Summer CE Week #6: “Obama’s Economic Fairytale”
August 24, 2008
By George Will
WASHINGTON — Barack Obama has made his economic thinking excruciatingly clear, so it also is clear that his running mate should be Rumpelstiltskin. He spun straw into gold, a skill an Obama administration will need in order to fulfill its fairy-tale promises.
Obama recently said he would “require that 10 percent of our energy comes from renewable sources by the end of my first term — more than double what we have now.” Note the verb “require” and the adjective “renewable.”
By 2012 he would “require” the economy’s huge energy sector to — here things become comic — supply half as much energy from renewable sources as already is being supplied by just one potentially renewable source. About 20 percent of America’s energy comes from nuclear energy produced using fuel rods, which, when spent, can be reprocessed into fresh fuel.
Obama is (this is part of liberalism’s catechism) leery of nuclear power. He also says — and might say so even if Nevada were not a swing state — he distrusts the safety of Nevada’s Yucca Mountain for storage of radioactive waste. Evidently he prefers today’s situation — nuclear waste stored at 126 inherently insecure above-ground sites in 39 states, within 75 miles of where more than 161 million Americans live.
But back to requiring this or that quota of energy from renewable sources. What will that involve? For conservatives, seeing is believing; for liberals, believing is seeing. Obama seems to believe that if a particular outcome is desirable, one can see how to require it. But how does that work? Details to follow, sometime after noon, Jan. 20, 2009.
Obama has also promised that “we will get 1 million 150-mile-per-gallon plug-in hybrids on our roads within six years.” What a tranquilizing verb “get” is. This senator, whose has never run so much as a Dairy Queen, is going to get a huge, complex industry to produce, and is going to get a million consumers to buy, these cars. How? Almost certainly by federal financial incentives for both — billions of dollars of tax subsidies for automakers, and billions more to bribe customers to buy these cars they otherwise would spurn.
Conservatives are sometimes justly accused of ascribing magic powers to money and markets: Increase the monetary demand for anything and the supply of it will expand. But it is liberals like Obama who think that any new technological marvel or other social delight can be summoned into existence by a sufficient appropriation. Once they thought “model cities” could be, too.
Where will the electricity for these million cars come from? Not nuclear power (see above). And not anywhere else, if Obama means this: “I will set a hard cap on all carbon emissions at a level that scientists say is necessary to curb global warming — an 80 percent reduction by 2050.”
No he won’t. Steven Hayward of the American Enterprise Institute notes that in 2050 there will be 420 million Americans — 40 million more households. So Obama’s cap would require reducing per capita carbon emissions to levels probably below even those “in colonial days when the only fuel we burned was wood.”
Regarding taxes, Obama says “we don’t want to return to marginal rates of 60 or 70 percent.” The top federal rate was 70 percent until the Reagan cuts of 1981. It has since ranged between 50 in 1982 and today’s 35. Obama promises that expiration of the Bush tax cuts will restore the 39.6 rate. He also favors a payroll tax of up to 4 percent on earnings above $250,000 (today, only the first $102,000 is taxed), most of which also are subject to the highest state income tax rates. When the top federal rate was set at 28 under Reagan, payroll taxes were not levied on income over $42,000, so the top effective rate of combined taxes was under 35. Obama’s policies would bring it to the mid-50s for many Americans, close to the 60 percent Obama considers excessive.
There never is a shortage of nonsensical political rhetoric, but really: Has there ever been solemn silliness comparable to today’s politicians tarting up their agendas as things designed for, and necessary to, “saving the planet,” and promising edicts to “require” entire industries to reorder themselves?
In 1996, Bob Dole, citing the Clinton campaign’s scabrous fundraising, exclaimed: “Where’s the outrage?” This year’s campaign, soggy with environmental messianism, deranged self-importance and delusional economics, the question is: Where is the derisive laughter?
This author has no idea what he’s talking about, if Rumpelstiltskin existed he would be locked in the Federal Reserve all day making gold to back our currency thus making the dollar more powerful than the Euro and the United States Supreme dynasty would last forever. Well the author kind of answered his own question though; Obama is going to pay for these subsidies by taxing the wealthy. It makes sense to me, why should my parents, and other members of the middle class society be paying a higher tax ratio than the wealthy. If you make yore money than me why would you not pay more taxes? This author is talking about this so called terrible Democratic economic policy, while the Bush administration has one of, if not the worst in American history. Bush increased the deficit by trillions of dollars. He started a war, and gave the wealthy and poor class a tax cuts, fighting a war that costs millions of dollars a day and giving tax breaks at the same time does not seem like a good economic policy to me but hey I guess I’m not a pro. Even if some of Obama’s policies are costly, at least he plans on increasing revenue, and his economic policy is bound to be better than Bush’s. It isn’t to hard to one up completely terrible. Obama 08’
First off I loved this article. It points out, fairly obviously, how ridiculous some of Obamas proposals are. Not to mention how many restrictions and control he is planning to place on companies and the American people. Thank you George Will for that bit of sanity at the beginning of my week.
What do you want Mr. Obama, more energy or not? or Inflated words to make things sound pretty (and inflated tires).
I hope that we do get new energy sources; you may even say that I have the audacity to hope for new energy sources but I don’t have the AUDACITY OF STUPIDITY to rely solely on new energy. Yea great reduce oil by 80% and see how well our country runs WITH NO ENERGY. Maybe he should wait on the whole “reducing carbon 80%” thing until we have a sufficient replacement.
I would really honestly like to know how and if he plans on accomplishing these goals. Most of which (that are mentioned in this article) are completely absurd. I really wish you [Mr. Obama] and Mr. Rumpelstiltskin good luck on finding that new energy source. I would suggest looking into Mr. Fusion, that would solve our waste problem too. Of course you would need plutonium to power the flux capacitor with 1.21 gigawatts of energy. You don’t like nuclear energy so never mind.
I have to say, yes some of Obama’s goals are a little bit out there. It’s hard to believe that in four years, one man is going to be able to change our energy source to 10% renewable energy. Also, Obama capping the carbon emissions so that by 2050, we’ll be down 80%, that’s a lot of cut backs. “So Obama’s cap would require reducing per capita carbon emissions to levels probably below even those ‘in colonial days when the only fuel we burned was wood.” That’s a serious drop. Especially, since we still have not found the “holy grail” of renewable energy sources yet. It’s also hard to believe that Obama is going to be able to put one million hybrid vehicles on the road. Hybrids are not cheap cars, and most people cannot just afford to run out and buy a $20,000 car.
As for his tax solution, I support it. As Sam said, if you’re making more money, you should be paying more. Some say that we should keep the rich wealthy so that they spend more, but I’m sure that paying more taxes isn’t going to take a huge cut out of their yearly earnings so that they can’t afford to buy another BMW and send their two kids to private school. Either way, I’m interested in seeing how Obama plans to fulfill the promises he’s making if he wins presidency.
Yes- this is how I feel about Obama! Finally an articale has cleary voiced that! He has all these firm goals about how he will be leading the nation, making a Utopia, and of course reducing, reusing, and recycling. When I was watching a tv interview with Sarah Palin she worded it fabulously- that YES, we need to have high goals or using renewable energy, depend wayyyyyy less on foreign oil, use natural sources, but that is going to take time. And I will admit I want this to happen immedietly. And my inner tree hugger is saying “Finally!” let’s get this taken care of now. But believe it or not, my eco-loving peers, there are more important things in the world right now. If we are to entirely focus on being a green nation, we’d be even more of a mess in so many areas. We need to have our attention on all these issues. And we need to be PRACTICAL. Something Obama does not understand.
Also, in this article someone is finally admitting he has absolutely no experience! Yeah, McCain is old, so what? Obama is way too young and inexperienced. He should take a ten year learning time and go work on some foreign policies (which he has no history at all at) and then come back and try again later.
In Response to Megan:
I am pleased to see that you are concurring with the flaws of Obama’s liberalism. His thoughts can be so ridiculous yet people only see that it sounds good and really don’t investigate. But where I disagree is with the taxing issue. It is not the answer. Wealthy people spend a lot of money. They give a lot to businesses; tax them and they have less money to spend and more hoops to jump through. Initially it would seem to boost the economy, but then it would eventually fail because government will crave more and the wealthy not wanting to lose money will probably turn the tables on the little guy because wealthy people usually have the power.
I really want to see how Obama could possibly pull off all of these promises.
“I will set a hard cap on all carbon emissions at a level that scientists say is necessary to curb global warming — an 80 percent reduction by 2050.” Seriously is that really necessary? We definitely need to find some alternative power sources, but i highly doubt that we can reduce the carbon emissions by that much that fast. The only way we could do this would be to halt our society.
Free new cars for everyone!!! I mean seriously… nobody is going to buy those crappy cars that havent already. Its a good plan… but stupid. Where would all that energy come from? Wind? what happens on a still day? whole power grids would go out. Solar? clouds. Not nuclear power… thats been made clear. It seems like the best option is being completely ignored. I know it might sound horrific, but i think we might need to look at what france is doing in this case. Nuclear power is the power of the future.. but we are too scared to use it for some reason?
Maybe we should think before we make promises next time?
In response to ryan:
I agree with you. “…an 80 percent reduction by 2050.” There is no way that it is even remotely possible that we can reduce by that much that quickly. We would fail as an economy. It seems like a bit much to be asking for that. I would assume that he is assuming that we will find the best oil alternative that has zero carbon emissions.. and its going to be affordable by everyone! In your dreams. So much effort has been put into these new technologies. No one will sell an alternative to oil for that cheap.