Voice For Liberty

Tag: Barack Obama

  • Municipal stormwater regulation on White House agenda

    Some scoff at those who raise warnings about overreaching federal regulation. But even though the national economy is suffering and we are drowning in debt, the administration of President Barack Obama can find time to meddle in the regulation of municipal stormwater.

    Following is an email from NACo, the National Association of Counties, to county commissioners, presumably across the nation. The email, which presumes that “green” stormwater management practices are most desirable, asks for suggestions from commissioners to present at a national conference on the topic, hosted by the White House.

    The agenda for the conference is White House Conference Municipal Stormwater Infrastructure: Going From Grey to Green. Following is the email commissioners received.

    From: Julie Ufner [mailto:jufner@naco.org]
    Subject: Green Infrastructure Information Request

    Next week, I will be representing NACo at the White House’s Stormwater Infrastrucutre [sic] event. The White House asked participants to be prepared to discuss the questions below. If you have any comments or responses to the questions, please feel free to forward those responses no later than COB on Wednesday, September 19th.

    1. What do you see as the most significant barriers to the wider use of green infrastructure practices to manage municipal stormwater?

    2. What steps should federal agencies, communities, or others take to promote the use of green infrastructure practices in municipal stormwater management?

    3. Are there specific infrastructure practices, or categories of practices, that you believe are most effective, provide the greatest benefits, or are most easily implemented?

    4. Are there funding strategies for municipal green infrastructure that you have employed and would recommend?

    Thank you in advance for any comments you may have.

    Julie Ufner
    Associate Legislative Director
    Environment, Energy and Land Use
    National Association of Counties
    202-942-4269
    jufner@naco.org

  • Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer on role of government

    When President Barack Obama told business owners “You didn’t build that,” it set off a bit of a revolt. Those who worked hard to build businesses didn’t like to hear the president dismiss their efforts.

    Underlying this episode is a serious question: What should be the role of government in the economy? Should government’s role be strictly limited, according to the Constitution? Or should government take an activist role in managing, regulating, subsidizing, and penalizing in order to get the results politicians and bureaucrats desire?

    Historian Burton W. Folsom has concluded that it is the private sector — free people, not government — that drives innovation: “Time and again, experience has shown that while private enterprise, carried on in an environment of open competition, delivers the best products and services at the best price, government intervention stifles initiative, subsidizes inefficiency, and raises costs.”

    But some don’t agree. They promote government management and intervention into the economy. Whatever their motivation might be, however it was they formed their belief, they believe that without government oversight of the economy, things won’t happen.

    But in Wichita, it’s even worse. Without government, it is claimed that not only would we stop growing, economic progress would revert to a previous century.

    Mayor Carl Brewer made these claims in a 2008 meeting of the Wichita City Council.

    In his remarks (transcript and video below), Brewer said “if government had not played some kind of role in guiding and identifying how the city was going to grow, how any city was going to grow, I’d be afraid of what that would be. Because we would still be in covered wagons and horses. There would be no change.”

    When I heard him say that, I thought he’s just using rhetorical flair to emphasize a point. But later on he said this about those who advocate for economic freedom instead of government planning and control: “… then tomorrow we’ll be saying we don’t want more technology, and then the following day we’ll be saying we don’t want public safety, and it won’t take us very long to get back to where we were at back when the city first settled.”

    Brewer’s remarks are worse than “You didn’t build that.” The mayor of Wichita is telling us you can’t build that — not without government guidance and intervention, anyway.

    Many people in Wichita, including the mayor and most on the city council and county commission, believe that the public-private partnership is the way to drive innovation and get things done. It’s really a shame that this attitude is taking hold in Wichita, a city which has such a proud tradition of entrepreneurship. The names that Wichitans are rightly proud of — Lloyd Stearman, Walter Beech, Clyde Cessna, W.C. Coleman, Albert Alexander Hyde, Dan and Frank Carney, and Fred C. Koch — these people worked and built businesses without the benefit of public-private partnerships and government subsidy.

    This tradition of entrepreneurship is disappearing, replaced by the public-private partnership and programs like Visioneering Wichita, sustainable communities, Greater Wichita Economic Development Coalition, Regional Economic Area Partnership (REAP), and rampant cronyism. Although when given a chance, voters are rejecting cronyism.

    We don’t have long before the entrepreneurial spirit in Wichita is totally subservient to government. What can we do to return power to the people instead of surrendering it to government?

    Wichita Mayor Carl Brewer, August 12, 2008: You know, I think that a lot of individuals have a lot of views and opinions about philosophy as to, whether or not, what role the city government should play inside of a community or city. But it’s always interesting to hear various different individuals’ philosophy or their view as to what that role is, and whether or not government or policy makers should have any type of input whatsoever.

    I would be afraid, because I’ve had an opportunity to hear some of the views, and under the models of what individuals’ logic and thinking is, if government had not played some kind of role in guiding and identifying how the city was going to grow, how any city was going to grow, I’d be afraid of what that would be. Because we would still be in covered wagons and horses. There would be no change.

    Because the stance is let’s not do anything. Just don’t do anything. Hands off. Just let it happen. So if society, if technology, and everything just goes off and leaves you behind, that’s okay. Just don’t do anything. I just thank God we have individuals that have enough gumption to step forward and say I’m willing to make a change, I’m willing to make a difference, I’m willing to improve the community. Because they don’t want to acknowledge the fact that improving the quality of life, improving the various different things, improving bringing in businesses, cleaning up street, cleaning up neighborhoods, doing those things, helping individuals feel good about themselves: they don’t want to acknowledge that those types of things are important, and those types of things, there’s no way you can assess or put a a dollar amount to it.

    Not everyone has the luxury to live around a lake, or be able to walk out in their backyard or have someone come over and manicure their yard for them, not everyone has that opportunity. Most have to do that themselves.

    But they want an environment, sometimes you have to have individuals to come in and to help you, and I think that this is one of those things that going to provide that.

    This community was a healthy thriving community when I was a kid in high school. I used to go in and eat pizza after football games, and all the high school students would go and celebrate.

    But, just like anything else, things become old, individuals move on, they’re forgotten in time, maybe the city didn’t make the investments that they should have back then, and they walk off and leave it.

    But new we have someone whose interested in trying to revive it. In trying to do something a little different. In trying to instill pride in the neighborhood, trying to create an environment where it’s enticing for individuals to want to come back there, or enticing for individuals to want to live there.

    So I must commend those individuals for doing that. But if we say we start today and say that we don’t want to start taking care of communities, then tomorrow we’ll be saying we don’t want more technology, and then the following day we’ll be saying we don’t want public safety, and it won’t take us very long to get back to where we were at back when the city first settled.

    So I think this is something that’s a good venture, it’s a good thing for the community, we’ve heard from the community, we’ve seen the actions of the community, we saw it on the news what these communities are doing because they know there’s that light at the end of the tunnel. We’ve seen it on the news. They’ve been reporting it in the media, what this particular community has been doing, and what others around it.

    And you know what? The city partnered with them, to help them generate this kind of energy and this type of excitement and this type of pride.

    So I think this is something that’s good. And I know that there’s always going to be people who are naysayers, that they’re just not going to be happy. And I don’t want you to let let this to discourage you, and I don’t want the comments that have been heard today to discourage the citizens of those neighborhoods. And to continue to doing the great work that they’re doing, and to continue to have faith, and to continue that there is light at the end of the tunnel, and that there is a value that just can’t be measured of having pride in your community and pride in your neighborhood, and yes we do have a role to be able to help those individuals trying to help themselves.

  • For President Obama, it hasn’t changed much

    A commercial from the Republican National Committee lets us see that despite the promises of hope and change in 2008, things really haven’t changed that much.

  • Obama: I inherited this crisis

    23 million Americans can’t be wrong
    By Rick Manning, Americans for Limited Government

    The faces of Labor Day are different in 2012 than they have been in the past, all 23 million of them.

    The traditional end of summer is greeted with cookouts, last splashes in the swimming pool, and final trips to the beach, but it is something much more in this election year.

    Labor Day is a reminder of the unemployed, underemployed and those who don’t even bother looking for a job anymore because they don’t believe any are available.

    Read more at NetRightDaily.com.

  • Governor Romney is right: End the wind production tax credit

    U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo, a Republican who represents the Kansas fourth district, contributes the following article on the harm of government involvement in energy markets, wind power specifically. Pompeo has written extensively on energy; see Pompeo on energy tax simplification, Era of energy subsidies is over, and Free market energy solutions don’t jeopardize national security. He has also introduced legislation to end all tax credits for energy, H.R. 3308: Energy Freedom and Economic Prosperity Act.

    There’s been a steady drumbeat from those seeking an extension of the wind production tax credit. For many reasons, including some that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has carefully highlighted in his opposition, this is a bad idea.

    First, an extension continues this unsettling policy trend in which citizens are asked to bear all the risks and gain none of the rewards. This socialization of risks and privatization of profits guarantees disasters, for corporate boards and even their federal overseers can become careless and, in some instances, reckless. This fact was clearly demonstrated by the Solyndra debacle — when a company with close ties to the Obama administration lost more than a half billion dollars of taxpayers’ money. At the heart of that fiasco was both the company and the administration’s indifference to the taxpayers.

    Solyndra also revealed something else damaging about federal involvement in markets: the potential for political corruption. It’s clear that the Obama administration became emotionally, and inappropriately, invested in the fortunes of one company and one sector. When that happens, the system is compromised, cronyism flourishes and corruption is inevitable.

    President Barack Obama talks about the need to “invest” in alternative energy sources. But the reality is that he is not investing his money — he’s spending yours. I’m not sure that too many Americans would choose the president to manage their retirement accounts. His record — a jobless and exceedingly shallow recovery — is not good.

    With this production tax credit extension, the wisdom of the investment is especially dubious. Wind companies and their lobbyists have, for the last year, been telling all who would listen that the expiration of the tax credit could spell doom for their industry. Obama repeats this claim regularly on the campaign trail.

    But what does that say about the industry? If you need a tax credit to compete, you are probably not that competitive.

    Moreover, the tax credit is not de minimis for either taxpayers or companies that are lobbying for it. It will cost the taxpayers more than 12 billion dollars inside the budget window. Worse, the credit is set at 2.2 cents per kilowatt hour. Just to compare, the national average for produced power is around 6 cents per kilowatt hour. That means that the wind industry gets an almost 40 percent subsidy for each unit it produces. How many companies would like that?

    You also have to remember that wind power enjoys a mandate in more than 30 states. That is, regardless of cost — or price to ratepayers — utilities must use wind or other renewables for specific amounts of power generation. So, the wind companies enjoy not only a tax credit, but a must-use mandate as well — regardless of cost.

    It would be one thing if we were running out of natural gas and confronted a real national requirement to use alternative energy. But it’s the reverse. The United States has more traditional energy resources than anywhere else on Earth, according to the Congressional Research Service. With the surge in production from the shale formations, a new Barclays report just concluded, natural gas will likely dominate wind in the marketplace for the foreseeable future.

    Even now, in places like Williston, N.D., companies are hiring everyone who can get there to work on rigs or in ancillary jobs. If the president is genuinely worried about jobs, maybe he should visit the Bakken in North Dakota, or the Marcellus in Pennsylvania or the Eagle Ford in Texas.

    Using wind power to generate electricity is not a new idea. The first windmills used to generate electricity went up in the 19th Century. The production tax credit is also not a new idea. It is now about 20 years old.

    Romney’s opposition to continuing the wind subsidy is absolutely correct. At some point, an industry has to either succeed or fail on its own merits.

    For wind companies, we are at that point now.

  • Energy subsidies exposed

    On the campaign trail, President Barack Obama calls for an end to energy subsidies for the fossil fuel industry. It turns out, however, that this industry receives relatively little subsidy, while the president’s favored forms of energy investment — wind and solar — receive much more. Additionally, coal, oil, and gas industries paid billions in taxes to the federal government, while electricity produced by solar and wind are a cost to taxpayers.

    Saturday’s Wall Street Journal piece The Energy Subsidy Tally: Wind and solar get the most taxpayer help for the least production gathers the facts: “The nearby chart shows the assistance that each form of energy for electricity production received in 2010. The natural gas and oil industry received $2.8 billion in total subsidies, not the $4 billion Mr. Obama claims on the campaign trail, and $654 million for electric power. The biggest winner was wind, with $5 billion. Between 2007 and 2010, total energy subsidies rose 108%, but solar’s subsidies increased six-fold and wind’s were up 10-fold.”

    When looking at subsidy received per unit of power produced, the Journal found that oil, gas, and coal received $0.64 per megawatt hour, hydropower $0.82, nuclear $3.14, wind $56.39, and solar $775.64. Commented the Journal: “So for every tax dollar that goes to coal, oil and natural gas, wind gets $88 and solar $1,212. After all the hype and dollars, in 2010 wind and solar combined for 2.3% of electric generation — 2.3% for wind and 0% and a rounding error for solar. Renewables contributed 10.3% overall, though 6.2% is hydro. Some ‘investment.’”

    In Kansas, there is disagreement among elected officials over wind power. Kansas Governor Sam Brownback and U.S. Senator Jerry Moran favor the production tax credit that makes wind feasible. Together they penned an op-ed that tortures logic to defend the tax credits. Each has spoken out on his own on the national stage. See Brownback on wind, again and Wind energy split in Kansas.

    Brownback has also supported, at both federal and state levels, renewable portfolio standards. These in effect mandate the production of wind power. Recently Kansas Policy Institute produced a report that details the harmful effect of this law: “Renewable energy is more expensive than conventional energy, so government mandates are necessary to ensure that more renewable energy is purchased. However, the unseen consequences of well-intended efforts to increase energy independence are rarely considered. The authors estimate that by 2020, the average household’s electricity bill will increase by $660, approximately 12,000 fewer jobs will have been created, and business investment in the state will be $191 million less than without the mandate.” See The Economic Impact of the Kansas Renewable Portfolio Standard.

    In Wichita, Mayor Carl Brewer is recruiting wind power companies to come to Wichita. If he is successful, you can be sure it will be at great cost to Kansas and Wichita taxpayers.

    Contrast with the position taken by U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo, a Republican who represents the Kansas fourth district, which includes the Wichita metropolitan area. Recently he wrote: “Supporters of Big Wind, like President Obama, defend these enormous, multi-decade subsidies by saying they are fighting for jobs, but the facts tell a different story. Can you say ‘stimulus’? The PTC’s logic is almost identical to the President’s failed stimulus spending of $750 billion — redistribute wealth from hard-working taxpayers to politically favored industries and then visit the site and tell the employees that ‘without me as your elected leader funneling taxpayer dollars to your company, you’d be out of work.’ I call this ‘photo-op economics.’ We know better. If the industry is viable, those jobs would likely be there even without the handout. Moreover, what about the jobs lost because everyone else’s taxes went up to pay for the subsidy and to pay for the high utility bills from wind-powered energy? There will be no ribbon-cuttings for those out-of-work families.”

    Pompeo has introduced legislation in Congress that would end tax credits for all forms of energy production. See H.R. 3308: Energy Freedom and Economic Prosperity Act.

    The Energy Subsidy Tally
    Wind and solar get the most taxpayer help for the least production.

    President Obama traveled to Iowa Tuesday and touted wind energy subsidies as the path to economic recovery. Then he attacked Mitt Romney as a tool of the oil and gas industry. “So my attitude is let’s stop giving taxpayer subsidies to oil companies that don’t need them, and let’s invest in clean energy that will put people back to work right here in Iowa,” he said. “That’s a choice in this election.”

    There certainly is a subsidy choice in the election, but the facts are a lot different than Mr. Obama portrays them. What he isn’t telling voters is how many tax dollars his Administration has already steered to wind and solar power, and how much more subsidized they are than other forms of electricity generation.

    Continue reading at the Wall Street Journal (subscription required)

  • Pompeo: Ending tax credits for energy doesn’t violate pledge

    In a news conference last week, U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo of Wichita and two others criticized President Barack Obama for misunderstanding of the meaning of a taxpayer protection pledge that Pompeo has signed.

    The pledge is the famous pledge advanced by Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, where signers pledge not to increase taxes. The “tax increase” the president refers to are various tax credits that benefit some forms of energy production, particularly wind and solar power. Norquist, along with Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, participated in the conference.

    Pompeo said the president “called out” those who signed the ATR pledge, specifically arguing that allowing the wind production tax credit (PTC) to expire would be a violation of the pledge. The ATR taxpayer protection pledge is to “One, oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rates for individuals and/or businesses; and two, oppose any net reduction or elimination of deductions and credits, unless matched dollar for dollar by further reducing tax rates.”

    Pompeo has introduced legislation in the House of Representatives that would end tax credits on all forms of energy production. By itself, that might be a violation of the pledge. The bill, however, specifies that the savings from the elimination of the spending on tax credits would be used to lower the corporate income tax rate. The use of the savings to reduce tax rates is in agreement with the second plank of the ATR pledge.

    Pompeo’s bill is H.R. 3308: Energy Freedom and Economic Prosperity Act. This bill is currently in committee. Sen. DeMint introduced an amendment to a Senate bill that would have accomplished the same, but the amendment received only 26 votes. Pompeo characterized this as an advance, as just a few years ago, he said such a bill or amendment would have received only a few votes. But this received the votes of a majority of Republican members of the Senate, including that of minority leader Mitch McConnell.

    In his remarks, DeMint said that while the president talks about eliminating corporate loopholes, he is hypocritical in his criticism of this legislation. If Congress could eliminate the tax credits — loopholes — for big oil and all energy and lower tax rates for all, it would be “a model for what we could do across our whole tax code.”

    Norquist emphasized the temporary nature of many loopholes or tax advantaged treatment added to the tax code. These are usually pitched as temporary measures, needed because the policy goal is good, the industry is in its infancy, and it needs temporary help. But as in the case of the wind PTC, these special advantages are often extended or made permanent.

    The issue of special tax treatment for the oil and gas industry arose. Norquist said that these tax considerations almost always fall into the categories of depreciation and expensing, which are available to all industries. He said if these are available to General Electric and Wal-Mart, they should also be available to all industries, including oil and gas.

    Not everyone, including all conservatives, agree that tax credits are a form of spending implemented through the tax code. Recently Kansas Governor Sam Brownback and U.S. Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas made the case for extending the production tax credit for the production of electrical power by wind. See Wind tax credits are government spending in disguise.

    In their op-ed, the Kansans argued the PTC is necessary to let the wind power industry “complete its transformation from being a high tech startup to becoming cost competitive in the energy marketplace.” As the PTC has been in effect is 1992, a period of 20 years, Norquist’s warning about the temporary nature of these programs is relevant.

    The proper way to view the PTC is as a government spending program, recognizing the true economic effect of tax credits. Only recently are Americans coming to realize this, and as a result, the term “tax expenditures” is coming into use to accurately characterize the mechanism of tax credits. Canceling this spending is what would let tax rates be reduced, according to Pompeo’s proposed legislation.

    Amazingly, Brownback and Moran do not realize this, at least if we take them at their written word when they write: “But the wind PTC is a winning solution because it allows companies to keep more of their own dollars in exchange for the production of energy. These are not cash handouts; they are reductions in taxes that help cover the cost of doing business.” (Emphasis added.)

  • Obama’s wasteful spending highlighted

    A new video advertisement created by Americans for Prosperity highlights wasteful government spending in the administration of President Barack Obama.

    The ad highlights billions of stimulus dollars that were given to foreign companies, mostly to subsidize their own green energy projects. AFP President Tim Phillips said “The Obama Administration continues to waste our tax dollars trying to pick winners and losers. This leads to overspending, no new job creation, and inevitably creates government cronyism. The President wasted some $530 million on Solyndra, but now we’re finding billions more given to ‘green energy’ companies overseas. The American people deserve to know the disturbing details of how their tax dollars are being wasted in pursuit of an ideological agenda.”

  • Kansas and Wichita quick takes: Friday March 30, 2012

    Lee Fang: wrong again. “At 9 a.m. on Tuesday, March 27, 2012, when most civic-minded Americans were focused on the historic Supreme Court oral arguments about Obamacare, Lee Fang, a left-wing blogger for the liberal Republic Report blog, was posting yet another diatribe attacking Charles and David Koch. As usual, Fang’s piece stretches, distorts, ignores and misstates the facts.” So starts Cleta Mitchell writing in the Daily Caller piece Who’s paying Lee Fang and other left-wing bloggers to attack the Kochs? Readers should not be surprised that Fang is wrong again — it’s become his calling card. The political left doesn’t care, as long as Fang keeps up his attack on Charles and David Koch. Concludes Mitchell: “Fang, of course, gets away with making completely false statements because he sprinkles the Koch name as a negative modifier for every other noun in his blog, and the apparent rule is that there is no concern for facts or truth when a liberal attacks the Kochs. After reading Fang’s drivel, glancing at the Republic Report and United Republic websites and reading about their mission of getting money out of politics and exposing truth and corruption and all of that, here’s my question: Where do these sites get their money? And why don’t they publicly disclose their donors? Fang’s post and these projects are simply part of the massively well-funded liberal attack machine that is designed to vilify the Kochs and intimidate prospective conservative donors into staying on the sidelines. Indeed, Fang is hoping to intimidate all donors to conservative causes and organizations. … Whenever conservatives demonstrate the will and the resources to fight liberal orthodoxy, liberals become hysterical. The left tolerates diversity except when it comes to diversity of opinion. These ongoing attacks on the Kochs are outrageous and won’t stop until liberals have cut off conservative groups’ funding and silenced conservative voices. That isn’t likely to happen.”

    Action on sustainability. Next week the Sedgwick County Commission takes up the issue of whether to participate in a HUD Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant. Coverage of the last discussion the commission had on this matter is at Sedgwick County considers a planning grant. So that citizens may be informed on this issue, Americans for Prosperity, Kansas is holding an informational event on Monday April 2, from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm at Spangles Restaurant, corner of Kellogg and Broadway. (Uh-oh. If the Kansas Jayhawks make it to the NCAA basketball title game, the television broadcast starts at 8:00 pm.) The meeting is described as follows: “On April 4, 2012 at 9:00 am on the 3rd floor of the Sedgwick County Courthouse, the Sedgwick County Commission will be holding a public hearing to consider approval of Sedgwick County’s participation as the fiscal agent on behalf of the Regional Economic Area Partnership (REAP) Consortium with an ‘in-kind’ commitment of $120,707 to implement a Regional Plan for Sustainable Communities Grant for South Central Kansas. Public comment will be invited. Learn about the Sustainable Communities Plan for South Central Kansas. Find out how you can get involved in this issue as a citizen. Consider testifying before the County Commission. Consider attending the Commission meeting as an interested citizen.” … For more information on this event contact John Todd at john@johntodd.net or 316-312-7335, or Susan Estes, AFP Field Director at sestes@afphq.org or 316-681-4415.

    Economic fascism. From Independent Institute: “On Friday, March 16, President Obama signed an executive order on national defense that amends and updates the executive branch’s sweeping powers over energy, transportation, human resources, and raw materials. ‘It shows plainly that private control of economic life in the United States, to the extent that it survives, exists solely at the president’s pleasure and sufferance,’ writes Independent Institute Senior Fellow Robert Higgs. ‘Whenever he chooses to put into effect a full-fledged operational fascist economy, controlled from his office, he has the statutory power to do so; all he has to do is to murmur the words ‘national defense’ and give the order.’ … Obama’s executive order sets no new precedent, Higgs notes. It’s just the latest in a string of edicts authorizing central economic planning that dates back at least to the Defense Production Act of 1950, a wartime statute that was never repealed after its passage during the Korean War. It’s also a classic example of how wars create new government powers that don’t go away after peace resumes.”

    Immigration. From LearnLiberty.org, a project of Institute for Humane Studies: “Is it true that immigration raises the U.S. unemployment rate? Is it true that immigration affects U.S. income distribution? The conventional wisdom says that both of these things are true. However, economist Antony Davies says there is evidence to suggest that they are not. Looking at the data, there is no relationship between the rate of immigration and the unemployment rate, nor is there a relationship between the rate of immigration and income inequality. Further, there is evidence to suggest that immigrants actually create more American jobs.”