Christine Todd Whitman, formally governor of New Jersey totally convinces me that man-caused climate change is real, and that mankind is mostly/solely responsible! The original headline was something about Republicans reclaiming our tradition
Gov. Whitman: I’m glad to see Republicans recognizing climate change. Now they must do something
During my time as both governor of New Jersey and administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, I knew that I’d be judged by my actions. All the speeches and public appearances in the world won’t convince people you’ve done your job unless you produce results.
That’s how we need to judge our elected officials when it comes to climate change.
Because climate change has become needlessly partisan, I am always heartened when a fellow Republican recognizes the seriousness of the issue. More elected Republicans are now publicly acknowledging the truth: climate change is real and humans are the leading cause of it.
However, too many Republican elected officials who know better — even those who have publicly recognized the problem of climate change – are still refusing to go beyond words. The Climate Solutions Caucus in Congress has 44 Republican members, but the vast majority of them continue to vote against real solutions or in support of measures damaging to our environment and health. A recent vote brought before the House of Representatives saw Republicans overwhelmingly reject the idea of making major industries pay for the dangerous pollution they emit in our air. Most frustratingly, these same members have offered no suggestions of their own.
Funny that she’s totally for making Someone Else pay, yet refuses to give up her own big carbon life. Oh, and all this about making major industries pay means those costs trickle down to the consumers, who aren’t rich like Whitman.
Like most Republicans, I am a firm believer in free market solutions. And hearteningly, there are a small number of Republicans bringing market-based approaches to address climate change. Rep. Carlos Curbelo of Florida did just that when he introduced a bill over the summer calling for a price on carbon pollution that would bring about infrastructure investment, regulatory stability, and tax reforms based on conservative, free market principals. But unfortunately plans like Curbelo’s have been the exception, and not the rule.
She’s using a phrase I don’t think she understands. Implementing a government run tax/fee is 180 degrees away from being a free market solution (though she tries to weasel a bit by leaving out “free”). Free market solution means the market does it, not the government. When the few Republican Warmists out there go down this road, they’re even more disingenuous than the leftists who push this, because the Republicans are supposed to be for an actual free market, not yammer out weasel words in an attempt to increase the size and scope of government.
I am not saying that conservatives should simply adopt the policies of Democrats on climate change. Republicans can stand for a clean environment and market principles. But we can’t stand on the sidelines. We must enter this debate with our own ideas, and push for policies that cut the pollution intensifying havoc across our country and world. And token cuts are not enough, we must reduce emissions and move toward clean energy as fast as the science of climate change demands.
First, this is exactly the Democrats idea. Most aren’t positioning a carbon tax/fee as a free market solution (except for those few who are lying about it being a FMS). Next, why would we do anything when the proof of mankind being mostly/solely responsible is beyond weak and doesn’t rely on the scientific method and testable and reproducible facts. Third, intensifying havoc? Good grief. Wackadoodle.
And to my fellow Republicans who are in the Congress, we must do better. Our party has a great history of environmental protection. Let’s reclaim that.
Ah, that’s where the original headline came from. CO2 is plant food. It’s necessary for life. It isn’t dangerous to humans until you get into the thousands of parts per million in a closed environment. Earth has survived much higher levels, and is doing fine at just over 400ppm.
But, if she’s worried about the environment, then let’s demolish all those big liberal cities with all their fossil fueled vehicles, cities which tend to have much higher carbon footprints than suburban/rural areas, and cause a massive urban heat island effect, and have erased nature.
It’s you that doesn’t understand ‘market approach’, which is merely consumers deciding whether to enter a market transaction based on the price of the item/service. Adding a tax to an item certainly qualifies. Banning cigarettes would be a non-market approach, adding a tax to discourage consumption is a market approach.
Because you don’t understand that global warming is linked to CO2 pollution, you object to recouping the costs.
Cons pretend to worship “free markets” but in practice do not support them. Do you favor or oppose trump’s taxes on foreign goods?
All taxes are regressive. By their very nature if you take money away from people for whatever reason you have regressed the economy. Now you can argue that taxing carbon would reduce its emission but this is never the case when it comes to something that is absolutely essential to life itself.
I would argue how recouping the costs of CO2 pollution is even possible. How do you measure the effects of Co2? Your solution is a random tax thrown at a problem that may or may not exist. This is always the downfall of the Alarmists.
Germany is in disarray right now because they have done precisely what you advocate. They TAX their own wealth, shut down their coal and nuclear power plants and then buy their energy from Russia. The very demon everyone these days want to hate. In fact the war mongering left are advocating going to war with Russia because HRC lost the election and therefore the left is in danger of losing the Supreme court.
As we go round the merry go round of the new world order establishment types demanding taxation on energy the only outcome can be a worldwide reduction in wealth since energy is the standard by which the wealth of a nation is measured.
Because you expect us to be as stupid as you are, you want us to go along with your Lefty tax-and-spend nonsense.
You understand markets about as well as you understand science.
The ‘carbon tax’ will do exactly what the left want: to further impoverish the poor, to make them more dependent upon the government, while bringing in more revenue to the government, to spend on more ridiculous welfare programs.
Mr Bodine has told us that he is wealthy; the carbon tax he likes won’t be all that much of a bother to him.
Miss Delaney misses a key point, namely rebating carbon taxes to the working classes.
It is the Con Men and their policies supporting the continued impoverishment of the working classes, damaging their own economic prospects, all because they think the wealthy are entitled to special treatment. In return, the GOP punishes ‘out’ groups, Muslims, immigrants, Blacks, gays, women, keeping the Con voters in line.
“(N)amely rebating carbon taxes to the working classes”? Just how is that done, I have to ask? Will taxpayers have to keep track of all of their fuel purchases, then submit them to the government, to determine how much of a ‘rebate’ they get?
And when do the ‘working class’ receive their rebate? The left are all up in arms about the ‘payday lenders’ who charge exorbitant interest rates to get some poor sap who needs cash right now through until next Friday, but you seem to think that it’s perfectly fine if the working class have to wait to get their carbon tax rebate check at the end of the quarter or end of the year.
Yeah, when you are flush with cash, it’s pretty easy to say, ‘Well, it’s for their own good,’ and even postulate that, ‘Hey, it’s like getting a second income tax refund check, and think what poor people can do with that nice lump sum,’ when you aren’t the one wondering how you’re going to make it until next payday.
Of course, the poor and the working class don’t really have all that much opportunity to reduce their carbon footprint. They can’t just say, “Hey, let’s go buy a new Prius or Cooper Mini.” They’re the ones trying to make their 1992 Oldsmobiles make it through another year. Maybe you can buy yourself a Tesla, but most people
aren’t that stupidcan’t.No, it’s the Lefties. Lower class wages sank and unemployment rose in the Ozero years, while the rich white people with whom Zippy has always associated, prospered..
It’s reversed with Trump, and, good little Judas Goat that he is, Jeffery wants to go back to the Bad Old Days of welfare and food stamps.
Once again a troll like talking point that simply is not valid. The GOP does not punish out groups at all. Wall Street punishes out groups and their group of choice for doing so is DEMOCRATS. HRC raised 2 billion for her campaign. The DNC was aghast that a WALL STREET HATING Bernie Sanders might get the nomination. so much so that in fact they rigged the entire process against him.
When you look at the list of Donors for most of the Democratic senators it is filled with corporate interests. Barak Obama took money from Big Pharma and insurance companies to WRITE THEIR OWN BILL.
Who really keeps the black people down? Or Muslims or poor? Barak Obama said all those jobs are gone….they are never coming back. Well they are coming back under the POOR HATER TRUMP. The new Trade Deal with Mexico and Canada makes things fair including forcing MEXICO to RAISE WAGES TO 16 Dollars per hour, which is like 50 bucks per hour in the USA.
Your fear mongering is becoming tiresome especially when You Tube is full of progressive voices screaming at the Democrats to JUST STOP with all the lies. They know that the DEM establishment is the ones keeping the blacks in poverty and the OUTS down as you call it.
VIA no doubt an internal agreement between establishment new world order DEMS and REPUBS there can be little doubt that the GOP has abandoned Blacks and Hispanics to the democrats who otherwise would not be a party at all. In exchange they keep the masses stirred up against each other by lies and mistruths and then came Trump.
The Bombastic loudmouth, narcissist who believes everything he says. But he is getting stuff done. He is helping the poor and those without jobs. He is doing everything he promised. He is stirring the turd bowl that is the swamp. Wall street hates him even as they revel in record profits and record stock prices.
Why? Because Billionaires want to run the world. They do so by owning people in power. Because trump can’t be bought they have all stirred up countless and numerous lies against Trump in order to get him out of Government so they can go back to fuking us all.
Get your facts straight man. If you sincerely care about the truth go do some digging and you will learn people like Ron Paul called Obama not a communist but a CORPORATIST because he was bought and paid for by Wall Street and his billionaire handlers.
Again, you make a good point. It is BOTH Republican and Democratic elites (or corporatists) who work to sustain our economic system that rewards the wealthy and corporations at the expense of the working classes.
But which party opposes labor unions, progressive taxation, the social safety net (e.g., Medicare, Social Security, disability payments, Medicaid), fiscal and monetary policies that value workers etc
The greatest threat to America is not North Korea, Brett Kavanaugh (whether yea or nay), Putin, abortion or illegal immigration – it’s the growing divide between the wealthy and the working classes. Working folks are falling behind. They need better paying jobs and this economy, as currently configured by Repubs AND Dems, does not supply enough of them.
The American working classes used to be able to afford a house, car, vacations, savings, college tuition, health insurance… now, not so much. How do we reverse this?
Your solution is to demolish cities? Where do you live and work?
A lot of people live in the burbs or the country.
And you do realize cities are obsolete.
“Democrat-run” cities* in Blue States, and the Blue states themselves, keep sending federal funds to backward red states.
You’re welcome.
*LA, SD, SF, Seattle, Portland, Chicago, Boston, Baltimore, DC, NYC…
Backward? Who’s making more money? People can’t leave NY and CA fast enough.
All those business-minded entrepreneurs in red states send the bulk of the money to DC, where most of it gets wasted.
Again a spurious and without merit talking point.
If as you say those democratic cities send those poor red states money I have one simple question for you.
How do those cities EAT? Where do they get their beef, poultry, eggs, bacon and veggies? I would propose that they obviously do not grow them inside their own cities and in fact as big as California is they cannot self sustain themselves.
Red states and blue states are not self sustaining. The USA is a symbiotic relationship that depends on all 50 states to survive and prosper. Stop sending Red states money and we will stop sending blue states, food, energy and gasoline.
Lets see how that works out. I propose the red states could make it quite comfortably without the blue states but the reverse is simply not true without changing their entire core values. Like you know, abandoning AGW and building power plants and tearing up millions of acres of protected darters to farm to feed their people.
But my point remains the 50 US states form a symbiotic relationship dependent upon each other for sustenance. It is why the USA became and is one of the greatest civilizations in the history of the world to date.
You make an excellent point. It IS a symbiotic, cooperative relationship between urban and rural Americas. Both inter- and intra- red and blue states.
And every state has urban and rural areas, so don’t be so certain that California or New Jersey couldn’t feed its own citizens. Or that Louisiana has the infrastructure to support itself.
Mr. Trump certainly appears to be ginning up the divide.
But be sure to note that, in general, blue states send more money to DC than they take, and red states take more than they send.
So why do red staters keep ripping on US urban areas?
Yes, let’s tax CO2 which is greening the planet. “Send us money and we’ll stop bad weatherâ€, never mind that there’s no proof of CO2 causing bad weather.