Several weeks ago we received a letter from Chairman Henry Waxman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee requesting information concerning our economic modeling of H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act. We quickly responded (our answers are available here). Several other organizations and government agencies also received the same request including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Energy Information Administration (EIA), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), CRA International, the American Council for Capital Formation (ACCF), and the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC). Notably missing from this list were …
Paul Krugman blasted opponents of cap and trade and The Heritage Foundation in his New York Times column today, saying: So where do the apocalyptic warnings about the cost of climate-change policy come from? Are the opponents of cap-and-trade relying on different studies that reach fundamentally different conclusions? No, not really. It’s true that last spring the Heritage Foundation put out a report claiming that Waxman-Markey would lead to huge job losses, but the study seems to have been so obviously absurd that I’ve hardly seen anyone cite it. Krugman …
When President Barack Obama sold his $787 billion stimulus package to the American people, he set one metric for success: jobs. Specifically, President Obama promised the American people he would create 4.1 million jobs by the end of 2010. According to the President’s plan, the stimulus should have lowered the nation’s unemployment rate below 8% by this August. That is the objective standard the President set for himself. And according to objective data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics this morning, President Obama’s policies, and his stimulus package, have been …
“We’ll Need To Raise Taxes Soon” opines Roger Altman, a former Deputy Treasury Secretary under President Clinton, in a Wall Street Journal editorial today. Of course, he comes to this conclusion because deficits are high, excessive entitlement spending continues to darken the budget outlook, and, well, that’s the solution he most desires. Of course, he’s wrong, again. President Obama and his congressional allies have accomplished a remarkable bait-and-switch. Remember the Obama directive to his cabinet to hunt down budget savings? Nothing. Remember going through the budget line by line? Nothing. …
The Brookings Institution released their own analysis of analysis on the costs of cap and trade yesterday. Unlike Heritage’s recent Center for Data Analysis study, the Brookings effort does not analyze any particular bill, but does look at the economic costs of four policy scenarios. Their conclusions: Welfare effects Loss in Personal Consumption of $1 to $2 trillion present value Incremental stringency produces high incremental cost, e.g. extra 8 % reduction increases costs 45% US GDP in 2050 lower by 2.5% Employment effect -0.5% at peak in first decade
