Former GOP Officials Call For Carbon Tax To Replace Clean Power Plan

[DonViejo]

Source: Talking Points Memo



By CAITLIN MACNEAL Published FEBRUARY 8, 2017, 9:01 AM EDT

A group of former Republican officials will propose a plan to the White House to put in place a carbon tax in an effort to stave off climate change, the New York Times reported Wednesday morning.

James Baker III, who served as secretary of state under President George H.W. Bush, is leading the group, along with former Secretary of State George Schultz and former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr., per the Times.

Baker told the New York Times that he will meet with members of the Trump administration on Wednesday, including Vice President Mike Pence, Jared Kushner, and Ivanka Trump.

“It’s really important that we Republicans have a seat at the table when people start talking about climate change,” Baker told the Times. “I don’t accept the idea that it’s all man made,” he added, “but I do accept that the risks are sufficiently great that we need to have an insurance policy.”

Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/baker-republicans-carbon-tax

[geek tragedy]

1. Those three have no relevance in today's Republican party, not with Trump,

not with Paul Ryan, not with McConnell.

They're doing a public service by trying to offer up an alternative, but it's hard to see what they could possibly hope to accomplish other than further discrediting themselves in the eyes of the radical nutjobs occupying DC right now.

[hatrack]

2. Well lah-dee-dah - retired, set for life, and quasi-denying even now . . .

“It’s really important that we Republicans have a seat at the table when people start talking about climate change,” Baker told the Times. “I don’t accept the idea that it’s all man made,” he added, “but I do accept that the risks are sufficiently great that we need to have an insurance policy.”

Translation: "We want to be there to block it if the concept does come up (somehow) in policy discussions. Oh, and even now I'm going to lie about just how anthropogenic it is."

Oh, and this has absolutely ZERO chance of going anywhere.

But hey, nice photo-op!

[Bernardo de La Paz]

3. They'll make the good point w intelligent Republicans and others, even though not w tRump-Pence. nt

[hatrack]

4. What "intelligent Republicans" would that be? Ryan? McTurtle? McCormack? Lamar Smith?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

5. Not those ones, duh. They sold out. . nt

[hatrack]

18. They're also the ones running Congress, and the House Science Committee

So, they're the ones who matter for the next few years. Also, see below for the real purpose of the "proposal".

[geek tragedy]

8. there are no intelligent Republicans

even the smart ones are willfully stupid and refuse to understand the most basic of facts these days

[Bernardo de La Paz]

9. That kind of blindness about Republicans is part of how Democrats got blind-sided in 2016.

If you write off 50% of the electorate, you lose elections.

If you dehumanize 50% of the country, you play into the polarization that Republicans love you to.

Yes, there are many intelligent Republicons who are willfully suppressing their better instincts and playing for power, not for the true betterment of the country.

We might better say that there are few wise Republicans these days. Many do understand even complicated facts but are willing to ram stuff through on ideological reasons. That's smart but not wise.

Democrats who want to peel away votes from the Republicon Party will have to appeal to intelligent Republicans if they want to have any chance at all of winning.

[geek tragedy]

13. On the contrary, Democrats lost precisely because

they vastly overestimated the WWC's public morality and sense of decency. Turns out the vast majority don't have a big problem with cruelty or bigotry, so long as it comes from a member of their tribe and is directed oppressed minorities.

That doesn't make them inhuman. But it does show that when they have voted with us, it hasn't been because they share the same values.

So the lesson is that Trump voters don't care about the same things we care about, so in order to peel them away we need to stick to their rather narrow set of concerns when reaching out.

Climate change? Not their problem.
Racism? They deny its existence.
Immigration? Viewed as an enemy invasion to steal jobs.
Women's rights? Uteruses are public property to them.

The prime motivation for the other side is grievance and resentment, towards foreigners, towards minorities, towards immigrants, towards 'liberal elites'--and they view the government as a proxy for all of those groups.

They can be manipulated but not reasoned with. Only by appealing to their anger can one win their vote.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

17. You are arguing on an axis 90 degrees across me, not 0 or 180. Whoosh.

I didn't say your Three Letter Acronym group was wise or moral. I said that among them are intelligent people. Whoosh.

I explicitly made the point that many are not wise.

Democrats can help them wise up because they are intelligent.

But [font size = "+1"]a blanket statement that "there are no intelligent Republicans" is not reality and is not helpful. It is counterproductive.[/font]

Even intelligent Democrats can get conned and duped.

Ever happen to you?

It has happened to me.

[geek tragedy]

19. behaviorally, there are none. Even if they are smart, they choose to not understand.

the kind of stubbornness Nietzsche referred to as "a will to stupidity."

they are not susceptible to intelligent arguments. Stupid arguments can succeed though.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

20. Meditate on the difference between wise and intelligent. There is a huge difference.

tRump is very smart in the sense of clever in narrow ways. He is however the epitome of unwise and unenlightened.

Writing off 50% of the United States of America is not wise and is a loser strategy. Republicans don't do that. Democrats should not do as you advise either.

[geek tragedy]

21. 1) Intelligent means understanding. They choose to not understand.

Someone can be smart but not intelligent.

2) I am not writing 50% of the US off. I am stating that intelligent arguments won't work ~47% of them. Neither will appeals to basic norms of morality and human decency.

But that's not writing them off. Rather, it's an argument for resorting to more small-minded, emotionalistic arguments in order to peel some of them away. They don't think like us, they don't share our values, and they never will. So we need to adapt and win them over on their own terms.

We need to sell them something they'll buy.

You're never going to convince Joe Six Pack that anti-black racism or global warming are real problems or something he should care about. So you need to figure out what does matter to him and use that.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

22. "We need to sell them something they'll buy." NO

We need to sell them the progressive liberal package. By appealing to their intelligence. And by killing gerrymandering and voter suppression.

The Republicons do not sell Democratic-lite. They sold and sell solid conservatism by distorting facts, appealing to emotions, and twisting what Democrats say. That's not the Democratic way, nor is it our way to sell Republican-lite.

Case in point: You can sell Affordable Care but not ObamaCare. Whenever you poll for the features of the Affordable Care Act, people go for it. Including intelligent Republicans. But some of those same people can be duped simply by calling it ObamaCare because of the dishonest way the Republican Party has attacked Obama.

But writing off 50% of the US electorate is a loser strategy. The Republicans don't do it.

Sorry to have to say it, but writing "there are no intelligent Republicans" really is writing off 50% of the electorate, no matter how you try to twist it. It is saying that there is no hope to appeal to them. It's not productive to think like that.

Thinking like that is the Karl Rove strategy of extreme polarization. The true Democratic strategy is progressive and expansive and inclusive. Saying there are no intelligent Republicans is divisive, not inclusive. The Republicons talk "big tent" but act differently. Democrats succeed when they both talk and act big tent, as is their natural inclination.

We and maybe even you derided tRump for saying he wanted to be the President of "all Americans". Saying 50% of Americans (Republicans) are unintelligent/dumb/stupid is a tRumpian strategy. Democrats would be wise not to follow Republicans into that trap. Especially because we do not lie and cheat the way they do.

If you had actually looked up the research, you would see that Republicans and Democrats really do share the same fundamental values of Justice and Families, as verified scientifically. The problem is that Right Wing Authoritarians layer a whole bunch of other emotional stuff on top of that while Democrats are more likely to wisely value logic and facts.

[geek tragedy]

24. Small towns and rural areas are every bit as regressive and backwards as they were

40 years ago. They haven't progressed, at all. I grew up in a state where Trump got 63% of the vote in 2016. I escaped 25 years ago. You know who's still living there from my high school class? People who lacked the initiative or ambition to look for something beyond a life in a backwards, remote, 95% white society. Surprise, surprise, the politics are still the same, still looking for ways to regulate uteruses, and crack down on disfavored minorities.

And those are the areas that have disproportionate power in the electoral college, the US House, and virtually every state legislature.

And, increasingly they've coalesced into a coalition of the culturally backwards and small-minded. that's the Republican party of today. It reflects their inability to cope with modernity, their resentment towards urbanites, their suspicion of outsiders, their longing for American values and identity to sound in past eras of white supremacism.

You think the immigration debate is about jobs? Of course not. It's about the desire to preserve the USA as a society by, and for, white people.

Trump picked the lock with these people--they share his resentments, and that's all that matters to them.

So, to peel them off, you need to foster resentment amongst them towards Trump and the Republicans.

Attempts to appeal to the better angels of the GOP half of the country have failed for 50 years. Any progress that has been made has been made because of the superior economic power of our liberal, diverse cities. It hasn't been by consensus or improving the culture in the hinterlands.

Dumb, cheap emotionalism Trumps thoughtful, intelligent arguments every time.

Obama didn't win because he offered hope and a progressive vision. He won in 2008 because of resentment towards the failures of the GOP and he won in 2012 by stoking resentment against the GOP's nominee, an economic royalist, while offering bromides to gloss over the very real and painful cultural divisions in US society.

Indeed, it's a sad reality that despite Obama's many successes, the original argument for his candidacy--uniting the country via a dialogue of respect--has been completely obliterated and discredited as woefully naïve.

The future belongs to the cynical.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

23. Joe Six Pack

You're never going to convince Joe Six Pack that anti-black racism or global warming are real problems or something he should care about. So you need to figure out what does matter to him and use that.

Duh. Climate change and racism directly impact the things Joe Six Pack cares about: Jobs and the cost of living.

Climate change raises food prices, raises insurance costs, increases global security risks, and so much more. Not responding to climate change means that the Chinese and Germans are eating Joe Six Pack's tomorrow's lunch because they are creating the jobs of the future. Coal jobs are never coming back.

Racism makes for fewer jobs because the USA diminishes its intellectual and creative capital to create new jobs. Same thing with sexism.

Republicons succeed by playing to emotions and selling fear. They peel off Democrats with lies and voter suppression.

[geek tragedy]

25. You and I understand that. Joe Six Pack doesn't and won't.

The guy whose facebook photo is a pick up truck and who never opened a book after high school isn't going to bother with complex causalities. They'll just choose to believe those who tell them the world is a simple place and that they don't need to bother trying to think in order to understand it.

Asking people to think is guaranteed to fail. Telling them that anything they don't understand (e.g. climate change science, structural changes in the economy) is bullshit works like a charm.

Intelligent arguments never work. Only emotional ones do.

What arguments of ours work? Scare tactics on Medicare and Social Security. And reaping the backlash of Republican failures in office.

What arguments of theirs work? Minorities and immigrants are to blame for your troubles, and the government is on the side of minorities and immigrants.

Most voters behave like idiots, and their behavior is largely driven by tribal, cultural forces ingrained into them by their parents.

Republicans understand that. So do Blue Dog Democrats, or at least they did while they existed.

[AlexSFCA]

6. the problem

with republicans is that they only speak up when they leave office. It's easy to be right when there are no political reprecussions.

[geek tragedy]

7. "retirement balls" nt

[Ligyron]

10. You win the internet today!

[geek tragedy]

11. Not original--SNL used it to describe Colin Powell nt

[bucolic_frolic]

12. Baker always was a realist

but he's barking up the wrong tree here

No one's going to listen to him

[hatrack]

14. Oh, and the heart of the matter, not quoted above but from the article:

The proposal from the Republicans would also protect fossil fuel companies from lawsuits charging that they hurt the environment, the Times reported.

Ed. - emphasis added.

Just in case you were wondering about the "intelligent Republicans" and the "conservative environmentalists" and all that happy horseshit.

[hatrack]

15. From The NYT story:

EDIT

A carbon tax, which depends on rising prices of fossil fuels to reduce consumption, is supported in general by many Democrats, including Al Gore. Major oil companies, including Exxon Mobil, have come out in favor of the concept as well.

EDIT

The plan would also incorporate what are known as “border adjustments” to increase the costs for products from other countries that do not have a similar system in place, an idea intended to address the problem of other “free-rider” nations gaining a price advantage over carbon-taxed domestic goods. The proposal would also insulate fossil fuel companies against possible lawsuits over the damage their products have caused to the environment.

Attacks on the plan can be expected from many quarters, even among supporters of a carbon tax in theory. Supporters of the Clean Power Plan are likely to oppose its repeal. Democrats also tend to oppose limitations on the right to sue like those envisioned in the Baker proposal. And the idea of a dividend will no doubt anger those in the environmental movement who would prefer to see the money raised by the tax used to promote renewable energy and other new technologies to reduce emissions.

It is also unclear how the plan will be received by the Trump administration. Stephen K. Bannon, the senior counselor to the president, has shown little interest in appeasing establishment Republicans. Breitbart News, which Mr. Bannon led before joining the Trump White House staff, has been outspoken in denying the science of climate change.

EDIT

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/07/science/a-conservative-climate-solution-republican-group-calls-for-carbon-tax.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&_r=0

[haele]

16. A carbon tax allows companies with deep pockets (Exxon Mobile, Koch Industries)to keep polluting.

Rather than invest in cleaner alternatives or update each of their their plants and facilities, which would cost billions over the long term, and require more employees to manage these projects, they'd rather pay a few million in a "tax" up front every year and not have to change or evolve. They know what their expenditure will be with little risk to their bottom line.

A carbon tax can also reduces large corporate competition. Mid-sized or struggling energy companies that will have to pay a carbon tax will end up paying a greater percentage of their revenue to the Feds, and investors may look elsewhere because the return just isn't as great, leading to bankruptcy or outright failure.

Haele