How the "news" gets reported

[melman]

members of the GOP leadership, have claimed that the plan to limit carbon emissions through cap and trade would cost the average household more than $3,100 per year. According to an MIT study, between 2015 and 2050 cap and trade would annually raise an average of $366 billion in revenues (divided by 117 million households equals $3,128 per household, the Republicans reckon).

But on March 24, after interviewing one of the MIT professors who conducted the study on which the GOP relied to produce its estimate, the St. Petersburg Times fact-check unit, Politifact, declared the GOP figure of $3,100 per household was a "Pants on Fire" falsehood. The GOP claim is "just wrong," MIT professor John Reilly told Politifact. "It's wrong in so many ways it's hard to begin."

According to Politifact, Reilly's report included an "estimate of the net cost to individuals" that "would be $215.05 per household. A far cry from $3,128."


More at link ...
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/412cwueq.asp

[melman]

The key item in the above is this from MIT Prof John Reilly "I make a BONEHEADED mistake in an excel spread sheet. I have sent a letter to republicans correcting my ERROR.

[JustRalph]

I am not in favor of any increase.......... I don't care if it is 8 dollars or 8 million

Global warming is a farce...........

Why don't you just tack on a Bogey Man Tax......... it would be the same

[Tom]

Cap and Trade is Obama's way of paying back GE.
It is bribery being rewarded, nothing more.
GE talks, Obama dances.

[kenwoodallpromos]

I don't care- I just like the smell of alternative energy better than the smell of carbon emissions!

[Tom]

Good thing, Ken, because once Cap and Trade bankrupts not only you, but your state and city as well, that is all you be able to do - sit home and smell Obama's policies.

The trouble with alternative energies is that the alternative is no economy.:lol:

[ArlJim78]

you missed the main point of the article, you might want to read it again entirely.

the point being made is that cap and trade should really cost $3,900 per household. $800 is the estimate for how much people will spend on their own to reduce their use of fossil fuels + $3,128 which will be collected by the energy companies.

there is no disputing that $3,128 will be collected on average from each household. but the MIT prof is saying that this money will be recycled into the economy and in some form or another will be returned to taxpayers so he doesn't include it in the net cost to the economy. i'm sure in some technical sense that is correct, but the same could be said about all taxes. i guess if you're an MIT guy having the government take an additional $3,128 per household and spending it in their usual wasteful manner is no different than if you kept that $3,128 and spent it yourself. it's a massive tax hike, period.
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"It is not really a matter of returning it or not, no matter what happens this revenue gets recycled into the economy some way. In that regard, whether the money is specifically returned to households with a check that says "your share of GHG auction revenue", used to cut someone's taxes, used to pay for some government services that provide benefit to the public, or simply used to offset the deficit (therefore meaning lower Government debt and lower taxes sometime in the future when that debt comes due) is largely irrelevant in the calculation of the "average" household. Each of those ways of using the revenue has different implications for specific households but the "average" affect is still the same. [...] The only way that money does not get recycled to the "average" household is if it is spent on something that provides no useful service for anyone--that it is true government waste."

"He added later: "I am simply saying that once [the tax funds are] collected they are not worthless, they have value. If the Republicans were to focus on that revenue, and their message was to rally the public to make sure all this money was returned in a check to each household rather than spent on other public services then I would have no problem with their use of our number."