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Obama Wants To Fund Clean Energy Research With Oil & Gas Funds
An anonymous reader writes "The Obama Administration has put forth a proposal to collect $2 billion over the next 10 years from revenues generated by oil and gas development to fund scientific research into clean energy technologies. The administration hopes the research would help 'protect American families from spikes in gas prices and allow us to run our cars and trucks on electricity or homegrown fuels.' In a speech at Argonne National Laboratory, Obama said the private sector couldn't afford such research, which puts the onus on government to keep it going. Of course, it'll still be difficult to get everyone on board: 'The notion of funding alternative energy research with fossil fuel revenues has been endorsed in different forms by Republican politicians, including Alaskan senator Lisa Murkowsi. But the president still faces an uphill battle passing any major energy law, given how politicized programs to promote clean energy have become in the wake of high-profile failures of government-backed companies.'"
The notion of funding alternative energy research with fossil fuel revenues has been endorsed in different forms by Republican politicians
Until the president proposes it, then it automatically becomes "socialism" and they'll oppose it.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Will he stop the subsidizing of the oil companies?
No? Well that seems like a few wasted steps in there to turn our money into funds for clean energy...
I still can't believe you morons elected him. Twice.
So-called 'green' energy (which happens to not be very environmentally friendly once production and disposal is included) isn't ready for prime time and trying to force an evolution in the technology by blindly throwing money at it is a case study in insanity. All you are going to do is hurt people by making every day living more expensive for little to no gain. It will happen organically on its own, it doesn't need government intervention.
It is unfortunate that government is apt to pursue political solutions rather than viable practical solutions. That's the world we live in.
The premise here is that gas and oil companies should be punished, and their gains should be confiscated and given to other companies with better intentions. The real world truth is that there are no oil or gas companies anymore, and there hasn't been for the last fifteen years, at least.
No, what used to be oil companies have all become energy companies. They all invest heavily in alternative energy technologies, because they have the most to lose if anything does become viable and threatens their current revenue generators. I've spoken with several former CEO's of these former oil companies, and they were, to a person, fixated on the end of oil and the emergence of alternative energy sources. I left these conversations wondering why these CEO's were more pro-alternative than any environmentalist I had ever met.
The government confiscation of funds from these companies, and the eventual redistribution to campaign donors fronting "new" energy companies will only slow down the discovery of practical and sustainable alternative energy sources.
-- Len
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1> On what basis does he conclude that private enterprises cannot invest that much? The first question I have is cannot or will not? That said, I've seen them invest plenty over the years to bring down the price of solar and bring wind production to the world. They problem is that the ROI for the past 20 years has not been as high as hoped. Who says the ROI on deficit spending will be any better?
2> Until we eliminate our deficit, does it make sense to spend money on non-essential high risks?
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That said, if we are going to subsidize an industry, I'd rather see it go into research than something like Ethanol production. The question is, how, in today's world, or tomorrow's world, can you guarantee this can help America? What's the detailed plan for turning this research into an American benefit? I understood how this worked 50 years ago. I'm not sure I understand how it is supposed to work today with global companies, and China and Europe investing a lot in this.
If they can figure out how to spend the money without throwing it down the toilet, then this is a great idea.
Unless you count the oil depletion allowance as a "subsidy".
But by that definition, then every industry gets a "subsidy" in terms of depreciation and other tax breaks.
But how big is it? About $2.4B annually total for all oil companies between 2011 and 2012.
Obama spent more than that on failed alternative energy speculation in the same time period.
It's probably a bit much for the private sector to fund projects to support political strategy with planning horizons measured in decades.
With private business, particularly in the US (and increasingy in Europe) where their management tend to be infested with barely educated cookie-cutter MBA pindicks who are incapable of planning beyond the next reporting season, you just can't expect much.
Thus, if I actually cared about the West, and the sort of world we want to see for our grandkids, I would like to see a partnership of business and industry, rather than letting business to their own devices. Because you know those slimy dicks would have us enslaved by the Chinese and the Arabs if they thought they could make next quarter's sales targets.
1) bump federal tax on gas/diesel by .20 this year. .10 to go to R&D (which should also be used for oil/gas, coal, and nukes), and .1 to go to fed/state DOTs. The .1 from diesel (which is mostly interstate trucking) goes to the feds, while the .1 increase from gas goes to the state's DOT. Then next year, increase it .1 again, but all of that goes to the DOTs. Do that for the next 4 years.
2) put some of the federal DOT money into pushing CNG/LNG/electrical charging stations along the federal highways.
3) allow keystone to go through.
4) increase oil/NG drilling offshore and in various federal lands, but with an eye towards keeping the environment clean.
5) put together a COTs type fund for thorium nuclear power along with some money for the possible fusion reactor that livermore has.
6) put together a tax incentive to get coal=>methane going. That is relatively clean energy and interestingly, produces a number of elements that we need esp. U and Th.
The word is COMPROMISE.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
These days, and this is only an unsubstantiated instinct not anything backed by fact, it seems like "clean energy" is more akin to "perpetual motion" than science. That goes for "clean" coal as well, which is truly in unicorn territory.
I'd like to see a detailed offering of what he intends to fund, and what concessions he's willing to make on "actual energy" solutions in the interim, rather than allow a blank check to be written for what amounts to venture capital measures.
Where the money comes from and what you spend it on are orthogonal decisions, and each should be made on its own merits. They are logically orthogonal decisions because once you have 2 billion dollars, you can decide to spend it on whatever makes the most sense.
Generally speaking, funding alternative energy is absolutely necessary, but the devil is in the details. Government money spent right could achieve much more benefit than private sector spending, or it might be wasted, depending on exactly how it is allocated.
As to taking revenue from oil or gas, it's not even clear from the article whether the revenue will represent a new kind of tax, or existing revenue will be used. In a new tax, it's not clear what the benefits of this would be.
By the sounds of things, idea generation. In reality, they're there to be appeal to different cultures. There isn't that large of a policy gap, that's for sure, but the rhetoric is radically different.
"Clean coal" is about as much an actual real thing as an "honest politician".
I thought they had figured out how to do it (the coal, that is, not the politician). See a story from a few weeks back: New Process Takes Energy From Coal Without Burning It
Will the cash be going to this go around?
By the sounds of things, idea generation.
Yeah, last week someone described Ryan's "new" budget as Ayn Rand fan fiction.
In reality, they're there to be appeal to different cultures. There isn't that large of a policy gap, that's for sure, but the rhetoric is radically different.
In reality, they're there to help the rich get richer. Their appeal to "different cultures" is just a matter of exploiting anyone whose knees they can make jerk, so that they'll vote against their own best interests.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Let's see some Butanol.
Let's see the money the US government spent on biodiesel research at Sandia NREL in the 1980s bear some fruit.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Can somebody tell me why they can't put a refinery up in Canada, or even in ND where there is lots of oil. Running a pipeline all the way across the country just so this tar sand oil can be put through refineries that are going to be shut down by the storms in the gulf which are getting bigger due to climate change seems silly.
How very... trollish of you.
Just this week, Biden, told us that just slapping women is not that bad of a thing. Lets add to that all the personal attacks against Palin and her kids and then reexamine your statement about which party hates women.
Reading through the present discussion feels very strange from a European viewpoint. Old energies have to be taxed and money has to be transferred to new sustainable technologies and research. That's what we do in Europe (even though the French are a little slow on following). We have extra taxes on gasoline to help people deciding for more fuel efficient cars and houses. One result of this is, that we use half the amount of oil/gas than the average US citizen.
BTW: The US solar companies went bankrupt, because they have not such stable conditions like we had in the past in Europe for wind power (and also for solar plants). So if you don't want to loose this race to Europe or even more the Chinese, then the government has to invest more than just $20 billion dollars.
Can't argue that government subsidies of industry have a long history of being more about cronyism than anything else, so how about we "subsidize" green energy development in a completely even-handed manner governed by the free market? By phasing out the massive subsidies and environmental protection exemptions we're handing out to fossil fuel suppliers on an ongoing basis.
As fuel prices begin to rise *every* green energy project will start to look more attractive to investors, and we can stimulate dramatic investment in the field while simultaneously reducing government expenditure. If we're worried about the chilling effect that would have on the poor and the broader economy we can repurpose those funds in terms of, say, a refundable tax credit so that most people and businesses will see no net change, but will have greater incentive to pursue energy efficiency which would provide a net increase in available funds versus the status quo.
If we're worried about undermining domestic oil production versus foreign then fuel tariffs are the obvious answer. There may be some political fallout from that, but so long as they're tied to offset the reduction in subsidies I suspect most other governments actually wouldn't have a real problem with them, though they'd no doubt make some noise to gain political capital. Heck, earmark the tariff revenue for the tax refund coffers and everyone will see an immediate benefit except the oil companies. If we're willing to spend a bit of political capital and risk setting off a trade war we could even set the tariffs high enough to offset the loss in subsidies so that the domestic oil companies benefit as well.
Seems like it could be a big win all around. Am I missing something?
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
The private sector can't afford to pour billions of dollars into the pockets of Democrat campaign donors.
Uhh... by measuring it?
"You used n tons of fuel this year, which contained i zazzofrazzoMoles of carbon. Your private forest, over here, has also been measured to contain i zazzofrazzoMoles of carbon in new growth since last year. Congratulations, you're in compliance and won't be fined as a polluter, much less have your charter revoked and your board charged under RICO as a repeat polluter. I only wish more of my audits were of upstanding companies like yours. So.. if you won't mind me asking, just curious.. what did it cost you to plant that forest?"
"Oh really, $k? I know a guy named AK Marc who is interested in that figure."
"But the president still faces an uphill battle passing any major energy law, given how politicized programs to promote clean energy have become in the wake of high-profile failures of government-backed companies that were owned and run by Obama's friends and campaign donors."
Fixed it.
Do you have ESP?
We’ve learned that certain behaviors on the part of an abuser portend much more danger than other behaviors. For example, if an abuser has attempted to strangle his victim, if he has threatened to shoot her, if he has sexually assaulted her, and there’s a number of other signs, about eight others. These are tell-tale signs to say this isn’t your garden-variety slap across the face, which is totally unacceptable in and of itself.
As for which party hates women... Ooh ooh can I take a guess? Is it the one that The one that says women can't control their own bodies and are not entitled to birth control as part of their health insurance?
the two '3+' comments right now are both against this idea... one saying "Solendra" and the other saying "Free market, etc", which are the talking points that the conservative have been using because "big oil(which is often not the oil companies themselves, but companies which use oil byproducts, such as lubricants, etc)", (which also have been proven to often be coming from directly from the mouths of the Koch brothers, and other entrenched interests like that), shows how good their astroturf is. Gods... I wish people's comments like "by Jah-Wren Ryel (80510) on Saturday March 16, @06:43PM (#43193435)" would actually get more upvotes... because they link GOA reports and FACTS *gasp*
What about the 500million $ the obama administration put in to that one solar panel maker that end up bankrupting little over a year later?
70% of America's electricity comes from fossil sources, so switching cars to electric wouldn't help much. Even worse, it would increase the electricity demand and the only thing that can quickly satisfy a rapid increase in demand is fossil.
So we're the Saudi Arabia of natural gas and coal, and have vast amounts of oil to last for decades at minimum. Why does he want to spend our money on this?
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
ZONG OMG I shouldn't have to pay for my own condoms!!!! Anyone who says otherwise is an evil woman hater!!1!
The Federal government doesn't have a good track record of producing commercially viable systems. At best they can SOMETIMEs produce worthwhile components which eventually become commercially viable. Often after spending insane amounts of money and having dozens of flops. The best thing the feds could do to encourage green energy is fix the patent system so that innovators don't have to worry about being squashed by big companies & patent trolls. As well as directing government agencies to buy green energy systems (cars, backup generators, etc) & encouraging residential & business use of green energy systems. Let the industry build the systems, at most maybe put a small amount of funds (a couple hundred million) per year into pure research in the areas in question (solar cells, storage systems, etc) and patent the resulting findings for use by anyone who wants to use them.
...between funding research and funding companies.
Fund research at national laboratories and universities and then license the technologies (for a reasonable but small fee) to companies to commercialize.
That is fundamentally different from funding (or technically guaranteeing loans) particular companies. Especially since their research will probably be patented and proprietary.
Just sayin'.
I think it's the one where the majority of candidates agree with Todd Akin's comments about rape being legitimate. How can you possibly justify saying that it's okay to rape?
like biofuels (inefficient solar collectors that don't scale without ecologically disastrous consequences), ethanol (breakeven or negative net energy) are obvious losers. This is something that needs science oversight, not political oversight. Political oversight gets you ethanol, or whatever idiocy gets you elected next term. You need people who can handle math and physics for this one, not senators.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Because they will profit from it or they will not. The Government is in debt the money tree is dead.
the problem with the republican party is that there isn't really "a" republican party... there are the sheep candidates that follow whatever the latest news is on CNN (Romney) and there are the libertarians like Ron Paul that would have had a run for the presidency if the republican primary vote was actually fair (as in whole electorates in favor of paul not being excluded).
obama won on the idiot vote (everyone on welfare wants more welfare so they will always vote for the guy promising more welfare).
Let's not miss an important aspect of this: Obama just proposed ACTUAL POLICY SPECIFICS. This is really turning over a new leaf for him.
I see what you did there - you left out the "federally-mandated" and "employer-subsidized" parts to make your argument appear valid.
From your own link:
And it's Republicans that think women CAN control their bodies, it is the Democrats that demand birth control, morning-after medication, and (ideally) free abortions so that women aren't "punished with a baby" when their bodies somehow mysteriously become pregnant.
Ken
Typical... Lets take 2 billion over 10 years from the oil and gas industry for clean energy research and make a big deal about it, while quietly ignoring the fact that we already subsidize the oil and gas industry to the tune of 3 billion or so a year.
This is the kind of stuff our government does now... Meaningless gestures meant to appease stupid constituents who cant do math. The best (and obviously most financially logical) way to subsidize clean energy is to simply stop subsidizing oil and gas... It has the exact same effect on the market, but instead of costing taxpayer money it ends up saving it.
Too crazy... I know.
So, does this mean that we can end the Big Oil subsidy? How about the Sesame Street subsidy?
Because that is a regressive tax. Taxes that hit poor people the hardest are the worst sort of taxes. I'm not a big fan of the "fuck the rich" approach, but your proposal is most certainly a "fuck the poor people" one.
Dead On Arrival.
Also apropos for the Obama 2nd Term.
Look forward to seeing Obama and Bush and their supplicants in shackles and neck irons before the Court Of The Hague to answer to crimes against humanity, murder, grand larceny and general lawlessness and disregard of law. :)
Obama has wasted over $1B on green energy initiatives that have gone bankrupt. Obama is technically challenged. Obama is business management challenged. Obama is decision making challenged. All Obama has done for energy in the US is to insure that energy costs are going to skyrocket and the poor and the middle class will suffer. It is like he is intentionally destroying jobs, transportation to jobs, and the economy. Can anyone really be this stupid?
Lemmie guess. Obama will help push through sin tax penalties for industry on gasoline and diesel... then will stand for a moment poised to funnel it into the Algorian Fantasy Options like solar and wind --- because he's a slow learner. Then someone will whisper in his ear, "we tried that already" and he will instead toss the money into the air and it will flutter down into personal tax credits for everyone. Like the Bush Beans, only this cow will be milked quarterly. There will be lots of flowery language surrounding this voter kickback, how free money is "helping to offset the cost of fuel" and how everyone in America is now a "personal stockholder in the energy companies."
A socialist page from the Chavez playbook but it will have a cute and catchy American name.
And the energy corporations who have not done so already will move to Qatar. Then Al-Qaeda militants will surface in Qatar, who'da thunk it. The rest is history, again.
Or president Obama could stop with the floundering and fleecing already, and offer tax credits to encourage the building of clean energy alternatives that will actually scale to meet current levels of demand. Not easy to do, but easy to figure out since there is only one to choose from.
Nuclear fission (someday Thorium or fusion --- there is not enough time to dork around at present). I'm talking about a 100% nuclear powered North American electric grid with ~50% additional baseload capacity to finally realize electric cars and trucks. And I'm talking about a real interim solution for the storage of spent fuel until it can be bred back into the cycle. And making breeding a research priority too.
Basically I'm talking about turning back the clock to a time after the "eternal" Texas and Oklahoma and fields had dried up and before the "eternal" Saudi oil fields were discovered. In the 1960s and early 70s no one believed that North American oil could sustain us any longer, and no one was imagining that coal would scale without environmental suicide. We were about to invest in nuclear energy --- all the way. If we had we would be at the 150% mark already. We'd have "real" electric cars already. This country would be a very different place, and the world would be a more peaceful and better place.
But instead we turned our attention to colonizing the Middle East. First by enabling the oil-rich Saudi Arabia to evolve into the space age feudal system it is today... later, by managing and transmogrifying existing regimes through OPEC-bribes and armed conflict.
In 1977 President Carter declared a moratorium on reprocessing spent nuclear fuel. For no damned reason at all that made any sense. Storing spent fuel forever was now the 'only' option. Concerned about proliferation he said, as the rest of the world set about to take the lead in breeder technology. On that day every nuclear engineer in the United States' jaw dropped to the ground in astonishment.
Might I be so bold as to suggest that oil money and influence played a part in this.
In 1979 The China Syndrome movie happened and Greenpeace happened. Despite the stern businesslike wording of Greenpeace's Wikipedia page concerning nuclear energy, how it is not the best option for the future... I must point out that they must have hired someone to write that. Because they have been emotionally, hysterically and shrilly against nuclear power for 35 years. BUT. While they have demonstrated a firm and 'manageable' resistance to oil production (without fronting any other options, that's someone else's job)... when it is time to move against nuclear energy their own money, energy and resources to wage these battles seem to have known no bounds.
Might I be so bold as to suggest that oil money and influence played a part in this.
Since Carter's mistake... Chernobyl and Fukushima (really bad) have happened and Three Mile Island (close call, still bad) has happened.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
Yes, Obama speaks in public about compromise and balance and other poll-tested warm-and-fuzzy PR propaganda words... but he has steadfastly refused to put any actual cuts on paper with specificity. All the billions/trillions of dollars he and his supporters claim to have already made are in the form of planning to not spend money we were not planning to spend anyway.... For example: Obama accused Bush of "putting the Iraq war on a credit card" with the obvious implication being that we were not spending money we had on that war but were in fact borrowing to pay for it... and that's fine .... but now he claims that because he's no longer spending on that war, he has made a "cut" of that amount. First, this "cut" is fake because even Bush planned to be no longer waging war in Iraq by now (indeed, Obama pulled-out on the deadline Bush negotiated) so NOBODY planned to be spending that money. Second, this "cut" is fake because Obama has been going around telling various supporters that he plans to spend the money "saved" by not fighting that was on rebuilding infrastructure in the US (If you are moving your spending from one purpose to another then you cannot honestly claim a net cut). Third, the "cut" is fake because he himself said it was borrowed money, so not borrowing it is just a reduction in crazy borrowing that should not have been happening anyway. Oh, and in case you don't get it: if you are furiously digging a hole and you slightly reduce the rate of digging, you are STILL going down; you do not "save" any money (which can then be allocated to something else) if you have been borrowing like crazy and you then borrow a little less; If you simply switch from borrowing money for thing A to borrowing money for thing B you have made no net cut.
What Barack Obama has refused to say is something like (for example) "if the Congress agrees to a 0.5% increase on the income tax of people who earn over a million dollars a year, I will agree to eliminate federal funding for the cellphone handout program by 10%". He will not, and has never, given specific cuts with specific programs and specific numbers. The closest he has come to this in public (as opposed to verbally in behind-closed-doors meetings, where he can later deny everything if some constituent group gets mad) is that he has recently said he might be willing to compromise on the chained CPI ... but again with no specifics...
The reality is that majority of the voters are morons
Thank you for an unusual dose of honesty. Here you show that indeed you despise voters and democracy itself.
This of course fits well with your standard M.O. of removing rights from the people. You pretend to be offering parity and compassion to people, when you are indeed striving to suppress the people of lower economic classes as much as you possibly can. You aim to take away their right to vote while simultaneously taking away their rights as citizens, employees, and human beings.
In other words, you came to be trying to bring liberty, while you obviously aim to deliver fascism for the people.
Robbing Peter to pay Paul.
We have reached oil peak, or will be reach it soon. Oil will tend to get more and more scarce and expensive. Market invisible hand seems unable to do anything about it (except lying about reserves), therefore it is high time that state visible hand gets involved. At least if we want to avoid chaos where we will have to choose between food, transport, or oil wars.
Argonaut Ventures (the tax shelter of billionaire George Kaiser (an Obama "bundler")) was one of the biggest investors in Solyndra. Kaiser and his people are frequent visitors to Obama and none of us knows what they say to each other in private, but in addition to landing hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars directly for Solyndra, in 2010 Obama cut a slick little deal with them that lets them xfer losses from Solyndra to Argonaut. Why? Well since Solyndra was not making money, losses could not offset anything there to further reduce taxes there... but allowing a rich family's fund to record the losses lets it depress its tax status... Abra Cadabra! Shazam! Another rich Democrat family keeps and passes-on its inherited wealth from one generation to the next (like the Kennedys and the Rockefellers etc) This is just one dirty little tale of the folks behind the scam called Solyndra... it was not a Republican company nor were its investors aligned with the Republicans (you seem to have just extracted that from your posterior). On the off-chance that you are just a mindless Obamabot and are citing things you think you remember hearing somewhere, the Republicans did have ONE involvement with Solyndra: The company came-up for consideration for a DOE loan under the Bush administration, and after the Bush people looked into it they said, in effect, "Are you KIDDING???? this thing is a house of cards with no future and the taxpayers would take a hit!". As a result, Bush rejected the idea of funneling taxpayer money to a "business" run by people who had no viable plan for success in a free market.
The GAO (non-partisan) reports that $16.4 billion of the $20.5 billion in loans granted under just one of the "green energy" programs went to companies that were run or owned by Obama financial backers (the trend was similar in the other related programs). They further reported that in the initial wave of loans "none were properly documented" and officials “did not always record the results of analysis” the loan programs lacked performance measures and "No notes were kept during the review process" (of the loans) so there is not even a record of why each company got a loan, how the size of the loan was determined and under what conditions the load would be cancelled. In many cases the loans went to companies that then went bust (without re-paying the taxpayer) and in the case of Solyndra the Obama DOE blatantly and illegally placed the shareholders (Obama supporters) ahead of the taxpayers in the bankruptcy proceedings.
Steve Westly (another Obama fundraising "bundler") was given a position as an "advisor" for the Secretary of Energy Steven Chu... VERY convenient when you want DOE to hand out hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to "green companies". The Obama admin is awash in venture capitalists who bundled money to get him elected and who then got loans that will never be repaid (Obama had to get his BILLION dollar campaign war-chest from SOMEWERE... and that somewhere was never going to be the unwashed hippie park campers of the "occupy movement").
The current tally does not support you claims of success... Solyndra was not the only one that went down... heard of " VantagePoint Venture Partners" or "Ener1" or "Amyris"??? You ought to read-up because you will be paying higher taxes for the rest of you life to pay "you fair share" of the the extra debts incurred fgunding all this stuff
that would yield NO money
You see, the "big oil" tax "subsidies" the extreme left of the democrat party is screeching about are the tax deductions that all such companies get... in other words it's not a flow of taxpayer money TO those businesses that can be shut-off or re-directed... it's the government letting a company keep more of its own revenue in recognition of the basic expenses of operating a business in a particular field. In the case of "big oil" many of the so-called subsidies that are industry-specific are actually tax deductions that apply to the smaller exploration firms which go around exploring for oil. The non-industry specific tax breaks "big oil" gets are the same ones all other businesses get; they get to write-off their expenses so that they are only being taxed on profits, and there's not an easy way to justify removing those tax breaks without taking the same breaks away from all other successful businesses.
The rhetoric about "big oil" and "subsidies" serve political demagogues like Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama very well when they are out on the campaign stump speaking to their dim-wit supporters, but they do not really exist which is why these pols can have all the power of total government dominance (as they did in 2008 and 2009) and they still did nothing on the subject.... it was always a lie intended to garner votes of the gullible and uninformed (like people who think a late-night comic is a news source).
Is a stuttering clusterfuck of a miserable failure.
The Koch brothers are not even big-time conservative Repubs... they are libertarian business guys (I think they are even pro-gay) but the left uses them as bogey-men because they have funded some Republican political activity (probably on the theory that a Republican is at least better for business than a Democrat rather than out of a deep love of the GOP)
George Soros, on the other hand, is one of the most vile pieces of excrement to ever walk the Earth and he is a big funder of nearly every left-wing Democrat think tank and web site out there. What makes him so vile? Well, unlike any other left-wing money man, George is one of the last surviving NAZI collaborators on Earth (yeah, those ACTUAL Hitler-saluting goose-stepping take-over-the-world-and-kill-all-non-aryans NAZIs of the WWII era, as opposed to some modern internet meme cartoon NAZIs). And George is not even a typical collaborator who in post-war years fell to his knees to beg forgiveness .... no, George says he is proud of those days, those days were some of the best of his life, and that his collaboration made him feel like a God. There. That's your modern Democrat funder.
The Koch brothers may be many things, BUT neither they nor any other human beings belong in the same category as George Soros. Traditional Democrats would not have sat at the same table with Soros and would not take money from him... but today's Democrat party is a radical caricature of its former past. Democrats of the JFK era were big on national defense, most were religious, most were pro-life, none were pro-gay-marriage, and many had fought against the NAZIs and their collaborators... JFK must be spinning in his grave...
First, Todd Akin is an idiot... and anybody who puts the words "legitimate" and "rape" together the way he did is either a moron or Teddy Kennedy or Bill Clinton (think about it)
Todd Akin, however, did NOT say rape was legitimate. He had the bone-headed idea that if a woman was raped in the violent-attacker-assualts-woman sense (he said "legitimate rape" where he probably would have been been better served by "actual rape"), her body would react in a way that would greatly reduce the chance of a resulting pregnancy; and that this was different from a situation like where a woman regrets an intimate encounter and later claims "date rape". He was an idiot politician who got cornered into answering a question on a subject he did not understand and he stupidly went-off on his own to tie the noose he would be hanged with. There are some medical people who believe this, have cited research on it, and have stated it, and Akin was apparently hanging his hook on this, but he was an idiot and deserved to go down in flames. After all, there are people who believe in "cold fusion" and cite research but that does not make their claims legitimate. In case you failed to notice, the Republican party recoiled in horror at his idiocy and withdrew funding from his campaign even though it meant losing the seat. The GOP establishment promoted the moron in the primary over the female candidate that Sarah Palin had endorsed, ha, ha
So in summary, no matter how much you want it to be so and no matter how stupid he was, Todd Akin never said it was OK to rape
Up in Alaska, the oil companies have to send cash to the citizens for that oil they pull-out of the ground and that presumed stupid, and hated-on-Slashdot, lady Sarah Palin worked to eliminate some of the crony-deals they had. She raised the amount that each family gets each year from the oil beneath their state... Part of the reason she was one of the most-popular governors in America before she was picked to run as VP and the democrat memo went out saying everybody needed to mock her and claim she was stupid. Never mind the facts, she wrote some notes on her hand once before giving a speech... but let's ignore that Obama needed two teleprompters to talk to a room-full of elementary school kids....
How about the one that hasn't put a woman up on a presidential ticket? (VP or Pres)...?
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
Tell me... did you believe, regurgitate, cite as authority etc the White House web site when it was Bush and the subject was "Iraq" or "Waterboarding"?????
Yeah, because an accounting audit of a congressional program is so totally nebulous that anyone can make up anything they want about it and nobody would be the wiser.
If you want to compare apples to apples, then compare it to the statements that Obama and company have made about drone strikes. They are being at least as secretive as Bush was about WMDs in Iraq and torture, and are at least as untrustworthy on the unverifiable details.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
The taxes on fossil fuels should be used to pay down the debt.
The US government should get out of the business of handing out money for product-oriented research.
Instead of putting more strain on the average citizen to pay for another (going to fail) obama initiative the government should use some of the 40+ cents per gallon tax already imposed on everyone purchasing fuel.
You will remember great hits like Solendra, A123, and Fisker.
This is a perfect example of a successful political hit-job. Yes Solendra et al. was a waste of money. But have you ever heard of a venture capital operation losing money? It happens all the time. The statistic you should be interested in is how money the parent program dished out in loans, how much was paid back, and home many successful new companies we have.
/designed/ to poison the discourse with misinformation.
Do you know those statistics? Didn't think so. That is because they are not suitable Fox/Rush talking points.
Political discourse is
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
So the money isn't wasted because it is used to prevent other people from selling us stuff at low prices?
If you want the USA to be a leader on the technologies of tomorrow, then it is not a waste. If you want the USA to lose its technical advantage, then sure, it is a waste of money. Let foreign countries engage in begger-thy-neighbor economic politices.
Your argument really is adolescent in its simplicity. There are people who actually study the economy, and know things about it. Great champions of the free market, such as Adam Smith, and Friedrich Hayek, explicitly endorsed the role of the government in the economy. It has always been this way. The great conservative experiment on market fundamentalism is anti-intellectual, and frankly dangerous.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
"lets protect future gas prices by increasing them today!" This is just a new 2 billion in new taxes for everyone who drives a car to be wasted by more "renewable" energy companies where the company goes under and everyone working there get a huge bonus before being laid off. By saying a private company will not do it, is admitting that it is a bad idea, but he will do it anyway.
As soon as someone starts harping on about Solyendra, then you know they have as little knowledge about government energy investments as they do about other thought terminating cliches, such as socialism. To the conservative mind, Solyendra is merely a thought terminating cliche. A single word that is the beginning and end of an ideological analysis.
Sure Solyendra was a disaster, but 95% of the investments were not, the money is substantially coming back, and we have new successful companies pioneering the technologies for the economy of tomorrow. The economy that is going to deliver year-on-year growth that will keep your mortgage afloat, and you solvant.
Bertrand Russell was spot on about fools and the wise. Please go learn something about the governments investments in clean energy.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
We have clean energy. Sure we can make incremental improvements over what we have, but that's nothing.
The real gold mine is energy storage. Find a way to store energy at utility scale. Or vastly increase the capabilities of batteries, so you get 5 or 10x the charge for the same size and weight. I hate the President's use of the term "game changer", he overuses it all the time and typically when something is not a game changer. But this would actually qualify as a game changer in the energy world.
And which party would that be?
If you don't agree with this, you are part of the problem, unless like some of the other posters you want him to do more punitive actions. It's only common sense.
I expect 5 - 50 trillion worth.
My question to you:
People are very well paid to pretend to be commenters, etc and leave anti-green messages, or messages promoting use of oil in various ways.
So I am curious, do you do this for free, while others are paid? If so, what does that say about your judgement and your commitment to free enterprise?
http://www.louisvuittonoutletiserve.info/
It seems entirely political how people feel about anything that funds alternative energy sources, rather than any actual concern over control by other countries who hold energy reserves and production, environmental concerns over evolved greenhouse gasses, or any other fundamental touch-point issue for either side. It is obvious the arguments relate to the control over the status quo, with heavy money being spent to ensure that emerging alternatives do not take money away from those making money under the system already in place, with the opposing side being those that want to make money in place of those existing companies/countries/etc who are making money now. During OPEC issues in the 1970's, alternative energy came to the fore because we could not produce enough domestic energy/fuel to meet demand and so an outside group could impact our way of life. As alternatives became more worthy of investment, fuel prices were dropped until alternatives were no longer worth exploring - flash forwards to the early 2000's and the same pattern repeats - when gasoline passed $4USD/gal, people started looking for alternatives. When enough support started turning towards them, oil prices dropped until it was no longer worth exploring the cost of development. This is entirely an issue of "who gets paid" and not one related to the world, its ecosystem, pollution or anything else. Anytime an alternative looks promising, it is assaulted by paid hecklers and spurious claims abut the ills relating to the new system, and anytime someone mentions the subsidies given to existing resources like gasoline, an equally loud volume of people will lay long speeches about how things would collapse without supporting the traditional money makers so that they can make more money. Any arguments relating to what /should/ or /could/ be done are nonexistent in the face of making sure that the people making money continue to make as much money as possible.
How about the one that hasn't put a woman up on a presidential ticket? (VP or Pres)...?
Tisk, the Democratic Party had the Mondale-Ferraro ticket in '84.
Obama said the private sector couldn't afford such research, which puts the onus on government to keep it going.
The government cannot afford it even more than the private sector. Obama's teasing you with the notion that it will be funded from oil and gas funds, but I can see it going on the nation's 'credit card'
Breeder Reactors!
Social Credit would solve everything...
By the sounds of things, idea generation.
This was after being a joke, as the OP was claiming BO was using Republican ideas...
In reality, they're there to help the rich get richer. Their appeal to "different cultures" is just a matter of exploiting anyone whose knees they can make jerk, so that they'll vote against their own best interests.
Nonsense. A good many Republican economic policies can also be found in the works of eminent economists like Milton Freedman and von Mises, as being the best choices for helping the lower classes. You may disagree with those economists; there are experts in the field who do. But when a good chunk of the experts in ecominics actually recommend limited regulation and low government intervention as tending more to uplifting the poor, it's a bit malicious to claim advocates of those positions are in it to hurt the poor. Much more likely, they actually believe (some of) classic liberal economics, and are trying to implement its prescriptions.
It's this sort of ridiculous emotional dismissal which makes public discourse on politics so divisive in the US. 90% of Republicans aren't rich and likely will never be. They obviously support the party for some reason. I think the reasons of 90% of the members for the party's existence trump the other 10%!
It's almost universally better to assume your opponent is arguing in good faith. He may be (very) wrong, but just assume he really means what he says. It's both more likely to be true, and permits a more persuasive argument from you. Even if he isn't, your argument will be heard by others who may be persuaded.