that all this economic pain would be an utterly meaningless gesture. Patrick Michaels, former president of the American Association of State Climatologists, who is now with the Cato Institute, says reducing U.S. emissions 63 percent would prevent a mere 0.013 degrees Celsius in warming....

The entire article is here.