In case you missed it, here are the latest words of wisdom from our confused president delivered on Friday:
“No one is building new coal plants because they can't rely on it…We're going to be shutting these plants down all across America and having wind and solar."
We hope the people in Ohio and Pennsylvania were listening.
We still get nearly one-third of our electric power from coal – about four times more than from inefficient wind and solar power.
China is now powering its rapid industrial expansion on fossil fuels as it builds dozens of massive NEW coal plants. How does it prevent global warming if every time we shut down a coal plant, China builds a new one or two or three?
Coal plants are cleaner all the time. In 2020 the U.S. Department of Energy issued a report which found:
“Coal-fired electricity generation is cleaner than ever. Research shows that a new coal plant with pollution controls reduces nitrogen oxides by 83 percent, sulfur dioxide by 98 percent, and particulate matter by 99.8 percent compared to plants without controls.
According to NETL, over the next 30 years, new coal production of 145-345 million tons could result in 47,500 coal mining jobs. The carbon products could also result in product value of near $139 billion and 480,000 manufacturing jobs tied directly to carbon products.”
This always comes as a surprise to people, but U.S. air quality has steadily and substantially IMPROVED in recent decades in no small part because emissions from coal plants have steadily DECLINED. Clean coal is here.
2) Expensive/Unreliable Wind And Solar Are Causing Energy Costs To Soar Here, There, And Everywhere
While we are on the subject of energy idiocy, Biden said Friday that coal and oil are more expensive than windmills and solar panels (sic). No, actually, reliance on wind and solar power is highly correlated with higher prices for energy and electric power. We know this from the experience of other countries that have tried the “green” route to clean energy. It has failed everywhere. Germany tried wind and solar and it was such a colossal flop that you can see from the chart that the Germans were soon operating with the highest energy costs in the industrialized world. Germany is one step ahead of the U.S. They’ve learned the lesson and are turning back to nuclear and natural gas, while we head over the “green energy” cliff.
We hope you will give read to a long profile story in the Washington Post about our co-founder Arthur Laffer. While the story quotes economists like Robert Reich who calls him “a charlatan” (which is almost the textbook definition of projection), it makes the point that Laffer is arguably the most influential economist of the last several decades. From the remarkable success of the Reagan tax cuts and then the Trump tax cuts almost four decades later, the Laffer Curve keeps striking again, and it makes the left and the media furious.
Laffer has been back in the headlines for backing the Liz Truss tax rate cuts that are said to have been a failure – even though they never happened. We will quote from the Post story:
Laffer in early October publicly endorsed a dramatic tax-cutting plan proposed by Liz Truss, who was just getting settled in as Britain’s prime minister…. Two weeks later, and only 45 days after taking office, Truss resigned. Laffer has not backed down. He still thinks the cuts are what the country needs to revive its economy. “How can you reflect on the quality of a football team if you don’t let them on the playing field?” he asked on a recent Tuesday. “It was never tried.” Truss’s unveiling of her plan “without any forewarning of any sort almost guaranteed this sort of extreme reaction,” he said. The upheaval “shows the political response to the ideas but doesn’t have any reflection on the economics at all.”
That is, of course, unquestionably true. What seems to irritate the left is that his influence hasn’t waned in the least. As the Post article puts it:
His contention that tax cuts can stimulate the economy and increase government revenue has been echoed by generations of Republican leaders, including, most recently, President Donald Trump, whom Laffer advised on the tax cuts that became the administration’s signature legislative achievement.
Yes, and let’s hope they keep following his advice.
4) San Francisco’s Mass Transit System Needs $2.3 Billion More From Federal Taxpayers
Regular readers know that we have been highlighting the collapse of mass transit ridership all over the country despite tens of billions of bailout money from the feds.
Well, add the San Francisco Bay Area Transit (BART) to the list of systems with costs soaring and ridership cratering. According to a front-page San Jose Mercury News story, the BART rail system needs a doubling of federal revenue to finish the service extension to San Jose (from $2.3 billion to $4.6 billion). This would make it the largest transit grant in federal history. Completion is now expected by 2034, 34 years after the first local tax referendum passed to fund the project. A local transit official stated that “local voters have done their share”
According to the Mercury News, there are dissenting voices: Congressional Republicans have called the BART extension ‘Nancy Pelosi’s Silicon Valley subway’ and have sought to restrict funds.”
Meanwhile, BART’s ridership is still 60% below pre-pandemic levels. IT would be cheaper to have the taxpayers subsidize Uber rides for the commuters than to build these multi-billion-dollar white elephants that no one rides.
5) Democrats In Washington Are Completely Out Of Touch With Their Own Voters
How badly did Democrats size up the electorate and what issues most influenced their vote?
Catastrophically. After the Supreme Court’s Dobbs abortion decision, Democrats decided they should emphasize the overturning of Roe v. Wade and concerns about gun violence and threats to democracy from the GOP as their key issues. It turns out that was why Democrats saw this summer was a Blue Mirage.
Renewed inflation concerns, falling 401k retirement plans along with crime and immigration have taken center stage. But Democrats continued to hammer their AGD agenda – abortion, guns, and democracy to the exclusion of almost all other issues. (See graphic). In short, the public has increasingly demanded real action on issues that Democrats have little to say about other than to change the subject.
The New Yorker magazine says Democratic consultants report that “as much sixty percent of Democratic poll respondents this summer were so-called super voters, those who vote in every single election. “But this blinkered view “created an informational doom loop, where Democratic candidates get told, You should talk about January 6th, democracy being on the ballot, trans rights,’ ”one consultant said, “because their super primary voters are picking up the phone and telling them this is what they care about.”
If Democrats indeed take a “whacking” on Tuesday night, it will be attributable in large part to their complete inability to read American public opinion, and what voters really cared about.
