If You Put It That Way

60 percent of respondents favor "cap and trade" as long as the question makes no mention of the likely economic impact.

16. Under a proposal called "cap and trade," the federal government would limit the amount of greenhouse gases that companies could produce in their factories or power plants. If companies exceeded those limits, they would either pay a fine or pay money to other companies that produced smaller amounts of greenhouse gases. Would you favor or oppose this proposal?

60% favor this, 37% oppose, and I say, what's not to like - polluters pay a fine, seems logical, yes?

I am not sure what a "fair and balanced" question ought to look like - would "a jobs killing penalty intended as a fig leaf to advance a too-little, too-late, environmental policy" really be better?  Maybe not.  Am I expecting the pollsters to provide an essay on the simplicity of the revenue neutral carbon tax relative to the administratively complex, government-payroll expanding cap-and-trade (That's not a bug, that's a feature!)?  No. 

Cap and trade will raise the cost of doing business in this country and send jobs abroad and it is entirely likely that the baby step represented by Waxman-Markey is far too little to have a useful impact on the climate.  But 60% favor it, if you ask them politely.

Comments

[Gabriel Sutherland]

A really nicely worded question about cap and trade would get the same answer from anti-nuclear not for profits and nuclear energy companies - YES, may I have another.

[Thomas Collins]

How about: "Would you support an unnecessary environmental program substantially certain to lower your standard of living while increasing the standard of living of well connected lawyers and lobbyists."

[Pofarmer]

This is the same thinking and wording that got prop C passed in MO. Prop C says Mo must be 20% renewable energy by 2015, but Utilities can't raise rates to comply. Of course, Hydro doesn't apply. It's like legislating that unicorns are real.

[Carl Pham]

Well you could begin by pointing out that the "if" in that question is total false advertising. The entire point of cap 'n' trade (or any GHG legislation) is to reduce the total GHG emissions of industry.

The only way for that to happen is if it is impossible for every company to buy enough emissions credits. There cannot logically be enough credits to go around, because, of course, that's the point, to force reductions by making it unbelievably expensive to continue to burn as much coal, oil or natural gas as you have been doing.

So you could reword it thus:

16. Under a proposal called "cap and trade," the federal government would limit the amount of greenhouse gases that companies could produce in their factories or power plant. When companies exceed those limits, they would generally pay a fine, or in a few cases pay money to other companies that produced smaller amounts of greenhouse gases to buy "pollution credits."

In order to substantially reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions (the primary goal of this legislation), the limits must be set substantially lower than the average amount of greenhouse gases presently emitted by American factories and power plants. Hence most companies will end up paying fines to the government, buying expensive and scarce pollution credis, or both. These costs will, of course, be reflected in higher prices for their products, and result in a net transfer of money from consumers to the government and businesses with pollution credits to sell.

Over time, it is hoped that the additional tax on greenhouse gas emissions will drive technological innovation that will allow companies to produce as much as they do now but with lower greenhouse gas emissions. Because everyone knows the way you get companies to do innovative R&D is to tax away their capital so they stop wasting it.

Furthermore, when the technological improvements do materialize, the government promises very very sincerely to simply accept the reduced flow of tax income and not try to keep the spigot open by messing with the rate, lowering the limits arbitrarily, or otherwise screwing with things. You can trust them on that, really.

This is all a good idea, right? Now on question 17, we'd like to get your opinion about whether the government should provide a Free Lunch to only living Americans, or whether Free Lunches should be given retroactively to all Americans, even those who through lack of what the mainstream calls "vital signs" have stereotypically been considered "dead."

[bgates]

Carl, one change:

When companies exceed those limits, they would generally pay a fine, or in a few cases pay money to other companies that produced smaller amounts of greenhouse gases to buy "pollution credits."

These "pollution credits" would be given to companies run by friends of government officials, and companies in which government officials had invested a lot of money, so that government officials and their friends would be able to make a lot more money.

[Ranger]

Kind of like asking people if they think government should support building "affordable housing" for people who live in areas with high concentrations of sub-standard housing.

Of course we all know what "affordable housing" means in Chicago. Huge sums of government money given to corrupt, politically connected contractors who build sub-standard units (such as Tony Rezko) and pocket a big chunk of the government cash. Then they either simply give the property to the contractors once it is done, or the government keeps the property, and gives away huge sums of money to corrupt, politically connected people (such as Valarie Jerrett) to manage it. These people pocket the money, let the building fall to pieces, and then dump the property back on the government, who decides the buildings are too decrepid to repair, tears them down, and then looks for a contractor to build new, replacement "affordable housing" units.

A self perpetuating pocket lining machine that transfers money from the taxpayer to the friends of local politicians.

"Green energy" is going to be the national verson of "affordable housing."

[Ranger]

BTW, what kind of bizaro world are we living in now. Politico is running this story today:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28764.html>What if George W. Bush had done that?

A four-hour stop in New Orleans, on his way to a $3 million fundraiser.

Snubbing the Dalai Lama.

Signing off on a secret deal with drug makers.

Freezing out a TV network.

Doing more fundraisers than the last president. More golf, too.

President Barack Obama has done all of those things — and more.

What’s remarkable is what hasn’t happened. These episodes haven’t become metaphors for Obama’s personal and political character — or consuming controversies that sidetracked the rest of his agenda.

Doesn't look like the War on Fox is having the intended results.

[Frau Schnitzel]

“There may well be almost an unconscious effort on the part of the media to give Obama a bit more slack because he is more likable, because he is the first African-American president. That plays into it,” said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a political analyst at the University of Southern California.
Didn't Geraldine Ferraro get real grief for saying similar thoughts during the primaries?

[bgates]

because he is more likable

Talk about burying the lede. Those political science geniuses at USC have discovered an objective likability scale.

[clarice]

No, Ranger,it doesn't if the objective was to hide the ball.And if it was to mollify the left--also not so good. After all Politico's on that side of the fence.

[clarice]

Of course she did, Frau.

[unɹ puɐ ʇıɥ]

Frau, that's the kind of evil, racist sentiment that gets you kicked off of Monday Night Football and dropped in the bid to become a part-owner in an NFL team.

As in...

“There may well be almost an unconscious effort on the part of the media to give Obama Donovan McNabb a bit more slack because he is more likable, because he is the first a prominent African-American president quarterback. That plays into it,” said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe Rush Limbaugh.

[Ann]

That is delicious, Hit. Send it to RUSH.

[narciso]

How do you do the upside down thing am ajig

[Porchlight]

That's exactly what I thought when I read that quote, hit. Rush was right! (And I thought he was right at the time, too.)

[daddy]

Pull back on the stick hard till you're hanging in the straps and all you're seeing out of the canopy is dirt:)

[clarice]

Ann's right, Hit...
Anyway, it's time we put our heads together and got Hit a show of his own.

[unɹ puɐ ʇıɥ]

http://www.en.fliptext.net/>ʇǝu˙ʇxǝʇdılɟ˙uǝ//:dʇʇɥ

[clarice]

Actually, Taranto just beat Hit to the draw on that one--but the man needs and deserves his own show..

[Extraneus]

Does he have the looks for radio, Clarice?

[Extraneus]

Does he have the looks for radio, Clarice?

[clarice]

Absolutely..LOL Even the looks for tv.

[bad]

Hit has a face for anything. How else do you suppose he takes advantage of ladies he meets on the internet?

Remember, I had no yaught or Lear after he left....

[daddy]

Hit,

Is that a LUN or a LAN (Link Under Name or Link Above Name? Y'am confused.

[daddy]

Screw radio,

Hit is a famous beer drinker, knows how to spend hours and hours fartin' around on a laptop, and I know for a fact he's been in an airplane and paid no attention whatever to ATC radio calls, nor had any idea where the heck he's flying over.

NorthWest Airlines could use a guy like Hit.

[unɹ puɐ ʇıɥ]

Well, hellooooo ladies. ::wink::

Daddy, I've actually flown a plane before even.

Ok, I was like 7 and my mom's uncle took us up and let us have the controls for like 2 minutes.

But I didn't overshoot the airport by 150 miles.

[Northwest Airlines]

You're hired!

[Northwest Airlines]

You're hired!

[caro]

“There may well be almost an unconscious effort on the part of the media to give Obama a bit more slack because he is more likable, because he is the first African-American president.

Isn't this the soft bigotry of low expectations?