Eco-fuzzy math: Debunking a cap-and-trade debunking
The MSM relied on Politifact to “debunk” the GOP’s claim that the Obama cap-and-trade plan would cost American families an estimated $3,100 a year.
The debunkers were wrong.
The Weekly Standard’s John McCormack busted their fuzzy math:
It’s just another inconvenient truth: If Americans want any of the government remedies that would supposedly save a planet allegedlyimperiled by global warming, it’s going to cost them.
Just how much it will cost them has been a point of contention lately. Many congressional Republicans, including members of the GOP leadership, have claimed that the plan to limit carbon emissions through cap and trade would cost the average household more than $3,100 per year. According to an MIT study, between 2015 and 2050 cap and trade would annually raise an average of $366 billion in revenues
(divided by 117 million households equals $3,128 per household, the Republicans reckon).But on March 24, after interviewing one of the MIT professors who conducted the study on which the GOP relied to produce its estimate, the St. Petersburg Times fact-check unit, Politifact, declared the GOP
figure of $3,100 per household was a “Pants on Fire” falsehood. The GOP claim is “just wrong,” MIT professor John Reilly told Politifact. “It’s wrong in so many ways it’s hard to begin.”According to Politifact, Reilly’s report included an “estimate of the net cost to individuals” that “would be $215.05 per household. A far cry from $3,128.”
… During a lengthy email exchange last week with THE WEEKLY STANDARD, MIT professor John Reilly admitted that his original estimate of cap and trade’s cost was inaccurate. The annual cost would be “$800 per household”, he wrote. “I made a boneheaded mistake in an excel spread sheet. I have sent a new letter to Republicans correcting my error (and to others).”
While $800 is significantly more than Reilly’s original estimate of $215 (not to mention more than Obama’s middle-class tax cut), it turns out that Reilly is still low-balling the cost of cap and trade by
using some fuzzy logic. In reality, cap and trade could cost the average household more than $3,900 per year.The $800 paid annually per household is merely the “cost to the economy [that] involves all those actions people have to take to reduce their use of fossil fuels or find ways to use them without
releasing [Green House Gases],” Reilly wrote. “So that might involve spending money on insulating your home, or buying a more expensive hybrid vehicle to drive, or electric utilities substituting gas (or
wind, nuclear, or solar) instead of coal in power generation, or industry investing in more efficient motors or production processes, etc. with all of these things ending up reflected in the costs of good and services in the economy.”In other words, Reilly estimates that “the amount of tax collected” through companies would equal $3,128 per household–and “Those costs do get passed to consumers and income earners in one way or
another”–but those costs have “nothing to do with the real cost” to the economy. Reilly assumes that the $3,128 will be “returned” to each household. Without that assumption, Reilly wrote, “the cost would then be the Republican estimate [$3,128] plus the cost I estimate [$800].”
The slogan of Politifact is “Sorting out the truth in politics.” The website, a project of the St. Petersburg Times, won a Pulitzer on Monday.
I second John McCormack’s question: Will Politifact correct its faulty debunking or not? If not, they should change their name to PolitiFICTION.
Contact them here.
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Trackbacks
- Cap and Trade: The Universal Tax | NEOAVATARA
- Greenie Weenies: Not Just Scrubbing Pads Any More « Vets On The Watch
- Earth Day & Air Force One: Obama’s ‘Carbon Footprint’ Grows Again While He Embraces Junk Science « Frugal Café Blog Zone
- MIT scientist: Cap-and-trade could cost $3900 per household per year « Wellsy’s World
- Michelle Malkin » Eco-fuzzy math: Debunking a cap-and-trade debunking | Underfloor Heating Info
- Rush Limbaugh & Charlton Heston: The Vanity and Arrogance of Earth Day, Global Warming, and Climate Change « Frugal Café Blog Zone
- ‘I’ll Tax the Heat, I’ll Tax Your Feet’: Britain’s a Mess with Its Punishing Taxes, We’re Not Far Behind « Frugal Café Blog Zone
- Weatherman Takes on MSNBC for Its Global Warming Arrogance, Al Gore Lies about Money Pocketed from Global Warming Crusade « Frugal Café Blog Zone
- Gore Grilled & Gingrich Gouged–American People Oppose Massive Carbon Cap and Trade Tax Increase–Videos « Pronk Palisades
- Saturday’s Odds ‘n Ends… China’s Love Land, Obama Sushi, Manipulative Global Warming Cartoon, Nancy “And Your Little Dog, Too” Pelosi « Frugal Café Blog Zone
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Categories: Enviro-nitwits, Media Bias
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lgm confirms the fuzzy math portion.
Okay, this cap ‘n trade policy, the trade portion is where we trade income for nothing? Just asking.
Isn’t today Lenin’s birthday? Also happens to be Earth Day. No correlation. I suppose. So why use facts & truth when twisted logic, contorted figures, outright lies & possibly less than objective “experts” work better?
Soap – remind me again. Is fuzzy math where you write down an answer, then twist a bunch of numbers around to arrive at the question?
It really does not matter what the math is for ‘Cap and Trade.’
Fundamentally, ‘Cap and Trade’ is a bad idea. It is a false market created to do something that the free market will not do on it’s own. It is on par with commodity price ceilings and floors. It will create distortions and cause dislocations in industries across the board. It will even create wealth . . . and, poverty where they would not normaly exist.
Yes, we have done this sort of thing in the past, create non-free market chimeras. Some good and some not so good.
Good – Interest deductions for home ownership. Not so good – Commodity price controls. That is not to say that each has not had their share of dislocations and created distortions. Unallocated benefits and costs.
‘No good deed goes unpunished’, and I believe, beyond the numbers, that Cap and Trade should be examined with this in mind.
Think in terms of the new flourescent light bulb. The numbers, and math, said that it would save energy. But the tail on that dog is the mercury in the bloody thing that we have to deal with.
Cap and Trade is just a bad idea.
MIT professor? mmmmm At least he fessed up. Most liberals would keep quiet rather than admit they made a mistake. Unfortunately his correction will be conveniently ignored by the MSM.
John McCain has bought into the Cap and Trade TAX big time which causes me to believe/hope he will not be re-elected to the Senate in 2010. If Johnny Mac gets the Republican nomination I will vote for his opponent.
Cap and Trade is a Brutally Expensive solution to a non problem; it will hobble our industry, finances and individual autonomy and provide the State with even more power. Power is their goal.It’s just another inconvenient truth.
I am no expert (lgm is) but it is my understanding, you change the outcome to get the answer you want. Example:
1+1=3 because little Johnny feels better if that outcome is true (if it is not he will get a wrong answer on his test and it will bruise his psyche) and gets his A+. This is why liberals love fuzzy math. They are not concerned with truth and facts.
Can you verify lgm?
They have had cap and trade in Europe for some time now. The people over here are so used to being taxed to poverty that they hardly notice it.
I have a question. Where does the money go? Money doesn’t make carbon go away on it’s own. People do not have the ability to pull carbon out of the atmosphere. All we can do is reduce the emissions we make now.
So, where does the money go. If this scheme is going to cost me, eventually, that money winds up somewhere. Where is that?
Of course, I am being facetious. We all know what this is – another excuse to tax people. This would literally be a tax on the air we breathe.
I was at a major hotel recently and they advertised trading frequent sleeper (or whatever they call their loyalty programs) points to “offset” carbon emissions. What does that mean? How does that work? The term “inane” comes to mind. The BBC interviewed some Lord who claimed that whenever he traveled, he made the company requesting his presence “offset” carbon emissions. Again, what does this mean?
The Libs get a double whammy on this one – they tax everyone for breathing and then they actually sleep better at night thinking they have “done something” for the environment.
Amazing
Again…. where in the &&@KK%%$$ are the real scientists and economists? This Congress and Presidency is pure Alice-In-Wonderland. Are there any adults in charge? How much longer must working Americans endure this?
BTW…. What’s the cap and trade cost associated with all the new turbocharged diesel printing presses at the Department of the Treasury?
Where were these Republicans when Cap and Trade was known as the McCain-Leiberman bill? I still don’t buy into the GOP commitment to kill Cap and Trade. In the end, some maverick Republican will “break away” from the pack on cue and deliver victory to the Global Warming Cultists. He will be annointed High Priest and run for president.
Follow the dollars…and the politics of the creators of politifacts; just on the surface, the fact that it originates from ultra-liberal St. Petersberg, and it got a nobel prize should give us a clue!
Speaking of earth day…
UGH
Idiots
/sorry off topic
It’s already costing many miners and mine owners in KY and WV, not to mention the tax bases of both states.
According to an AP report carried by a local paper, the EPA is holding up about a hundred or so mining permits correctly filed by mining companies in Hunting and Lexington, citing a need to review the procedures and study the effects of residual fill dirt from mountain top removal on area water sheds.
Many here presume the EPA is dragging its feet in anticipation of passage of cap and trade as Obama’s new EPA chief is reputed to be pro-environment-/anti-strip mining.
It’s no secret that most environmentalists want to end strip mining by shifting a heavy tax burden on to the public.
Maverick republican = Juan McCain
How about rely on Candidate Obama owe words when he stated exactly what he was going to do back in January 2008, but the media completely blew this off and still are.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlTxGHn4sH4
oops owe = own
Show of hands – GoreBull warming caused by man. Oh, look, McCan’t raised his hand.
9 seconds in
November 2, 2008 Presidential Candidate Obama DID state he planned to bankrupt ALL coal fired plants-so much for coal mining. Over 50% of our electricity is generated from coal-fired plants-that CAN NOT be replaced in any of our life times-I do not care how many wind mills he builds.
Pennsylvania and West Virgina will be hit particular hard-the Auto industry is toast- but all of us will suffer. Caterpillar Industries? Forget it.
Ah, but it is a Brave New World!
The scam of Gullible Warming is something many fools believe in, and cap-and-trade is a logical continuation, just another way to part a fool and his money.
The insanity is just beginning in Obamaland. In spite of all our scientific and technological advances, humans and human nature remain the same – there will always be fools, there will always be those who take advantage of them, there will always be those who seek to control others and take for themselves what others have produced.
This is how liberals reduce their carbon emissions without cutting down their lifestyle:
I heard about some projects like this a year or two ago and would have thought it was something out of the Onion if I hadn’t seen so much liberal insanity first hand. Does anybody actually believe these solar cookers are practical or any of them get used more than once or twice? I am 100% certain more energy was used in producing these pieces of garbage than will ever be conserved.
This type of thinking is nothing more than liberal condescension of the poor, which seeks to keep them poor so that they don’t do any damage to the environment or use up resources which are reserved for elitist liberals.
P.S. McCan’t is big in at 54 seconds. He was talking about cap ‘n trade then (1:30)
Correct me if I am wrong, but isnt cap and trade the trading of emission limits from a company that does not use all its limits to a company that is over its limits in exchange for money?
If this is the case how exactly will it stop the same level of carbon emissions that we have now?
Not to mention all I see is the cost of the “trades” being passed onto the consumer.
Just another case of “we have to do something” from Congress. I might suggest they all watch an IMAX movie called Creatures from the Deep. My wife and I saw it at the Montery Bay Aquarium. We busted out laughing in the first 5 minutes of the movie as it states that it is scientific fact that the Earth was far hoter billions of years ago. It was so hot that the polar ice caps virtualy did not exist and the world was 90% covered in water; therefore almost all life was sea life. We heard that and died laughing (I would love to see how the melted ice caps were caused by man made global warming).
Tells you there the cookers don’t work.
I thought Bush was the founder of fuzzy math. Blame him.
And these same cookers sent to China will soon end up on the market for sale from China back to Finland….
All of our steel industry has been hit hard by foreign competition. We have little steel making capacity left. What will happen when foreign countries, who do nothing about greenhouse gases, ship their steel here at much, much lower price. I thought Obama was the unions’ buddy?
Truesoldier, there you go, trying to use logic on liberal policies! Logic never works on liberals. Try using when talking to one; it’ll just pi$$ them off.
Don’t worry. We’ll all be too poor to buy products made of steel.
Until the libtards figure out a way to render a volcano inert, they are just tilting at windmills.
And BTW, why do liberals always look so sickly?
Soap,
I could only stand to watch about half of that video, but I seriously thought it was a bad Saturday Night Live sketch.
JSR,
Real deal. Obama voters – who knew…
Until the MIT professor speaks in his own words, not quoted possibly out of context, I will continue to think he knows more about his report than Republicans. “I made a bonehead mistake” out of context sounds serious. Let’s here the MIT guy out without the editor.
Sure the MSM makes mistakes, but the Republican party machine is hardly a paragon of disinterested accuracy.
Cap and Trade is just a euphemism for Communism. We all know their is no science behind it and it is just a way to put a price on everyones head, and make them work for the GOVERNMENT to pay it off.
Who?
Same can be said about you.
Imus and Charles Tag Team Mike Lupica this morning FUN.
Imus has a problem with President Obama’s recent international tour, where he points out our flaws, on his Dixie Chicks tour but none of our accomplishments. Imus sites Michael Goodwins’s article in the New York Daily News. You can read “If President Obama Won’t Defend The U.S. Who Will”.
Mike Lupica doesn’t think Obama has to put his criticisms into context on his first grand apology tour.
http://youhavetobethistalltogoonthisride.blogspot.com/2009/04/imus-guest-mike-lupica-wanders-into.html
A lot of the Global Warming Hype comes from the Internationalist NOT Americans Cap And Trade doesn’t help our economy. But is does tie our hands while the International Community fills the trade void. And Barack H Obama is all about appeasing the International Community. The First Global President…not so crazy about American’s prosperity.
Obama is the first anti-american president.
I just saw on Fox this morning, a video of Obama while he was on the campaign trail. He was talking about his plans for “cap and trade”, and that electricity bills would rise considerably should it become reality.
So much for no taxes on those who make less than 250,000.
How? Perhaps a check from the government? I mean, it’s not that money comes out of my pocket. Oh wait…
Think for yourself, LGM, and see reality.
Like. It’s not LIKE it comes out of my pocket.
More coffee, stat
The EPA was created by Nixon……. many people lost jobs during that time… the city I lived in lost around 30,000 jobs. Why do we need cap and trade? Is it to protect the environment?? we have the EPA for that… kinda like having a border “czar” while having Homeland Security, huh.
I read that a paper company that never used oil in it’s manufacturing , started using it to get a “tax credit”.
The government just needs to stay out of the way of private sector, they screw everything up. I ask anyone here to name ONE government program that is successful? Just ONE. Maybe those who became greedy or cheated in Wall Street or Businesses wouldn’t do so if they didn’t have the government dictating to them and taking away so much of their profits. It has breed generations of “work around the loophole” mentality. The only people who really pay the price are consumers.
So how does it end? Does the mothership come back and pick them up?
Cap & trade would simply be the coupe d’grace to the American economy.
Is that really what THE ONE is after…
I would love it if that question were too silly to consider.
How about waterboarding?
LGM, I’ll remember what you said here about people quoted out of context the next time you link or copy a story which includes a republican or conservative quoted as saying something.
Not sayin’ you have ever done that, but just sayin’ it could happen, you know.
That or it could be when lgm gets a clue or an education. I don’t want to give away the ending. Suffice to say, it ain’t purty!
HAHHHAHAHHAAAAAA
Could explain why Obama wants to open an investigation and prosecute Americans.
Success sucks so we should kill it.
- B.H. Obama
In observance of
EarthSustainability Day my school has a bunch of displays from different groups/vendors set up outside. My favorites so far…1. Waste Management – they drove a empty garbage truck 40 or so miles each way as a really expensive backdrop for table with a laptop and some pamphlets.
2. Teepee – they have a teepee set up for some reason. It arrived in a trailer towed by a F250 dully.
3. Reusable water bottles with school logo – causes several other “vendors” to go berserk warning students with them how the plastic will give us cancer. I toss mine in the trash.
I did not see one vendor arrive in a Hybrid. The smallest was a Civic with most small SUV’s and medium-large sedans or minivans.
For some reason they get really defensive if you question them. So much for reducing their carbon footprint.
“StupidDay” is just another reason to have arrogant fools tell us to do as they say and not as they do…
LOVED that report…!!!
And how typical!!!
I am celebrating “Rational Thought Day”.
I figure Earth can handle things fine.
I still want to know why we don’t have a cap and trade with Campbell’s soup?
Cap and trade for carbon is completely arbitrary and no less nonsensical than soup.
Who sets the “allowable” amount? Why is that number better than any other number?
Name me something that you use/need everyday that does NOT involve energy?
Virtually everything you eat requires GOBS of energy to get to your dinner table. From the fertilizer, the tractor, transport, processing and packaging, more transport, refrigeration, etc. Double the price of energy and the price of food will almost double as well.
Everything that is manufactured requires energy to make it. This will give foreign countries an even bigger advantage than they have now. Expect whatever few remaining US manufacturers there are now to close or LEAVE resulting in even MORE unemployment and misery. Also, let’s not forget the cost of heating and air conditioning of corporate buildings. What are they going to do? Suddenly rebuild them, (as though they could afford that now), or – LEAVE!
And it’s all for a complete SCAM!!!
1. Global warming stopped ten years ago.
2. There remains ZERO measurable physical evidence that human CO2 affects the climate.
Even IF the IPCC’s median projection of 4C degrees per century had been correct, (it actually failed), would ANYBODY even notice it? That’s only about .07F per year!
Think about that.. when there’s a heat wave 15 years from now, instead of it reaching 102F, it’s going hit 103F! WOW – WE’RE ALL GONNA BURN UP! Instead of getting down to -20F, 15 years later it will only go down to -19F – imagine the energy saving!
People who believe this crap are NITWITS!
Al Gore.
Update…
Light rain, actually a few sprinkles, causes 90% of the vendors to stuff their goods in their non hybrid car/SUV/van or old UHaul box truck for the “organic tye-dye t-shirt” guy. It lasted a couple hours before the earth caused them to flee.
I didn’t even get to ask the solar panel and wind guy hard questions to see them squirm….Boo.
Well Happy Earth Day to all our Left Wing Trolls as they worship their Pantheon and Trinity of Earth Friendly Founders:
Ira Einhorn, aka “The Unicorn Killer”
David Berkowitz, aka “Son of Sam”, “.44 Caliber Killer”
Theodore Kaczynski aka “Unibomber”
Check with your parole officers before crossing state lines to attend an Earth Day celebration
Ira Einhorn. What a schmuck!
Maybe he murdered his girlfriend to save her from the trauma of global warming and eco-disasters he knew were coming?
Isn’t it interesting that Einhorn’s attorney was none other than Arlen Specter? This guy has been nothing but trouble since the Warren Commission!
Right, and for EPA to stall on granting new mining permits is ridiculous.
It will increase electricity costs this winter, by decreasing coal stock-piles now, and cause unnecessary lay-offs in the mining industry. In terms of jobs and a viable tax base, communities built on the mining industry cannot afford the new EPA’s “greening” of America.
Why is it liberals can’t see these obvious examples of the problems, dangers, and costs associated with playing God and trying to change the weather?
Do they just say oh well, we have to save the planet and don’t take into consideration anything else? Instead of a full analysis of the problem, they do a half arsed analysis and proclaim the solution. I would be fired for submitting a proposal that does not take into account all the pros and cons to back up my proposed solution.
This same thing goes for dealing with foreign dictators and raising taxes, and telling my enemies how I interrogate them so they no longer comply.
If people lose their jobs because they have to save their planet, they will be dead of starvation and disease. Their decaying bodies will generate even more greenouse gases than they were able to reduce.
Do they worry about that bridge when they come to it?
Not a problem. They won’t let us build any bridges.
But I think they want us to jump off of one.
Simple, they consider Nature their god-the jerks really do worship trees except for the ones they cut down to make protest signs and print the NYT. People dying of starvation and disease DOES NOT bother these people of the DDT ban, opposed to irrigation projects, opposed to vaccinating animals against sleeping sickness in Africa- the Tsi tsi fly is Mother Earth’s little friend to these racist psychopaths.
I doubt I know many people who are not concerned about the environment-who try and do the right thing. But with the lies of these eco freaks, lies from the MSM, lies from the EPA is it hard to know what is the right thing. Throw the Belly god algore into the mix and it is almost mandatory to BBQ a polar bear. I was going to grill a Columbia Mammoth for Earth Day but Global Warming of the Industrial Revolution did them in-algore said so.
—-
So Arlen Specter was Ira Einhorn’s attorney–that works. Now that we know the CIA killed the girl and stuffed her in Einhorn’s closet can we assume Arlen Specter is really a KGB agent? What is it with Pennsylvania?
Coming from McCain/Nepolitano/Harry Mitchell land maybe I should not have mentioned Pennsylvania
But, but, Obama promised that only the filthy rich and greedy companies would ever see a dime of tax increases. He’s not suggesting that taxes on businesses actually “trickle down” to consumers, is he?
I just read that New York is seeing the trickle down effect right now. Con Edison just got a rate increase of 6.1 percent to cover increased costs such as property taxes and state assessment changes. The New York Times responded to the increase with this observation:
You mean, when government increases taxes and costs for businesses, the costs actually do get passed on to “economically vulnerable customers”? Who could have guessed that when you raise taxes on businesses, you’re actually raising taxes on customers.
So bring on Cap and Trade. Bring on universal health care and make businesses pay for it. Tax those greedy companies to death. That will show them!
Here’s an Earth Day special report for you:
The oceans have been cooling since 2003. (Source: Nasa)
Sea ice is growing at the fastest rate ever recorded. (Source: Arctic Research Center)
Arctic ice is back to 1979 levels, meaning no net melting has occurred in 30 years. (Source: Daily Tech)
The melting scare in recent years might have been caused by scientists having undermeasured the amount of ice by 500,000 square kilometers due to a sensor glitch, as they now red-facedly admit. (Source: Bloomberg)
Antarctic ice is at the highest levels ever recorded. (Source: Heartland Institute)
[And it is proven that the ice is expanding! (Source: The Australian)
The year 2008 saw colder temperatures across the United States. (Source: National Climatic Data Center)
It snowed in Saudi Arabia during their coldest winter in 30 years. (Yes, it snowed in the Desert Kingdom!) (Source: Arabian Business.com)
It snowed in Iraq for the first time in 100 years. (Source: Reuters)
In 2009, it snowed in the United Arab Emirates for the second time in history. When was the first time? In 2004. (Source: Associated Free Press and Terra Daily)
China had its coldest winter in 100 years. (Source: Reuters)
Pakistan had its coldest temperatures in 70 years. (Source: The Indian Express)
Australia had its coldest summer in 50 years. (Source: Bloomberg)
Mumbai, India had its coldest winter in 40 years. (Source: India News)
Takijistan, formerly part of the Soviet Union, had its coldest winter in more than 25 years. (Source: npr)
There was record cold in Vietnam. (Source: Earth Times)
A rare snowfall occurred in Jerusalem. (Source: BBC)
There has been a 20% swing towards skepticism of global warming… Starting ever since An Inconvenient Truth was released! (Source: Gallup poll)
Two thirds of people no longer believe that humans cause global warming.(Source: Rasmussen Reports poll)
Global warming is the absolute lowest of people’s concerns.(Source: Pew Research Center poll)
Citations and links at http://globalwarmingisunfactual.wordpress.com
Join the Facebook group!
PolitiFact? The first time I went to this fact check site, I was not aware it was a venture of the St. Petersburg Times. After checking their version of the truth vs actual and finding out who is the sponsor, total disbelief – once again. The MSM checking facts – the fox has nothing on these folks. They not only guard the henhouse, they own it.
Total BS.