At a time when the national appetite for cap-and-tax legislation gas gone gastric, Proposition 23, offering an antidote to the previously enacted economic poison pill called AB 32, was rejected by 62 percent of California voters, says Larry Bell, a professor at the University of Houston.
As it now stands, AB 32, California’s climate change law, mandates a 30 percent cut in carbon emissions from cars, trucks, utilities and other businesses by 2020. It is to be accomplished with a web of new taxes and regulations scheduled to take effect in 2012.
Proposition 23 would have suspended AB 32 until such time that the state unemployment rate declined to 5.5 percent or less for four consecutive quarters.
A 2009 study estimated that implementation costs of AB 32 “could easily exceed $100 billion” and that the program would raise the cost of living by $7,857 per household annually by 2020.
The regulatory environment has turned dreams of good lives into nightmares for many who are leaving in hordes, taking much of the state’s tax base with them, says Bell.
About 2.14 million people fled to other states between 2005 and 2007, while only 1.44 million moved in.
Meanwhile, the state’s debt rises at a rate of about $25 million per day. Some 2.3 million Californians (12.5 percent) are without employment, and factory jobs plummeted from 1.87 million to 1.23 million (34 percent of the industrial base) since 2001.
California, with 12 percent of the U.S. population, has nearly one-third of the nation’s welfare recipients and 15.3 percent of all Californians live in poverty.
Its budget gap for 2009 to 2010 ($45 billion) equaled 53 percent of total state spending, despite having the nation’s highest state sales tax and third-highest income tax.
Source: Larry Bell, “California Dreaming: Missing America’s Wake-Up Call,” Forbes, November 10, 2010.
For full text:
http://www.forbes.com/2010/11/10/california-texas-climate-change-law-opinions-contributors-larry-bell.html
All the screaming about big money interests backing the bill certainly becomes laughable when you consider the funding that helped defeat prop 23…a very reasonable bill to delay implementation until Californians were working again. The former Goldman Sachs $33 billion hedge fund manager out of SF was the biggest contributer with Bill Gates and the National Wildlife Federation coming in second and third. Together they outspent the two oil companies by three to one.
If that isn’t bad enough this information, also from the article, illustrates that in addition to opportunistic greed and self-interest, corruption takes the leading edge in the green movement:
All businesses are in business to make a profit. Most businesses offer a product that people willingly buy. They succeed by competing in the market where ordinary human being, the consumers, decide the worth and worthiness of the product.
Green entrepreneur’s and investors of this ilk lie about the need for the product or service, lie about the benefits of said product and services, and manipulate and collude with government to further their goals. On top of that they are heavily subsidized by those who will be forced to use their products and services.
Oil companies have delivered inexpensive energy for decades. The subsidies they receive are greatly offset by the incredible revenue raised from gas taxes collected on their product. They employ hundreds of thousands of people and they have worked and cooperated to make their products cleaner and safer to use as have the car companies and others who use oil as an energy source. Yet they have been demonized.
I don’t know how anyone can support the elements of the green movement that force products ansd services through the power of government. The phrase “making an honest buck” is turned completely on it’s head. Also, a group that completely ignores the financial needs of human beings in their quest for dominance is so incredibly callous and unscrupulous it’s hard to fathom why they have any support at all. I’m beginning to feel like I live in the old Soviet Union.