15% Tax increase on All US citizens on the way. What ? You didn't hear about it ?

[cbelt3]

It took the geeks at CNET to break this story

Go ahead, suckers. Keep arguing about the Healthcare red herring. This plan is going to kill the economy all over again, and NOBODY is talking about it !

- - - - - - - -

"The Obama administration has privately concluded that a cap and trade law would cost American taxpayers up to $200 billion a year, the equivalent of hiking personal income taxes by about 15 percent.

A previously unreleased analysis prepared by the U.S. Department of Treasury says the total in new taxes would be between $100 billion to $200 billion a year. At the upper end of the administration's estimate, the cost per American household would be an extra $1,761 a year.

A second memorandum, which was prepared for Obama's transition team after the November election, says this about climate change policies: "Economic costs will likely be on the order of 1 percent of GDP, making them equal in scale to all existing environmental regulation." "

[mattkime]

cap and trade is a good thing.

>>This plan is going to kill the economy all over again, and NOBODY is talking about it !

not sure if this is the best version of it but i'm not going to jump toward fear mongering.

which is very much out of fashion

[cbelt3]

Fear mongering ? Our economy is in tatters, and we're going to drop in a 15% tax overall which will primarily hit manufacturing and energy production and use.

I can't think of a better way to put us into full-on Depression.

And please, the fear mongering takes place on both sides of the "Global Warming" debate. I'm not getting into that. I am ONLY discussing the impact that this new tax will have on our economy.

[Doc]

Cap and trade is the wrong approach anyway.

There's very little evidence that it actually works to reduce pollution and even advocates admit that it's not a solution for the long term.

[mattkime]

>>Fear mongering ? Our economy is in tatters, and we're going to drop in a 15% tax overall which will primarily hit manufacturing and energy production and use.

Yup, fear mongering.

[freeradical]

Meanwhile, the Chinese finish building a new coal fired power plant with no emissions control every - how often is it???

[Mac1337]

There are people who are willing to jump off a cliff for the "environment". Earth is the new church for them so 15% is not going to sway them. They just have to beaten back in the political arena.

[OWC Jamie]

Add a energy increase on top of what cap and trade will do to those same energy prices and I couldn't possibly keep my store open with the economy the way it is.

If Ma bumps up it's taxes again ( 6.25% from 5% last August wasn't enough) by taxing labor on top of goods kiss a lot of small business goodbye around here.
Big box stores like WalMart and Target will stay alive by virtue of being the last bastion of retail.

[NeverMind]

Doc wrote:

There's very little evidence that it actually works to reduce pollution and even advocates admit that it's not a solution for the long term.

That's not true.

[August West]

I tried to get through the article because I felt the posted excerpt felt a bit unclear. To me the article also remained unclear.

It seems to me, and I might be wrong, that this supposed "tax" is a description of the passed on cost. While this might be damaging to manufacturers, it is not inherently a cost burdening every taxpayer. If it gives people the incentive to not spend money on say, and this is an ill informed example, plastic grocery bags I think that could be interpreted fairly by some as a positive step.