PaintedOnTheSkyVille
In the beginning Joe Biden's stimulatory 'Build Back Better' plan, which included a significant climate action component, was costed at seven trillion dollars.
MSNBC's MacKenzie Sigalos had that story this time last year:
...Striking a stimulus deal is only one part of Biden’s pandemic recovery plan. What he actually wants is something much bigger: for the country to spend over $7 trillion on initiatives such as infrastructure, which includes the creation of 10 million clean-energy jobs, and on housing, education, economic fairness and health care. He’s bundled all his ideas under the slogan Build Back Better...
Of course 7 trillion dollars is a big number, even if the plan is/was to spend it over ten years.
...Striking a stimulus deal is only one part of Biden’s pandemic recovery plan. What he actually wants is something much bigger: for the country to spend over $7 trillion on initiatives such as infrastructure, which includes the creation of 10 million clean-energy jobs, and on housing, education, economic fairness and health care. He’s bundled all his ideas under the slogan Build Back Better...
Of course 7 trillion dollars is a big number, even if the plan is/was to spend it over ten years.
Except, perhaps, when you compare it the total value of the subsidies that prop up the fossil fuel industry every single year, as the Guardian's Damian Carrington explains:
...The IMF found the production and burning of coal, oil and gas was subsidised by $5.9tn in 2020, with not a single country pricing all its fuels sufficiently to reflect their full supply and environmental costs. Experts said the subsidies were “adding fuel to the fire” of the climate crisis, at a time when rapid reductions in carbon emissions were urgently needed...
Of course, Mr. Biden's proposed plan has now been cut in half to $3.5 trillion, still with a significant climate action component, and now he is trying get his own party's senators pass the bill.
...The IMF found the production and burning of coal, oil and gas was subsidised by $5.9tn in 2020, with not a single country pricing all its fuels sufficiently to reflect their full supply and environmental costs. Experts said the subsidies were “adding fuel to the fire” of the climate crisis, at a time when rapid reductions in carbon emissions were urgently needed...
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Of course, Mr. Biden's proposed plan has now been cut in half to $3.5 trillion, still with a significant climate action component, and now he is trying get his own party's senators pass the bill.
Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia has drawn a line in the sand at 1.5 trillion, ostensibly because of debt reduction:
Joe Manchin proposed a deal to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer this summer to limit the total cost of Democrats' sweeping spending bill to $1.5 trillion, according to a copy of the agreement obtained by POLITICO...
{snip}
...In the document, Manchin proposes raising the corporate tax rate to 25 percent, the top tax rate on income to 39.6 percent, raising the capital gains tax rate to 28 percent and says that any revenue from the bill “exceeding” $1.5 trillion will go to deficit reduction...
But.
Joe Manchin proposed a deal to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer this summer to limit the total cost of Democrats' sweeping spending bill to $1.5 trillion, according to a copy of the agreement obtained by POLITICO...
{snip}
...In the document, Manchin proposes raising the corporate tax rate to 25 percent, the top tax rate on income to 39.6 percent, raising the capital gains tax rate to 28 percent and says that any revenue from the bill “exceeding” $1.5 trillion will go to deficit reduction...
But.
With crocodile tear-laced apologies to a fine fellow named Grover, is it possible that Mr. Manchin is trying to strangle Mr. Biden's bill in a coal- and oil-filled bathtub for a different reason?
The Irish Times' correspondent in Washington Coral Davenport hinte at that possibility recently:
Senator Joe Manchin, the powerful West Virginia Democrat who chairs the Senate energy panel and earned $500,000 (€430,000) last year from coal production, is preparing to remake US president Joe Biden’s climate legislation in a way that tosses a lifeline to the fossil fuel industry – despite urgent calls from scientists that countries need to quickly pivot away from coal, gas and oil to avoid a climate catastrophe.
Manchin has already emerged as the crucial up-or-down vote in a sharply divided Senate when it comes to Biden’s push to pass a $3.5 trillion budget Bill that could reshape the nation’s social welfare network. But Biden also wants the Bill to include an aggressive climate policy that would compel utilities to stop burning fossil fuels and switch to wind, solar or nuclear energy, sources that do not emit the greenhouse gases that are heating the planet...
Senator Joe Manchin, the powerful West Virginia Democrat who chairs the Senate energy panel and earned $500,000 (€430,000) last year from coal production, is preparing to remake US president Joe Biden’s climate legislation in a way that tosses a lifeline to the fossil fuel industry – despite urgent calls from scientists that countries need to quickly pivot away from coal, gas and oil to avoid a climate catastrophe.
Manchin has already emerged as the crucial up-or-down vote in a sharply divided Senate when it comes to Biden’s push to pass a $3.5 trillion budget Bill that could reshape the nation’s social welfare network. But Biden also wants the Bill to include an aggressive climate policy that would compel utilities to stop burning fossil fuels and switch to wind, solar or nuclear energy, sources that do not emit the greenhouse gases that are heating the planet...
With friends like that subsidies....errrr...trillions matter.
OK?
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OK?
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Update, Friday: And, just in the nick of time...Here comes the (formerly?) green Ms. Sinema with her more direct, upfront rip-off of the Climate Mitigation Slash Machine Blues....
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1 comment:
Not being in favour of violence to achieve one's political ends, I still have an overwhelming desire to corner Manchin in the bathroom, stick his head in a toilet and keep it there until he agrees to vote for Biden's bill. I'd settle for putting him in one of his coal mines for a week with only water. He could then appreciate what it feels like to go without food and light.
When Manchin first started to voice his opposition to the bill wondered why., Then it was revealed the money he makes off of coal. He has a conflict of interest. in his own way he is as bad as trump, just looks better because he runs as a Democrat. You'd think he'd get the message with the american west coast burning and the east coast flooding. In my opinion, the man is truly either stupid or morally bankrupt.
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