Bush Hiding Truth: Global Warming Regulations Worth $2 Trillion Benefit
Bush Hiding Truth: Global Warming Regulations Worth $2 Trillion Benefit
Excerpt of the draft EPA rulemaking, discussing the threat global warming poses to public health. Download the first 150 pages of the document (Part I and Part II).
Reporters for Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal write that an “intense private battle” has broken out between officials at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Environmental Protection Agency over “the publication of a document that could become the legal roadmap for regulation of greenhouse gas emissions across the U.S. economy.” The portions of the document obtained by the Wonk Room reveal why the White House has been suppressing it since December of last year.
Even after major cuts from the December version, this document makes a mockery of President Bush’s claim in April that applying the Clean Air Act to global warming pollution “would have crippling effects on our entire economy.” In fact, after spending all of 2007 working with the Departments of Transportation and Energy to model the effects of motor vehicle greenhouse gas regulations, the EPA found the exact opposite:
Assuming gas prices in the range of $3.50 per gallon, “the net benefit to society could be in excess of $2 trillion” through 2040:
With higher gasoline prices, the benefits of high carbon-dioxide standards would be even greater. The EPA’s findings, completed last year, raise serious questions about whether Bush’s statements to the American public were made in good faith, and why he is now asserting executive privilege to block the Congressional investigation.
- Comments
- 3
NYT: Iraq War Allowed Al Qaeda To Regroup In Pakistan
NYT: Iraq War Allowed Al Qaeda To Regroup In Pakistan
This New York Times article’s description of the Bush administration’s confused attempts to deal with the Al Qaeda threat emanating from Pakistan’s tribal areas is yet more evidence against conservatives’ claims that they can more effectively manage anti-terrorism:
After the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush committed the nation to a “war on terrorism” and made the destruction of Mr. bin Laden’s network the top priority of his presidency. But it is increasingly clear that the Bush administration will leave office with Al Qaeda having successfully relocated its base from Afghanistan to Pakistan’s tribal areas, where it has rebuilt much of its ability to attack from the region and broadcast its messages to militants across the world.[…]
The White House shifted its sights, beginning in 2002, from counterterrorism efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan to preparations for the war in Iraq.[…]
Current and former military and intelligence officials said that the war in Iraq consistently diverted resources and high-level attention from the tribal areas. When American military and intelligence officials requested additional Predator drones to survey the tribal areas, they were told no drones were available because they had been sent to Iraq.
The Center for America Progress’s Brian Katulis wrote last week that “Pakistan is most likely to create the biggest headache for the next U.S. president.”
[Pakistan] is the country that U.S. intelligence officials have repeatedly cited as the most important haven and training ground for global terrorist groups like Al Qaeda. It is also the place that is the best guess among intelligence agencies for where top Al Qaeda leaders like Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri currently reside. Military and intelligence officials have warned that the next terrorist attack will most likely come from Pakistan.
In order to invade and occupy country where Al Qaeda wasn’t, President Bush diverted resources away from where Al Qaeda was, allowing Al Qaeda to regroup and reorganize and continue to plot against America. Many of the most prominent people responsible for this brilliant plan are now advising John McCain. More »
BREAKING: Citing Threat Of Global Warming, Georgia Judge Blocks Coal Plant
BREAKING: Citing Threat Of Global Warming, Georgia Judge Blocks Coal Plant
In a landmark victory in the battle to regulate global warming pollution, a Georgia judge ruled that a proposed coal-fired plant could not be built unless its carbon dioxide emissions are limited, effectively killing the project. The ruling is the first to apply the Supreme Court’s Massachusetts vs. EPA decision to the question of greenhouse gas pollution from power plants. According to GreenLaw, the Georgia environmental organization who filed suit with the Friends of the Chattahoochee and the Sierra Club in June 2007, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thelma Moore’s decision “goes a long way toward protecting the right of Georgians to breathe clean air“:
The decision overturns an administrative court’s ruling that affirmed the state Environmental Protection Division’s (EPD) decision to issue an air pollution permit for Dynegy’s Longleaf plant. In practical terms, Dynegy cannot begin construction of the plant unless it can obtain a valid permit from EPD that complies with the Court’s ruling. The Judge held that EPD must limit the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the plant, a decision that will have far-reaching implications nationwide; this is the first time since the April 2, 2007, Supreme Court decision requiring the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate CO2 that a court has applied that standard to CO2 from an industrial source rather than from motor vehicles.
The $2 billion, 1200 megawatt plant — the first proposed in Georgia in over 20 years — was to be built by Dynegy Inc., the Houston-based energy company with several other proposed coal-fired power plants across the country. Dynegy and other fossil fuel polluters have been scrambling to get new plants started in anticipation of future limits on greenhouse gases, before investors and ratepayers recognize the risk.
Last October, the Kansas Department of Health denied air quality permits to a proposed coal plant expansion because of the danger greenhouse gas emissions pose to the climate. Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D-KS) vetoed repeated attempts by the legislature to override the decision.
In contrast, officials recently appointed by Gov. Timothy Kaine (D-VA) to the Virginia Air Pollution Control Board unanimously granted air quality permits to Dominion Resources for a $1.8 billion coal-fired plant last week.
UPDATE: Clean Air Watch’s Frank O’Donnell (also a Wonk Room guest blogger) has forwarded the court decision, which unequivocally rules that carbon dioxide must be regulated:
Faced with the ruling in Massachusetts that CO2 is an “air pollutant” under the Act, Respondents are forced to argue that CO2 is still not a “pollutant subject to regulation under the Act.” Respondents’ position is untenable. Putting aside the argument that any substance that falls within the statutory definition of “air pollutant” may be “subject to” regulation under the Act, there is no question that CO2 is “subject to regulation under the Act.”
Frank writes, “Those proposing coal plants elsewhere are going to be running for the Excedrin.”
UPDATE II: At Raising Kaine, TheGreenMiles, who earlier revealed the “menacing letter” Kaine sent to the Virginia board to push them to approve the Dominion plant, writes:
As for Gov. Kaine … you’ve spent the last year championing this coal plant as a cure-all for southwest Virginia’s economic woes, global warming and green jobs be damned. Now a judge is very likely to rule that your efforts have been in violation of the Clean Air Act, leaving southwest Virginia without the jobs, Virginia behind the curve on a clean energy future and you with a deeply scarred legacy. There are no winners here.
On Taxes, McCain Was A Solid Conservative First
On Taxes, McCain Was A Solid Conservative First
Our guest bloggers are James Kvaal and Robert Gordon, senior fellows at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
John McCain is campaigning for president on a platform of budget-busting tax cuts for the rich. In fact, he would cut taxes for the top 1 percent of taxpayers by nearly $150 billion a year.
But McCain opposed Bush’s tax policies before he supported them. So would he govern as the moderate on taxes he was in 2001 or the enthusiastic tax-cutter he is today? McCain’s true intentions were one issue discussed by Gene Sperling and Jared Bernstein at McCain U earlier today.
The easiest way to know what McCain would do as president is to ask him – and he says he wants deep, regressive tax cuts.
But his voting record also matters. And it’s true that, on taxes, McCain was a moderate before he was a conservative. But he was also a conservative before he was a moderate. According to Grover Norquist’s right-wing tax group, Americans for Tax Reform, McCain’s record has three stages:
– Between 1994 and 1997, McCain voted with ATR 100 percent of the time, demonstrating a “Reagan-like” record on taxes.
– Between 1998 and 2003, McCain’s ratings were lower, reaching a low of 55 percent in 2001.
– Since 2004, ATR writes, “McCain has slowly tried to reinvent himself as a taxpayer friendly senator.”
It’s not McCain’s current right-wing tax agenda that is the exception to his career-long record. Instead, it’s his opposition to the Bush tax cuts that was the break from his past.
McCain’s Health Care Plan Would ‘Undermine Preventive Services’
McCain’s Health Care Plan Would ‘Undermine Preventive Services’
Today, the Center for American Progress Action Fund hosted ‘McCain University,’ an all-day symposium on Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) policy proposals. At a panel discussion about McCain’s health care reform, Karen Davenport, Director of Health Policy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, underlined an important inconsistency within the senator’s plan:
On the surface, McCain shares a lot of ideas with progressives on how can we change health care costs. He gives lip service to improving chronic disease management…and he talks about improving the use of preventive services…but his plan, with its reliance on the individual market and the high deductible policies that proliferate in this market would actually undermine preventative services and good chronic care management. [It] discourages the kind of smart consumers of health care who seek preventive care…and discouraging that kind of good consumerism may actually increase health care spending.
Indeed, on his campaign website, McCain expresses concern for the high costs of chronic care and suggests that his reform would emphasize “prevention”:
Chronic conditions account for three-quarters of the nation’s annual health care bill. By emphasizing prevention, early intervention, healthy habits, new treatment models, new public health infrastructure and the use of information technology, we can reduce health care costs. We should dedicate more federal research to caring and curing chronic disease.
But as Davenport points out, McCain’s overall health reform philosophy encourages Americans to use less care to bring down health care costs. On June 23, 2008, during a town hall meeting, McCain suggested, “if that money [for health care] is coming out of your pocket, you would be more careful about it.”
Thus McCain wants it both ways: he discourages Americans from investing in preventive care, while simultaneously suggesting that “we have a personal responsibility to take better care of ourselves and our children” since “that is the only way to prevent many chronic diseases.”
The Iran ‘Appeaser’ On McCain’s National Security Team
The Iran ‘Appeaser’ On McCain’s National Security Team
Our guest blogger is Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
Just a few weeks ago, Senator John McCain endorsed President George W. Bush’s criticism that diplomatic engagement with Iran would be appeasement.
Now it seems McCain has open the door to his war cabinet to someone who has called for U.S. negotiations “without preconditions” with Iran.
Kori Schake, a research fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute, former National Security Council and State Department official in the Bush administration, and former advisor to Rudy Giuliani, wrote an article last spring in the Hoover Institution’s Policy Review, that in the case of Iran and its nuclear program, “We could assist our own case significantly by agreeing to negotiations without preconditions.”
Her article outlines a persuasive case against John McCain’s stated Iran position:
Opponents of negotiations argue that opening them would give away valuable leverage, reward Iranian misbehavior, and send a signal of weakness. They are mistaken on at least two of those points. If negotiations with the U.S. were such valuable leverage, the Iranians would likely have taken last summer’s deal. Moreover, the leverage argument assumes that negotiating with the Iranians is of more value to them than to us, which is at least questionable. If the Iranians are bent on nuclear weapons development, they will be unaffected by negotiations, whereas we will solidify domestic and international backing and have a direct channel of communication that could reduce miscalculation and expand our opportunities to separate the Iranian government from its people. Even if negotiations do not constrain the Iranian nuclear program, they will strengthen our standing and could help open up Iranian society.
Engaging with the Iranian government is an idea more anathema to American policymakers than it is to Iranian dissidents; they have confidence we can conduct diplomacy, as we did with the Soviet Union, without legitimizing the regime. In refusing to negotiate we help a dictatorial government control information; through negotiations, we further our aims and reduce their ability to mischaracterize our actions. If the Iranians are not bent on nuclear-weapons development, negotiations will give us a better understanding of tradeoffs that would constrain them.
In the same piece, Schake also argued that the United States should increase its threshold for military action against Iran to the actual testing of a nuclear weapon rather than uranium enrichment.
Schake joined the McCain team sometime this year and took part in this national security conference call with reporters earlier this month. Schake was even sent out to defend McCain’s position on Iran from Congressional critics of McCain’s 2005 vote against sanctions on Iran.
FLASHBACK: McCain In 1999 — ‘I Would Not Support Repeal Of Roe V. Wade’»
FLASHBACK: McCain In 1999 — ‘I Would Not Support Repeal Of Roe V. Wade’»
Today, CNN’s Late Edition re-broadcasted an August 22, 1999 interview with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), in which McCain expressed support for overturning Roe v. Wade, while also noting that the action “would condemn young women to dangerous and illegal operations”:
Ultimately, I would like to see the repeal of Roe v. Wade, but to do it immediately, I think, would condemn young women to dangerous and illegal operations.
Watch It:
I’d love to see a point where [Roe v. Wade] is irrelevant, and could be repealed because abortion is no longer necessary. But certainly in the short term, or even in the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe vs. Wade.
Unfortunately, now that he is the presumptive nominee of the Republican party, McCain is no longer concerned for the “young women” who will undergo “dangerous and illegal operations” if Roe v. Wade is repealed. In fact, on his campaign website McCain argues that the decision “must be overturned” to restore “constitutional balance”:
John McCain believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned, and as president he will nominate judges who understand that courts should not be in the business of legislating from the bench. Constitutional balance would be restored by the reversal of Roe v. Wade, returning the abortion question to the individual states. The difficult issue of abortion should not be decided by judicial fiat.
While his rhetoric has waffled back and forth, McCain’s voting record throughout his entire public career has been consistently anti-choice. That’s why McCain gets a zero from women.
Cross-posted at ThinkProgress
UPDATE: On January 26, 2000, a reporter asked McCain, “If his 15-year-old daughter became pregnant and believed that she wasn’t ready to bear a child, would McCain block her from getting an abortion?” McCain answered “No,” he would not:
McCain first said that the ”final decision” on ending a pregnancy would be made by his daughter, 15. An hour later, he contacted reporters with a clarification: ”I misspoke,” he said. ”The family decision will be made by the family, not by” his daughter alone, he added. [AP, 1/26/2000]
Nancy Pfotenhauer, McCain’s Dirty Energy Spokeswoman
Nancy Pfotenhauer, McCain’s Dirty Energy Spokeswoman
On “Fox and Friends” yesterday, Nancy Mitchell Pfotenhauer — a top policy adviser for Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) — derided those who say that lifting the offshore drilling moratorium won’t affect gas prices, saying it “reveals ignorance on the futures markets.”
That position puts her at odds with the federal Energy Information Administration, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA), McCain economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin, and even McCain himself. Why would Pfotenhauer go so far off message?
Perhaps it’s because the only ones who would benefit from lifting the moratorium are energy companies like Koch Industries (pronounced “coke”), the largest private company in the United States, the secretive backer of the right-wing message machine, and Pfotenhauer’s longtime boss.
Koch Industries Is The Secret Dirty Energy King. With $90 billion in annual sales, Koch Industries is the largest privately owned company in the United States. Begun in 1940 as an oil refining business by Fred Koch, his company — now controlled by sons David and Charles Koch — has diversified into “refining and chemicals; process and pollution control equipment and technologies; minerals and fertilizer; fibers and polymers; commodity and financial trading and services; and forest and consumer products” — a global warming pollution factory. [Forbes, 2007]
Koch Industries Is At The Center Of The Right-Wing Message Machine. Koch’s founder, Fred Koch, also helped found the John Birch Society, an ultraconservative organization that believed the U.S. government was controlled by a traitorous cabal of Communist sympathizers. Koch Industries’ charitable arm, the Koch Family Foundations, has provided over $120 million in the past 20 years to the Cato Institute (founded by Charles Koch), Citizens for a Sound Economy (founded by David Koch, now Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks), the Heritage Foundation, George Mason University, the Federalist Society, the Mercatus Center, and dozens more right-wing, anti-regulatory, and global-warming denial organizations. [Media Transparency]
Nancy Pfotenhauer Is A Pure Right-Wing/Koch Industries Product. Pfotenhauer’s resumé includes George Mason University (funded by Koch), Citizens for a Sound Economy (founded by Koch), Americans for Prosperity (founded by Koch), and the Independent Women’s Forum (funded by Koch). She also worked directly for Koch Industries as their top Washington lobbyist. When not on the Koch payroll, Pfotenhauer worked for the Republican National Committee, Sen. William Armstrong (R-CO), and Dan Quayle’s Council on Competitiveness. [Media Transparency, Dunamis International Ministries]
Vitter - The Only Senator Opposing Removal Of HIV Travel Ban
Vitter - The Only Senator Opposing Removal Of HIV Travel Ban
The Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan is reporting that Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), a former client of the DC Madam, “is the only Senator opposing the removal of the HIV travel and immigration ban” from the Senate version of a bill extending PEPFAR, the international health initiative dedicated to combating HIV/AIDS around the world. On Wednesday, in an editorial in the Washington times, Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Gordon Smith (R-OR) penned an editorial underlining the importance of lifting the travel restriction:
Today, HIV is the only medical condition that renders people inadmissible to the United States. In fact, we are just one of 12 countries that prohibit, almost without exception, HIV-positive non-citizens from entering the country (China has recently overturned its ban). This policy places the United States in the same company as Sudan, Russia, Libya and Saudi Arabia.
Vitter is happy to keep such company. In fact, the Senator, who himself engaged in behavior that could have placed him and his wife in danger of contracting HIV, has promoted policies that increase the likelihood that people will become infected with HIV:
- Voted in support of the “prostitution pledge” in PEPFAR which creates obstacles to reaching and serving sex workers.
- Attempted to amend PEPFAR “to reinsert the 33 percent abstinence-only earmark.”
Vitter has a long history of promoting failed abstinence-only policies and supporting legislation that undermines people’s sexual health and equal rights. Recently, Vitter, along with fellow disgraced Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID), signed up to co-sponsor S.J. Res. 43, the Marriage Protection Amendment. If passed, the bill would amend the Constitution to declare that marriage “shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman.”
John McCain: Corporations First
John McCain: Corporations First
McCain’s new ad touting his deeply flawed energy strategy contains (yet another) new campaign slogan as well: “Country First.”
Watch the ad:
The central plank of his economic plan is a $175 billion corporate tax cut that would slash taxes for the Fortune 200 corporations by $45 billion every year. That includes $6.5 billion for Fortune 200 energy companies, $6.3 billion for Fortune 200 banks and financial institutions, and $5.6 billion for Fortune 200 merchandising and retailing companies.
The overwhelming benefits of this tax cut, approximately 59%, would flow to the top 1% of income earners.
The same $45 billion that John McCain sets aside for the Fortune 200 could be used to lift 9 million American families out of poverty.
So…who exactly is John McCain putting first?
ADL Chief Smears Joe Klein As Anti-Semite
ADL Chief Smears Joe Klein As Anti-Semite
In examining some of the bad thinking that caused the U.S. to invade Iraq, Time’s Joe Klein wrote “the fact that a great many Jewish neoconservatives — people like Joe Lieberman and the crowd over at Commentary — plumped for this war, and now for an even more foolish assault on Iran, raised the question of divided loyalties: using U.S. military power, U.S. lives and money, to make the world safe for Israel.”
This elicited a response from Anti-Defamation League’s Abe Foxman, who accused Klein of trafficking in anti-Semitic canards, insisting that “whether or not one feels that America’s war on Iraq was justified, the charge that it is being fought by the United States on behalf of Israel is both offensive and categorically false.”
Klein responded, “I have never said that Jewish neocons were the primary reason we went to war in Iraq”:
The reason we went to war was that George Bush was foolish and uninformed, and his primary advisors were even more foolishly bellicose. But Jewish neoconservatives certainly played a subsidiary role in providing an intellectual rationale for the war. In a 2003 column, I called their arguments “the casus belli that dare not speak its name.” The notion of a “benign domino theory”–benign, that is, for the interests of Israel—was certainly abroad in the community during that time.
The “benign domino theory” is rooted in The Clean Break Strategy, a national security proposal written for Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu by a committee chaired by Richard Perle, and which also included Doug Feith and David Wurmser, along some other hardline pro-Likud think tankers.
To call the Clean Break “nutty” is to commit felony understatement. Indeed, the paper seems to have been written while on a peyote-fueled vision quest out in the middle of the Negev desert. For one example, it advocated replacing Saddam Hussein’s regime with a Hashemite monarchy. That’s right, not content with merely figuratively repeating the mistakes of the past, this gang of geniuses wanted to literally repeat the mistakes of the past.
Fortunately for Israel, Netanyahu was encouraged by the Clinton administration to ignore the Clean Break recommendations. Unfortunately for the United States — and, it turns out, for Israel — George W. Bush incorporated many of the paper’s ideas into the post-9/11 U.S. national security strategy for the Middle East. More »
Report: Military Facing $100B In Equipment Repairs
Report: Military Facing $100B In Equipment Repairs
Our guest blogger is Sean Duggan, National Security Research Associate at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
In the latest sign that the cost of the war in Iraq will continue to be tallied long after the last U.S. combat troops leave the country, Pentagon officials and members of Congress yesterday estimated that the Pentagon faces more than $100 billion bill to repair and replace worn out or destroyed equipment, vehicles and weapons.
The Army’s reset bill has tremendous implications for the Pentagon’s plan to expand the size of the ground forces by nearly 92,000. According to Congressman John Murtha (D-PA), the cost of replenishing equipment lost in Iraq makes the Pentagon’s plan to add nearly 100,000 new soldiers and Marines unrealistic. Although new troops would help reduce repeated, lengthy deployments, there are other more pressing demands, Murtha said. “It’s going to come from personnel cuts,” Murtha said, in reference to where the Pentagon would cut funding in order to pay for the equipment reset. “That’s where it’s going to come from. They know it.”
Top Pentagon leaders are beginning to recognize that they are going to face a choice between a larger force and restoring equipment damaged or destroyed in Iraq. “We must reset, reconstitute and revitalize our ground forces,” said Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in Senate hearing in May. However, the costs “will force us to a smaller military or force us away from any kind of modernization or programs that we need for the future.”
The Center for Amerian Progress has been warning about the growing ground force equipment crisis for over two years. “Like its personnel,” the 2006 report, Army Equipment After Iraq, pointed out, “the Army’s inventory of equipment is exhibiting increasing signs of combat-related stress. That stress is already eroding the readiness of units outside Iraq and could eventually impede operations within Iraq.” Since the Center released its first in-depth analysis (pdf) of the Army equipment shortage in April of 2006, both the amount of equipment lost and the cumulatve price of replacing Army equipment has grown greatly.
Indeed, today’s $100 billion estimate may be tens of billions of dollars off the mark, according to a recent study (pdf) by the Government Accountability Office. Earlier this year, the GAO estimated that the overall cost of resetting Army equipment and reconstituting prepositioned stocks will come to nearly $130 billion. If one adds the cost of increasing the number and equipment of new Army units as well as equipping restructured modular units, this total jumps to over $191 billion.
In August 2006, the Center released a follow-up report (pdf) on Marine Corps equipment that, like the situation in the Army, found the projected cost of resetting and recovering Marine equipment to be large and growing. “To maintain acceptable readiness levels,” the report noted, “the Marines have been taking equipment from non-deployed units and drawing down Maritime Prepositioned stocks, including equipment stored in Europe, thus limiting their ability to respond to contingencies outside of Iraq.”
Consumer Confidence Report: ‘Americans Feel Downright Terrible About The Economy’
Consumer Confidence Report: ‘Americans Feel Downright Terrible About The Economy’
A new consumer confidence report released on Tuesday suggests that “Americans feel downright terrible about the economy as it is, and their expectations for the near future are even more depressed.” According to the report, the June consumer confidence index fell to 50.4, the lowest level since 1992. One economist observes:
This is incredibly awful…Even as some people spend their tax rebates … the majority appear to be overwhelmed by the surge in gasoline and food prices, and the drop in stock and home prices.
Americans seem both overwhelmed and increasingly pessimistic. The expectations index, for instance — the measurement of “how people figure things will look in six months” — dropped to 41.0, “the lowest figure in the 40 years of the survey, and broke through the previous low of 45.2 reached in December 1973 — just as the economy was beginning to plunge into recession from the effects of the surge in oil prices that followed the Arab embargo announced that fall.”
The mood is not much better in 2008:
- The percentage of people who expect their income to drop in the next six months” also hit record highs to 15.9 percent, 5.1 percent higher than during the economic hardships of 1973.
- “Those claiming business conditions are ‘bad’ increased to 32.5 percent from 29.7 percent“
- “Those saying jobs are ‘hard to get’ increased to 30.5 percent from 28.3 percent in May“
- “Those expecting business conditions to worsen over the next six months rose to 33.9 percent from 32.9 percent”
- “The percent of consumers expecting fewer jobs in the months ahead increased to 35.5 percent from 32.3 percent“
Why Is Richard Perle Still Published?
Why Is Richard Perle Still Published?
Proving once again that being demonstrably and disastrously wrong on the most important national security questions of the day is no barrier to influence in American politics — provided, of course, that one is always careful to err on the side of war — the Washington Post gives Richard Perle yet another opportunity to be wrong again, this time on Iran.
Echoing the manner in which he calmly assured us of the threat represented by Saddam Hussein’s non-existent WMDs, Perle asserts that “the Iranians… are relentlessly building a nuclear weapons program.” Perle attacks Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for placing too high a value on “coalition building” in dealing with Iran’s nuclear program:
Coalitions, even successful multilateral ones, are instruments, tools, means to an end. They are important and useful, sometimes essential, but they are not, and must not be seen as, ends in themselves. Confusion on this point can lead to claims of success when failure is staring you in the face.
While the above statement is particularly funny coming from the guy who claimed that “we have already won in Iraq” because “Saddam will not be sharing WMD with anyone,” it’s interesting that Perle’s jeremiad against multilateralism is delivered on the day that President Bush essentially acknowledged he had the wrong approach on North Korea for years. Perle now makes the same argument for Iran that people like John Bolton made for North Korea.
After years of ineffective bluster that only allowed North Korea to develop and test a nuclear weapon, today’s step forward on addressing North Korea’s nuclear program proves that tough diplomacy and engagement with adversaries can make America safer.
And the last five years of the Iraq debacle prove that Richard Perle is to be ignored at all costs.
NEW REPORT: McCain Would Give America’s 200 Largest Corporations $45 Billion In Tax Breaks
NEW REPORT: McCain Would Give America’s 200 Largest Corporations $45 Billion In Tax Breaks
If you’re a CEO of one of America’s largest corporations and have enjoyed the Presidency of George W. Bush, a contribution to the McCain campaign is looking like a pretty good investment.
A new report from the Center For American Progress Action Fund finds that a key piece of John McCain’s tax plan — cutting the corporate tax rate from 35% to 25% — would cut taxes by almost $45 billion every year for America’s 200 largest corporations as identified by Fortune Magazine.
Eight companies — Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Exxon Mobil Corp., ConocoPhillips Co., Bank of America Corp., AT&T, Berkshire Hathaway Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Microsoft Corp. — would each receive over $1 billion a year.
The following table shows the tax savings to America’s five largest firms. See a full list of all 200 companies and their savings under McCain here:
These giveaways are just one part of McCain’s doubling of the Bush tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy which would create the largest deficits in 25 years and drive the United States into the deepest deficits since World War II.
A recent analysis by the Public Campaign Action Fund found that John McCain’s campaign has received $5.6 million from the PACs and executives of the Fortune 200.
Over the past eight years, under George W. Bush, American workers have seen their wages stagnate as corporate profits have skyrocketed. John McCain’s misguided priorities show he’s more of the same: the same $45 billion in tax cuts for America’s 200 largest companies could be used to lift over 9 million Americans out of poverty.
White House Pretended EPA Email Outlining ‘Unequivocal’ Global Warming Threat Was Spam
White House Pretended EPA Email Outlining ‘Unequivocal’ Global Warming Threat Was Spam
The New York Times revealed yesterday that the White House’s global warming denial reached levels of absurdity that would be hilarious if the stakes weren’t so high. Last December, senior EPA officials tell the Times, White House officials literally refused to open the e-mail from the EPA that concluded that “greenhouse gases are pollutants that must be controlled.” The Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin fills in more details:
And upon learning that EPA had hit the “send” button just minutes earlier, the White House called again to demand that the e-mail be recalled. The EPA official who forwarded the e-mail, Associate Deputy Administrator Jason Burnett, refused, said the sources, who insisted on anonymity in order to discuss internal deliberations.
That fateful December confrontation — Burnett “sent the e-mail to the White House Office of Management and Budget at 2:17 p.m. Dec. 5 and received the call warning him to hold off at 2:25 p.m.” — was the culmination of months of effort by the EPA following April’s Supreme Court mandate to take action on global warming pollution. As documents shown to the House Global Warming Committee under threat of subpoena revealed, “EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson determined that man-made global warming is unequivocal, the evidence is both compelling and robust, and the administration must act to prevent harm rather than wait for harm to occur before acting.”
Instead, the administration acted to prevent the EPA from following its legal and moral duty. After the White House rejected the EPA’s efforts, EPA administrator Stephen Johnson reversed his decision to allow California to regulate tailpipe greenhouse emissions. All work at the EPA on global warming ceased, and in May Burnett announced his resignation.
Today, Johnson’s EPA is expected to unveil a censored version of the report it submitted to the White House in December, as an “Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking” asking for new round of comments on whether global warming represents a threat to human health and whether it should take action. This administration knows full well that global warming represents a very present threat to our health and security, as reports issued this month by its scientific and intelligence agencies reveal. Of course, Bush impeded those reports as well. The scientific assessment was submitted under court order, four years after its legal deadline, and the intelligence assessment was classified despite being based on public information.
Burnett — who came to the EPA with an anti-regulatory background — is now telling reporters he resigned because the White House threw away his efforts to confront the threat of global warming. In an email to the Post, he wrote:
The White House made it clear they did not want to address the ramifications of that finding and have decided to leave the challenge to the next administration. Some [at the White House] thought that EPA had mistakenly concluded that climate change endangers the public. It was no mistake.
Last Friday, Bush asserted executive privilege to prevent the House Oversight Committee from investigating his involvement in this gross dereliction of duty.
UPDATE: At Dot Earth, Andy Revkin reminds us the Bush stonewalling of the EPA on global warming began “just two months into his first term to abandon his campaign pledge in 2000 to restrict carbon dioxide from power plants.” A March 7, 2001 memorandum from the EPA to the White House recommended that the carbon dioxide pledge be kept, but a group of non-scientists rejected the plea. Among the cabal of right-wing officials with industry ties who blocked action in 2001 was the White House Office of Management and Budget’s Marcus Peacock, now the number-two official at the EPA.
‘Honest’ McCain To Iowans: Guess What, I Lied About Subsidies
‘Honest’ McCain To Iowans: Guess What, I Lied About Subsidies
Today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) unveiled the marketing slogan for his incoherent energy policy — the “Lexington Project.” Seven months ago, he promised he would unveil an energy strategy that “won’t be another grab bag of handouts to this or that industry and a full employment act for lobbyists.” With a campaign run by lobbyists, McCain now has broken that promise.
On November 5, 2007, on the campaign trail in Iowa before the presidential primaries, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) had to come up with an explanation to justify his vigorous opposition to federal subsidies for corn ethanol. He presented himself as ideologically opposed to government spending, saying that he was “proud of the conservative tradition that the government can sometimes best serve the interests of the American people by knowing when to stay out of their way.”
Praising himself for “straight talk” and “being honest,” McCain said he would eventually unveil an “energy strategy” that would break “our reliance on petro-dictators”:
– “I oppose subsidies.”
– “That strategy won’t be another grab bag of handouts to this or that industry and a full employment act for lobbyists.”
– “But it also means no rifle-shot tax breaks for big oil.”
– “It means no line items for hydrogen, no mandates for other renewable fuels, and no big-government debacles like the Dakotas Synfuels plant.”
– “I know that you have heard before that subsidies to oil will be eliminated, only to experience another disappointment.”
Seven months later, the Republican nomination sewn up, McCain has maintained his uncompromising opposition to corn ethanol — but nothing else. In the past few weeks, McCain has unveiled proposals that belie his “straight talk” about energy subsidies, mandates, big-government debacles, tax breaks, and industry handouts.
McCain’s energy plan now calls for a complex array of federal subsidies for nuclear power, coal, offshore oil drilling, low-emission vehicles, wind, hydro and solar power — a sorry parody of progressive policies. The plan calls for government-subsidized experimental coal plants, fuel mandates, and special tax breaks. The plan calls for massive new federal spending initiatives and new commissions to allocate emissions permits worth billions of dollars. In short, it’s exactly the kind of plan he told the voters of Ames, Iowa he would never, ever propose — and exactly the kind of plan he has no record of ever having worked to craft in his twenty-six years in Congress.
Conservatives Mount Campaign To Claim ‘Iraq War Was Worth It’
Conservatives Mount Campaign To Claim ‘Iraq War Was Worth It’
The recent decline in violence in Iraq has seems to have given conservatives cover to not only defend the “surge,” but even to attempt to rehabilitate the decision to go to war in the first place.
Preparing the ground, Tony Blankley writes that “in September 2007, more than 19,000 insurgents had been killed by coalition forces since 2003″ :
Of course, most of those 19,000 killed insurgents were not foreign terrorists, but local Iraqis moved to action by our occupation. However, according to studies by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and by the Defense Intelligence Agency, foreign-born jihadists in Iraq are believed to number between 4 and 10 percent of the total insurgent strength. So it is reasonable to assume that we have killed — as of nine months ago — between 800 and 1,900 non-Iraqi terrorists who otherwise would have been plying their trade elsewhere. It only took a couple of dozen to commit the atrocities of Sept. 11.
But no, it’s not reasonable to assume that at all. While it’s probably true that some of the extremists drawn to Iraq would have attacked elsewhere, the evidence is overwhelming that, for the majority of foreign fighters in Iraq, the U.S. occupation itself was the decisive factor in their radicalization and mobilization. It only becomes “reasonable” to assume that all of the foreign terrorists killed in Iraq would have become terrorists absent the American invasion of Iraq if one is desperate to justify a disastrous war, as Blankley is. More »
McCain’s High-Risk Pools — A Gift To The Insurance Industry
McCain’s High-Risk Pools — A Gift To The Insurance Industry
Yesterday, during Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) “tele-townhall meeting,” Debbie, a woman who was laid off her job and subsequently denied health insurance in the individual market because she was taking “blood pressure medication,” asked McCain if his health reform plan would “reform the insurance business” and help her find coverage.
McCain conceded that Americans with pre-existing conditions would have a hard time finding coverage in the unregulated market but reassured Debbie that she could find coverage in government subsidized high-risk pools:
We have to develop - the state of FL is starting to develop them government approved plans. Which is the legislatures and the governors and the federal government join together with the Federal government making a very significant contribution so that they can establish risk pools and others and make sure that every American is able to get particularly with somebody like you that basically can’t get insurance, can get affordable and available insurance and the government is going to have to weigh in physically and financially to see that you get the ability and the health insurance that you need…These are tough times and a lot of people facing the same challenge you are, Debbie. I’m committed to fixing it.
Watch It:
But McCain’s “fix” is inadequate. As the Wonk Room has previously explained, high risk pools have many of the same draconian limitations as the unregulated private market: waiting periods, premiums that are out of reach for many families, substantial deductibles and co-pays, and limits on mental health and maternity care.Moreover, experts estimate that McCain’s “very significant contribution” to high risk pools is not significant at all. In fact, according to most experts, McCain’s proposal to boost funding by $7 to $10 billion is “nowhere near enough, [to cover the uninsured] particularly given the large number of people with pre-existing conditions who would need this help if employers send their workers out to the open market.”
Thus, Americans like Debbie would have to pay outrageous premiums and deductibles for health insurance because high risk pools, unlike general risk pools, don’t spread risks and costs across a mixed pool population of healthy and sick people. She would pay more for insurance because, under McCain’s plan, her pre-existing condition would force her into a pool that cannot offset the costs of treating her condition.
In some ways, McCain is right. He would “reform the insurance business.” But rather than increasing access to health care, McCain’s plan to subsidize high risk pools would only release insurance companies from covering sicker people.
Rep. Burgess: McCain’s Plan Would Insure More Americans Than Obama’s
Rep. Burgess: McCain’s Plan Would Insure More Americans Than Obama’s
Yesterday, Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX), the architect of Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) health care plan, falsely claimed that McCain’s health reforms would come closer to insuring every American “than will Senator Obama’s.”
Watch It:
CLAIM: McCain’s plan “comes a lot closer to the ideal goal of offering every American the opportunity for insurance.”
FACT: McCain’s plan would not come close to insuring the 47 million Americans without health care.
- By equalizing the tax treatment of employer and individual plans, McCain would entice healthy workers to buy cheaper but less substantive insurance in the individual market place. The exodus of healthier workers from employer-pools would increase the average health care costs for sicker employees who can’t find coverage in the individual market, forcing them to opt out entirely.
- As the Center for American Progress Action Fund pointed out, the entire employer health insurance system could unravel, “ending this as an option for Americans who prefer it.”
CLAIM: Under McCain’s plan the uninsured would be able to purchase insurance because “the employer can provide…additional compensation to in a employee over and above the $5,000 tax credit that that employee could use to purchase insurance for themselves or family.”
FACT: Average premiums are higher than McCain’s credit of $2,000 for an individual and $5,000 for a family.
- According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, “the average annual premium costs for a family with employer-sponsored insurance was $12,106 in 2007, and it was $4,479 for a single person.”
- Annual premiums for nongroup coverage vary widely, currently ranging from $1,163 to $5,090 for singles, and $2,325 to $9,201 for family coverage.
Would McCain Really Benefit From A Terrorist Attack?
Would McCain Really Benefit From A Terrorist Attack?
McCain strategist Charlie Black recently made the mistake of saying what was on his mind, suggesting that another terrorist attack on U.S. soil “Certainly…would be a big advantage to him [McCain].”
The elite commentariat have coalesced around the idea that this represents a gaffe in the Kinsleyan sense, “when a politician tells the truth.” That is, that Charlie Black’s words, while inartful, were essentially true, and that another attack would indeed advantage McCain.
This is all based upon the assumption that, if attacked, Americans would run to the arms of conservatives. So it’s worth asking: What would McCain do if another attack occurred? What would he do that makes us “stronger”? The best predictor of how McCain would handle a future attack is how he handled the past one. Given that he’s already told us that he’s “totally in agreement” George W. Bush’s anti-terrorism policy, McCain’s response to a terrorist attack would probably go something like this: After attacking, but not capturing, the people responsible, McCain would divert troops to another, unrelated front.
As early as December 2001, McCain was calling for war with Iraq. He continues to believe that an appropriate response to the 9/11 attacks was to invade and occupy a country that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks.
- Like Bush, McCain justified the Iraq war with the theory that ‘we’re fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them here.’ Former anti-terrorism czar Richard Clarke pointed out that “the evidence is overwhelming that our presence [in Iraq] provides motivation for people throughout the Arab world to become anti-American terrorists.”
- Further demolishing the Bush/McCain “flypaper theory,” a new article in Democracy describes the phenomenon of foreign fighters returning from Iraq to apply their terrorist training in their home countries, another negative consequence of the Iraq war.
McCain seems blissfully unaware of any of the consequences of the policies that he has supported over the past seven years, and continues to advocate an anti-terror strategy that has shown disastrous results. Given all this, it’s a bit frustrating to have to contend with the idea that, were one of those results to take the form of an attack on the American homeland, McCain would benefit.
There are signs that this conventional wisdom is breaking down, however. The Raw Story reports on pundits who have questioned “the assumption that a terrorist attack would play to McCain’s advantage.”
It’s also interesting to note that, after Osama bin Laden’s video release right before the 2004 election, the CIA determined that bin Laden had been trying to help, not hinder, Bush’s reelection. Conservatives, including John McCain, should probably ask themselves why Osama bin Laden prefers their anti-terrorism policies to the progressive alternative.
Nagourney: McCain’s Health Care Proposal ‘Is In Many Ways Similar To What Bush Has Proposed’
Nagourney: McCain’s Health Care Proposal ‘Is In Many Ways Similar To What Bush Has Proposed’
During an appearance on MSNBC today, veteran New York Times reporter Adam Nagourney suggested that Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) health care proposal represented an extension of President Bush’s failed health-care reforms:
I think politically the issue that John McCain has to be careful about is that Democrats will be able to use his proposal on health care as another way of presenting him as Bush III because his proposal is in many ways similar to what President Bush has proposed.
Indeed, the Wonk Room has long argued that McCain’s plan, like Bush’s failed initiative, pushes Americans into the individual and insurance market-place and places 158 million Americans who currently receive their health insurance through an employer, in jeopardy. Today, Elizabeth Edwards, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, outlined the dangers of McCain’s approach:
Senator McCain’s never been in the individual market, he doesn’t know how difficult it is, in fact how impossible it is, if you happen to be one of the unlucky Americans who has a preexisting condition. He does, Senator McCain does. I do. Among the people who are employed right now and getting their insurance that way, fifty six million of them do, and they’re going to find it incredibly expensive, if it’s available at all, for those people who have preexisting conditions.
Watch It:
Well, I like what we did in Massachusetts, for Massachusetts…but John McCain has endorsed the plan of letting each state craft their plans to get people insured and to make sure that issues like preexisting condition are covered. We did it in our way.
Fortunately, most Americans support universal health insurance and reject Bush’s and McCain’s radcial health care policies.