Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
|
|
|
Dec 16, 2010 - 04:48pm PT
|
|
|
shut up and pull
climber
|
|
|
Dec 16, 2010 - 04:53pm PT
|
From HotAir today -- California just keeps diggin!
California’s unemployment rate has soared to 12.4%, third highest in the nation. For the sixth straight year, it has a net loss of population to other states as employers look to escape the onerous regulatory regimes and high tax rates in the nation’s most populous state. What better time to make energy more expensive and give government even more command control of the economy? Via Blue Collar Philosophy:
California regulators Thursday are expected to adopt the nation’s most comprehensive carbon trading regime, creating a market-based way to lower greenhouse gas emissions at a time when similar efforts have stalled in Congress.
The program is the centerpiece of the state’s 2006 global warming law, which aims to slash carbon dioxide and other planet-heating pollution to 1990 levels by 2020. That would amount to a 15% cut from today’s level.
The cap-and-trade system “will help drive innovation, create more green jobs and clean up our air and environment,” said California Air Resources Board Chairwoman Mary D. Nichols, adding that it “provides flexibility” to industry and takes “into consideration the current economic climate.”
Well, states are the laboratories of democracy. An imposition of cap-and-trade would allow the rest of the country to see how well it works to lower carbon emissions, and just how much it “drives innovation” and “provides flexibility.” The only innovation this will likely produce will be the relocation of energy producers to neighboring states. Los Angeles, for instance, buys a significant amount of its power from Arizona, a trend that will likely intensify as the cost disparity for producers grows as a result of regulatory growth and mandated caps on production. Welcome back to rolling blackouts when energy production fails to grow with demand.
Nor will that be the only impact on California’s economy. The costs of cap-and-trade will get passed to consumers in the form of higher energy bills. As has been repeatedly shown, that will have a deeply regressive impact on California’s poor and working class. They will either have to spend more of their smaller discretionary funds on energy or cut back, forcing them to spend less on energy-consuming products and damaging the retail economy in California even more. Those who can move will relocate to other states, mainly the middle class, which will accelerate a trend already seen in California.
California already has an economic and budgetary crisis on its hands from its insistence on overregulation and intervention. This promises to magnify the state’s problems by offering a hair-of-the-dog solution. Unfortunately, the state seems incapable of correcting itself short of financial collapse.
|
|
Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
|
|
|
Dec 16, 2010 - 04:58pm PT
|
|
|
Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
|
|
|
Dec 16, 2010 - 05:05pm PT
|
|
|
JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
|
|
|
Dec 16, 2010 - 05:05pm PT
|
Dems love illegals because illegals will rely on government handouts
I respectfully disagree. In my experience, most people here illegally -- particularly from Latin America -- are here to work, not to get handouts. In contrast, a great many immigrants I know that came here legally are much less reluctant to seek government assistance for everything.
Republicans particularly need to be careful on this issue. IMHO, we've alienated one of our logical constituencies -- employed Hispanics -- by embracing anit-illegal-immigration strategies that sound too much like anti-Hispanic rhetoric. Reuben Navarette, Jr.'s columns have excellent insight on this.
I think Democrats show more sympathy for illegal immigrants largely because they see the Republicans shooting themselves in the foot (or in California, in the head) on the issue. The insistance of the lame duck congress to get a vote on the Dream Act is simply a cynical attempt to take advantage of our penchant for self-destruction.
John
|
|
Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
|
|
|
Dec 16, 2010 - 05:15pm PT
|
An oxymoron proved otherwise.
|
|
Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
|
|
|
Dec 16, 2010 - 05:21pm PT
|
Right Ron!
Legal immigration IS a major drain on our economy.
|
|
Gary
climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
|
|
|
Dec 16, 2010 - 05:47pm PT
|
Speaking of BP, if GW Bush's Chief of Staff were found to be living for free in a major contributor's luxury apartment the media would have gone nuts. But Rahm Emanuel gets a pass...
Are you kidding, Kris? You don't think Bush and Dick and Kenny Boy got any free passes?
|
|
Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
|
|
|
Dec 16, 2010 - 05:52pm PT
|
Here we go again:
|
|
shut up and pull
climber
|
|
|
Dec 16, 2010 - 06:17pm PT
|
Go to the public hospitals and see the waiting rooms full of illegals getting "free" care. Go to our public schools and see them full of illegals' kids getting "free" education (and we wonder why our classes are so full). Go look at our jails and prisons and see them stacked with illegals, that we are paying for. Go to the WIC and welfare offices and see the "free" bennnies illegals get. Go down to the border and see the desert environment trashed because of illegals, and property owners robbed at gunpoint by coyotes.
They are here to get out of the hole that is Mexico. I don't begrudge them that. But that does not mean illegal immigration is right!
Yeah, the illegal immigration problem is just fine. Nothing to see here.
|
|
Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
|
|
|
Dec 16, 2010 - 06:18pm PT
|
|
|
shut up and pull
climber
|
|
|
Dec 16, 2010 - 06:21pm PT
|
Again -- for Dems, letting as many illegals into this country as possible is about votes, and union dues. For the GOP, it is about cheap labor. No other civilized country with such a problem on one of its border would do what we do -- nothing. Gee -- I wonder what Mexico does on its southern border re illegals? Anyone care to tell me?
|
|
Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
|
|
|
Dec 16, 2010 - 06:23pm PT
|
|
|
shut up and pull
climber
|
|
|
Dec 16, 2010 - 06:24pm PT
|
'In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language.. And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.'
President Theodore Roosevelt 1907
|
|
shut up and pull
climber
|
|
|
Dec 16, 2010 - 06:25pm PT
|
But my view is that you need a system at the border. You need some fencing but you need technology. You need boots on the ground. And then you need to have interior enforcement of our nation's immigration laws inside the country. And that means dealing with the employers who still consistently hire illegal labor. Janet Napolitano
|
|
Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
|
|
|
Dec 16, 2010 - 06:29pm PT
|
|
|
shut up and pull
climber
|
|
|
Dec 16, 2010 - 06:30pm PT
|
``I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.''
— James Madison
``I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.''
— Thomas Jefferson
``The lessons of history ... show conclusively that continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit.''
— Franklin Delano Roosevelt
|
|
Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
|
|
|
Dec 16, 2010 - 06:30pm PT
|
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!