As an aside, the Supreme Court’s musing aside, it’s highly unlikely that the EPA can declare CO2 a pollutant without Congress’ law making. (Though the misnomer used above, “carbon” probably can, as in soot and particulates.)

First and foremost, AGW does not happen in the tropics. No single scientific assessment including those by the IPCC has ever claimed observable warming in the tropics. Furthermore, think about what is claimed. Somebody made a model to predict temperatures in the tropics, and it worked. Guess what, so did I, and I’m going to run it for you right now :

Beep! Boop! Bop!….High of 85 Low of 75 all year.

Done! And I bet my model proves true over a 95% confidence interval too.

See this is one of those “plants” that the disinformation campaign committed to selling us on AGW puts out there. Some loose assertion about working climate models, so that the unintelligent like you, wholly incapable of reading more than the headlines or applying your limited reasoning skills, make the simplistic extrapolation that this validates all climate models. It’s propaganda, specifically contrived to dupe simple dumb-dumbs like yourself who give in to it willingly.

It is this same logic that makes humans willingly support LAWS that make their own breathing illegal pollution. Similar half science, half lie propaganda has led to a nation of willing ignorants, believing that a naturally occurring gaseous component of our atmosphere, and the fuel used by plants to produce the oxygen we breathe, is somehow a poisonous pollutant.

It seems all but decided that Obama will with the upcoming election. What does this mean? Well, a majority vote for Obama, would indicate that the majority of grown adult citizens are willing to be active participants to their own duping. That such easily verifiable lies like these take root so broadly, is the sad evidence that we are already a lost cause.

Ready for the apocalypse everyone…?!

Obama’s Carbon Ultimatum
The coming offer you won’t be able to refuse.

Liberals pretend that only President Bush is preventing the U.S. from adopting some global warming “solution.” But occasionally their mask slips. As Barack Obama’s energy adviser has now made clear, the would-be President intends to blackmail — or rather, greenmail — Congress into falling in line with his climate agenda.

Jason Grumet is currently executive director of an outfit called the National Commission on Energy Policy and one of Mr. Obama’s key policy aides. In an interview last week with Bloomberg, Mr. Grumet said that come January the Environmental Protection Agency “would initiate those rulemakings” that classify carbon as a dangerous pollutant under current clean air laws. That move would impose new regulation and taxes across the entire economy, something that is usually the purview of Congress. Mr. Grumet warned that “in the absence of Congressional action” 18 months after Mr. Obama’s inauguration, the EPA would move ahead with its own unilateral carbon crackdown anyway.

Well, well. For years, Democrats — including Senator Obama — have been howling about the “politicization” of the EPA, which has nominally been part of the Bush Administration. The complaint has been that the White House blocked EPA bureaucrats from making the so-called “endangerment finding” on carbon. Now it turns out that a President Obama would himself wield such a finding as a political bludgeon. He plans to issue an ultimatum to Congress: Either impose new taxes and limits on carbon that he finds amenable, or the EPA carbon police will be let loose to ravage the countryside.

The EPA hasn’t made a secret of how it would like to centrally plan the U.S. economy under the 1970 Clean Air Act. In a blueprint released in July, the agency didn’t exactly say it’d collectivize the farms — but pretty close, down to the “grass clippings.” The EPA would monitor and regulate the carbon emissions of “lawn and garden equipment” as well as everything with an engine, like cars, planes and boats. Eco-bureaucrats envision thousands of other emissions limits on all types of energy. Coal-fired power and other fossil fuels would be ruled out of existence, while all other prices would rise as the huge economic costs of the new regime were passed down the energy chain to consumers.

These costs would far exceed the burden of a straight carbon tax or cap-and-trade system enacted by Congress, because the Clean Air Act was never written to apply to carbon and other greenhouse gases. It’s like trying to do brain surgery with a butter knife. Mr. Obama wants to move ahead anyway because he knows that the costs of any carbon program will be high. He knows, too, that Congress — even with strongly Democratic majorities — might still balk at supporting tax increases on their constituents, even if it is done in the name of global warming.

Climate-change politics don’t break cleanly along partisan lines. The burden of a carbon clampdown will fall disproportionately on some states over others, especially the 25 interior states that get more than 50% of their electricity from coal. Rustbelt manufacturing states like Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania will get hit hard too. Once President Bush leaves office, the coastal Democrats pushing hardest for a climate change program might find their colleagues splitting off, especially after they vote for a huge tax increase on incomes.

Thus Messrs. Obama and Grumet want to invoke a political deus ex machina driven by a faulty interpretation of the Clean Air Act to force Congress’s hand. Mr. Obama and Democrats can then tell Americans that Congress must act to tax and regulate carbon to save the country from even worse bureaucratic consequences. It’s Mr. Obama’s version of Jack Benny’s old “your money or your life” routine, but without the punch line.

The strategy is most notable for what it says about the climate-change lobby and its new standard bearer. Supposedly global warming is the transcendent challenge of the age, but Mr. Obama evidently doesn’t believe he’ll be able to convince his own party to do something about it without a bureaucratic ultimatum. Mr. Grumet justified it this way: “The U.S. has to move quickly domestically . . . We cannot have a meaningful impact in the international discussion until we develop a meaningful domestic consensus.”

Normally a democracy reaches consensus through political debate and persuasion, but apparently for Mr. Obama that option is merely a nuisance. It’s another example of “change” you’ll be given no choice but to believe in.

As long as the wind is blowing and the sun is shining….

The First link they wimped out at, was the Vegetable connection ‘twixt the ambulant calorie-providers and their food-chain buddies- the Carbon sinking Troglodytes!
In simple carbon-cycle skeptient eugenics it is unarguable that Plants begat the catastrophe that we find ourselves in today.

They should have sung ‘Plants are Genocidal- and Fully Oxygenated Carbon is the spawn of the Devil’

Not sure about how well that scans though?

After the “tax cuts for the rich”, the rich paid a higher PERCENT of revenue than the MC or poor.

Including tax credits: In 2003 the richest 1% paid 33% of revenue. Last year it was 40%. (The poorest 50% paid 2.9% and the poorest 40% paid 0%).

That confirms the basic premises behind the Laffer Curve.

2003 (the year of the cap gains cut) was the year it all turned around.

During 2006, the top rate was cut to 35% (a 7% cut). There was a 27% increase in revenues.

(By “revenues”, I mean federal income tax, incl. capital gains.)

If business pay lower taxes it affects the cost/supply/demand curve. Costs go down and therefore it is more profitable to cut the price (increased sales more than make up for the cut in price).

As for cap gains, look at what happened when Clinton cut them and when Bush cut them. In both cases there was both a longterm increase in productivity AND revenue.

Tax cuts don’t work–if taxes are too low in the first place. But when taxes are too high, cuts increase both productivity and revenues. Reagan cut taxes by over half and by 1988 per capita revenues were up 18% including both inflation and population growth.

Aren’t they subject to tax when they are realized? They are not tax free, just tax deferred.

“How exactly is having all three branches of government under Democratic control going to help?”

It won’t. It will weaken this country, which by default, leads us on the path towards global socialism. Total democrat control is by no means intended on keeping America the best and strongest nation on earth. Liberal philosophy… “We just want people to like us.” If we throw our convictions out the window, maybe they will? I feel bad for all the veterans who fought and died to help keep this nation the most prosperous on earth. Kiss that goodbye. You can take that to the global bank.

[snip]

But I understand why [....then please accept it ~ charles the moderator]

How about Anthony posting a discussion about the shifting of the earths magnetic poles?

A good article in the New York Times today tying the “financial mess” to the Democrats.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/19/business/19cisneros.html?hp

How exactly is having all three branches of government under Democratic control going to help?

“End times stories as in Revelations, were overwrites of Dead Sea Scroll materials, originally anti Roman, pro Israel.”

The variations of the scrolls and the bible are less than two percent, and not a single teaching or doctrine of the Bible we have is altered. Rather than posing a threat to the Christian faith, the Dead Sea Scrolls have, in fact, provided convincing support for the genuineness of God’s revelation as given to us in the Bible.

“Once the Christians got through with them, the were anti Israel. Such is the nature of religion.”

Yea – those Christians with their messed up religion and hopes of ‘Peace on earth’ and ‘Goodwill towards manind’. Awful.

David apparently isn’t aware that most Chrisitians support Israel. Such is the nature of ignorance.

Reply: I allowed this post, but I want to stop this from opening up a discussion of religion on this site. That’s it, no more posts on the subject please. No winners no losers, quothe the moderator, no more. ~ charles the moderator

http://seekingalpha.com/article/63131-exxon-s-2007-tax-bill-30-billion

I’m not wealthy, which means I must be stupid.

Increased taxes also impact the price of the product. Taxes certainly don’t have anything to do with however you choose to define the word “fair”. That additional cost, which is what a business will see as a cost of doing business, is passed on to the consumer. A vicious cycle, and it’s a bad one. Our tax code isn’t progressive – it’s regressive.

People in our country (the US) have forgotten that “we have the right to equal opportunity, but not equal results.” (I love that Milton Friedman line – which is who I borrowed that from)

Re your comment:
“Now this is a discussion. The opposing view, especially from Don, is appreciated. Evan, 401k plans are exempt from capital gains taxes or cuts in those taxes. See the following article. Studies show that tax cuts given to rich corporations and individuals provide only a one time gain in revenues. After the first sell off of stocks to avoid taxes, revenues tank to below what they were when the taxes were in place.”

In 2003 the federal revenues were 1,800,000 million dollars when the Bush tax cuts were implemented that reduced capital gains tax. By 2005 the revenues “tanked” to 2.150,000 million dollars. Thats almost a 20 % increase in revenues. Don’t believe the propoganda of the left. During one Debate Obama even admitted he wanted to increase capital gains taxes even if the revenues were reduced because it would be fairer. That’s class warefare.

Look at this URL for a plot:
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2005/12/growth_in_feder.html

For an update, In 2007 the federal government collected $2.5 trillion, an amount equal to 18.8 percent of GDP. Federal revenue has ranged from 14.4 to 20.9 percent of GDP over the past five decades, averaging 18.0 percent. Where is the tanking of revenues?

I don’t consider myself rich but, I paid a lot more taxes than you did. I suggest you work harder to pick up your share (just joking). Do me a favor and look at the taxes you paid before and after the Bush tax cuts. If you wern’t earning so much then calculate how much you would have paid. I suspect you will owe GWB a lot of thanks for all the $$$$ he put in your pocket every year. I know my taxes would have been much more even though I am not rich in Obama language.

On your comments: “Besides, aren’t tax breaks for the top level just another way of redistributing wealth? Why is it when the lower to middle income bracket gets a tax cut, it is called a bad name, but when the higher brackets get a tax break it’s the American way? ”

Who said that tax breaks for the middle income folks is bad. Bush happily gave them a significant tax break, but they don’t know it due to the spin and lies. Returning taxes collected to those never paid any taxes, as proposed by Obama, is hardly a tax break (only if you are honest about the meaning of words in the English language).
Finally I differ with your interpretation that giving any tax payer a break is redistributing the wealth. Who worked for and earned the $$$ in the first place. It is NOT redistributing the wealth!! It’s stealing less and it provides incentives to work and pay taxes even if one is semi retired like myself. If Obama gets elected , I might quit contributing federal income, state income, medicare, medicade, etc. and live off other peoples labors such as yours.