All Things Trump: Is it over yet?

[Jason]

So, while I may not want to pay a carbon tax, I'd be happy to start contributing to a real revolution in transportation.

That's the rub Sean. I want to contribute and am happy to have an additional 20% on my monthly heating bill go toward fighting climate change by making significant infrastructure changes and developments (that can include carbon recapture plants such as the one we have in British Columbia). But they currently seem to do nothing with it. At least the campaigning of the information of what exactly they do with that tax, other than vaguely wave their hands at the invisible one and expect it to make changes to the market in response (you still have to heat your home every winter somehow), has been so lacking as to the point where I have not been presented with it.

I want real action taken with the tax I'm paying.

[Cunt]

You have more than one bus out there in the territories?

3 routes in my (20,000 population) town. No-one uses it if they have cars. I haven't been on it in years, but run where I need to in town (can circle the town on foot in one run)

No-one uses it because it's shit. It's shit because no-one uses it.

People who can't afford cars though, use it and drive change. Of course, since they are all pretty poor, no-one listens.

I think robo-uber will be better than privately owned commuter cars. Not coming fast enough though.

What's really funny is how much aviation uses.

[Sean Hayden]

So, while I may not want to pay a carbon tax, I'd be happy to start contributing to a real revolution in transportation.

That's the rub Sean. I want to contribute and am happy to have an additional 20% on my monthly heating bill go toward fighting climate change by making significant infrastructure changes and developments (that can include carbon recapture plants such as the one we have in British Columbia). But they currently seem to do nothing with it. At least the campaigning of the information of what exactly they do with that tax, other than vaguely wave their hands at the invisible one and expect it to make changes to the market in response (you still have to heat your home every winter somehow), has been so lacking as to the point where I have not been presented with it.

I want real action taken with the tax I'm paying.

I can't argue with that. I'm not sure you should be asked to pay a carbon tax at all.

[Sean Hayden]

You have more than one bus out there in the territories?

3 routes in my (20,000 population) town. No-one uses it if they have cars. I haven't been on it in years, but run where I need to in town (can circle the town on foot in one run)

No-one uses it because it's shit. It's shit because no-one uses it.

People who can't afford cars though, use it and drive change. Of course, since they are all pretty poor, no-one listens.

I think robo-uber will be better than privately owned commuter cars. Not coming fast enough though.

What's really funny is how much aviation uses.

--sorry for calling you a bumpkin man. I'll get out of this mode with you eventually.

[Tero]

Trump economy and jobs. He titles his own era jobs jobs jobs.

[Forty Two]

So, while I may not want to pay a carbon tax, I'd be happy to start contributing to a real revolution in transportation.

That's the rub Sean. I want to contribute and am happy to have an additional 20% on my monthly heating bill go toward fighting climate change by making significant infrastructure changes and developments (that can include carbon recapture plants such as the one we have in British Columbia). But they currently seem to do nothing with it. At least the campaigning of the information of what exactly they do with that tax, other than vaguely wave their hands at the invisible one and expect it to make changes to the market in response (you still have to heat your home every winter somehow), has been so lacking as to the point where I have not been presented with it.

I want real action taken with the tax I'm paying.

Most people in the US would happily pay 20% extra on their heating bill just to shut the Left up. Average monthly electric bill is $110 per month, so 20% on that is $22. Small price to pay.... lol. Natural gas is generally much lower, so for natural gas heat it would be like, $60 a month, or a $12 surcharge.

But, any suggestion of such a tax would be met with another harangue about how it's regressive because people with less means are hit harder by a sales tax like that., so we'd have to stagger it, and charge rich people 50% on their bills, and then poor people would receive subsidies to help pay their tax. So, we'd need a new bureaucracy to manage it all. Let's set it up like Obamacare. On April 15, when you file income tax returns, everybody can guesstimate their electricity and gas usage for the coming year, and then estimate their income - that will determine their subsidy, if any, and if they underestimate those figures, then they'll owe a penalty on their next tax return. Works for healthcare, why not climate change?

[JimC]

So, while I may not want to pay a carbon tax, I'd be happy to start contributing to a real revolution in transportation.

That's the rub Sean. I want to contribute and am happy to have an additional 20% on my monthly heating bill go toward fighting climate change by making significant infrastructure changes and developments (that can include carbon recapture plants such as the one we have in British Columbia). But they currently seem to do nothing with it. At least the campaigning of the information of what exactly they do with that tax, other than vaguely wave their hands at the invisible one and expect it to make changes to the market in response (you still have to heat your home every winter somehow), has been so lacking as to the point where I have not been presented with it.

I want real action taken with the tax I'm paying.

Some points in response:

* one consequence of a carbon tax would be to make anything powered by fossil fuels more expensive, for both corporations and private citizens. That should automatically produce an incentive towards greater efficiency, and or switching to alternative sources. If people on lower incomes (who may have less financial ability for immediate changes) are impacted severely, then some targeted assistance (from the carbon tax money) could be considered.

* all the monies gained through such a tax should be used for the "carrot" part of the deal. This could be in the form of subsidies for installing solar, and/or significant tax breaks for companies investing in renewables...

They key to looking at any form of government action (including, as Sean was saying, investing in better public transport to reduce car use) would be a careful, rational analysis of "bang for your buck", in terms of which actions will remove the most CO2 from the stream. There will be no single solution, but a range of actions.

[Jason]

While I'm in favour of a carbon subsidy for those on the low end of the income scale, I have to point out that most people on the low end of the income scale rent. If this subsidy cannot be applied because the tax payer doesn't own the property they live in then I think a portion of the taxes collected through this tax should be redistributed to the property owners provided they upgrade their rental property. A baseline subsidy to low-income people from the carbon tax as an incentive to drive people to be able to live 'green' - which is not the cheapest way to live - with another subsidy available to rental property owners who upgrade their properties with things like solar panels, more efficient windows, efficient lighting, etc.

[L'Emmerdeur]

Gotta keep kissing evangelical Christian arse. Conservative evangelicals may not like it when they get what they think they want, though. I've come across at least as many people who lost their faith through reading the Bible as I have those whose faith has been strengthened thereby.

'Teaching the Bible in Public Schools Is a Bad Idea—For Christians'

Shortly after Fox & Friends aired a segment about proposed legislation to incorporate Bible classes into public schools on Monday morning, President Donald Trump cheered these efforts on Twitter. “Numerous states introducing Bible Literacy classes, giving students the option of studying the Bible. Starting to make a turn back? Great!” Trump wrote.

The segment followed a USA Today report on January 23 that conservative Christian lawmakers in at least six states have proposed legislation that would “require or encourage public schools to offer elective classes on the Bible’s literary and historical significance.” These kinds of proposals are supported by some prominent evangelicals, including Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, the Texas mega-church pastor John Hagee, and even the actor Chuck Norris. They argue that such laws are justified by the Bible’s undeniable influence on U.S. history and Western civilization.

If conservative Christians don’t trust public schools to teach their children about sex or science, though, why would they want to outsource instruction about sacred scripture to government employees? The type of public-school Bible class that could pass constitutional muster would make heartland evangelicals squirm. Backing “Bible literacy bills” might be an effective way to appeal to some voters, but if they were put into practice, they’re likely to defeat the very objectives they were meant to advance.

...

[W]hile Trump might not care much about the Bible personally, he knows it is politically important to many of the conservative Christians who support him. According to a recent study conducted by the Barna Group, a staggering 97 percent of churchgoing Protestants and 88 percent of churchgoing Catholics said they believed that teaching the Bible’s values in public school was important. Trump’s odd tweet is likely an effort to shore up his base, rather than a passionate plea for a new educational initiative.

Following Trump’s tweet on Monday, some legal scholars argued that teaching the Bible in any form in a public school would violate the First Amendment. But others, such as John Inazu, a law and religion professor at Washington University in St. Louis and the author of Confident Pluralism: Surviving and Thriving Through Deep Difference, believe that this would depend on the nature of the classes.

...

[A]ssume for a moment that no ulterior motive is behind these bills, and that the conservative Christian activists and lawmakers are merely deeply concerned that America’s schoolchildren receive a better cultural-historical education. And also assume that teaching a Bible class in a public school is not a violation of the establishment clause, as many legal scholars claim. As Inazu pointed out, for a Bible class in public school to have any hope of passing constitutional muster, it would need to be academic rather than devotional. Which is to say, it couldn’t actually impart biblical values to students, and it would need to draw from scholarly consensus. And this is where the whole enterprise would backfire.

...

That evangelical understandings of the Bible differ from scholarly consensus doesn’t make them incorrect, but it does mean that the material taught to public-school students would likely diverge from what they are learning in church and at home. Can you imagine young Christian students coming home from school and informing their parents that they’ve just learned that all these cherished Bible stories are in fact not historically correct? How would evangelical parents react when their fifth grader explains that their teacher said the Apostle Paul said misogynist things and advocated for slavery? And what if the teacher decides to assign the Catholic version of the Bible, which has seven books that Protestants reject as apocryphal?

And this only addresses issues of historicity and interpretation. The social teachings of the Bible could also create issues in a public-school setting. A recent thesis project in sociology at Baylor University suggested that increased Bible reading can actually have a liberalizing effect, increasing one’s “interest in social and economic justice, acceptance of the compatibility of religion and science, and support for the humane treatment of criminals.” Every community that reads the Bible places unequal stress on certain books or passages. While evangelicals are generally more politically conservative, teachers in public schools might choose to emphasize the Bible’s many teachings on caring for the poor, welcoming the immigrant, and the problems of material wealth.

Bible-literacy bills are unlikely to pass in most states, and even if they do, they might be soon ruled unconstitutional. But conservative Christian advocates would do well to think through the shape these classes will likely take if their efforts are successful. They might end up getting what they want, only to realize that they don’t want what they’ve got.

[Jason]

Just in case I'm not clear, I'm for keeping the Carbon Tax provided it does two things: Provide a Carbon Subsidy for low income people to apply for when they file their yearly income tax & provide a subsidy rental property owners can apply for after they make approved upgrades to their rental properties.

Low income people will continue to pay the carbon tax, which the government can get interest on over the year before it is reimbursed to the tax payer. Interest that can be sent into the development of green infrastructure projects.

[Cunt]

Those with the best tax resources (tax lawyers, accountants etc.) will find the best loopholes! This sounds like a GREAT program!

[Jason]

Lawyers gonna find loopholes. It's what they do.

[Svartalf]

well, that is, unless the thing is armored , airtight and foolproof, which might be the case, people, especially in that branch, learn from previous mistakes and learn how to adjust the boilerplate

[JimC]

Those with the best tax resources (tax lawyers, accountants etc.) will find the best loopholes! This sounds like a GREAT program!

It's easy to find loopholes in corporate and income tax - they are complex, and deductions, trust funds etc. can come into play. Not so easy when it is a simple tax on fossil fuels, applying to all...

[pErvinalia]

How else do you imagine it working? Not the fucking free market, I hope.

The way Asimov put it, if we do everything, the climate will change. If we do nothing, the climate will change.

Specious nonsense. It's about how much the climate will change, and whether the end result will be habitable by us humans.

I will be focusing on being ready for a changing climate. You churchgoers will be praying (paying) to your icons to change the climate.

So you advocate doing nothing to address climate change. You may as well confirm your denier status.