Redstate

Posted at 10:27am on Jan. 18, 2007 HR 6: Toward More Energy Dependence

By Pat Cleary

Last Election Day, in a rare victory for common sense in California, voters turned back a measure that would have put a surtax on oil produced in the state. Wisely, the electorate saw this for what it was: An attempt to make California oil more expensive to produce. The effect was easy to see: Production would be driven to other states and the price of gas would climb in the Golden State. Having failed in California, a prominent Californian, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, aims now to take this bad idea national in the form of H.R. 6, which will likely reach the House floor today.

What H.R. 6 will do is repeal several tax provisions -- or at least insofar as they apply to one industry -- duly passed by bi-partisan majorities in both houses. Unfortunately (from Pelosi & Company's perspective) some of these provisions benefit the oil industry by rewarding domestic exploration and production. Oh, the horrors! For example, it will rule oil and gas companies ineligible for an otherwise-legitimate tax deduction as a domestic manufacturer (in their case, of petroleum and petroleum by-products, like gasoline) under Sect. 199 of the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 and will adversely change recently-passed depreciation rules for energy exploration activities. In so doing, it will not only take away some of the incentive for domestic exploration and production, but it will drive up the price of oil and will drive exploration overseas, making us even more dependent on foreign sources of oil. In other words, it will do to the US what the failed California proposition threatened to do to California.

And lest you think this cleverly-named CLEAN Act is about energy, think again. First of all, this is a Ways & Means Committee bill, an odd point of origination for energy legislation. Second, the Dems' fact sheet on the bill is rife with poll-tested class warfare gibberish, sneering about "raking in record profits" and "Big Oil Giveaways." Never mind that 90% of the nation's oil and gas wells are drilled by the small independent producers and that ExxonMobil paid over twice as much in taxes in the 3d quarter of '06 than they made in profits. This is a crusade, get outta the way.

You would think "energy dependence" would be a loser of a political cause, but apparently not when wrapped in Big Oil rhetoric. At the end of the day, HR 6 will leave us far more dependent on foreign sources of energy. The so-called CLEAN Act is one more step in the Dems' war on profits, and a big step in the wrong direction on energy.

Posted in Energy — Comments (4) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 1:38pm on Oct. 26, 2006 The Democrats' Agenda: What's Past is Prologue

By Pat Cleary

It's funny -- the press calls about what will happen if the Dems take control of the House have now subsided as the press has pre-ordained the election results. Instead the news has turned to what a swell Speaker Nancy Pelosi will be.

As for us, we're still stuck back on the first question, wondering what their agenda might be. And so we took a lil' stroll down memory lane, went into the archives to see what was on the agenda last time they steered the ship. Among their priorities was a failed attempt at a nationalized system of health care, a BTU energy tax, OSHA expansion legislation, efforts to re-write the National Labor Relations Act to make it easier for unions to organize, efforts to mandate equal pay and to ban discrimination against parents. That's right, parents.

Posted in Elections — Comments (3) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 10:56am on Oct. 12, 2006 The Aleuts Make a Stand for Patriotism

By Pat Cleary

It is by now well-known that in a deal brokered by former Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-MA) and current Rep. William Delahunt (D-MA), Venezuelan strongman, Castro ally and all-around thug Hugo Chavez agreed to sell 12 million gallons of discounted oil to low-income families in Massachusetts. This was great PR for Chavez as he tries to spread his "I'm not such a bad guy after all" income redistribution gospel around the world. Heck, even Charlie Rangel told him he wasn't welcome in his city any more after Chavez came to the UN and called the President "the devil." No matter.

Posted in Energy — Comments (4) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:49am on Sep. 28, 2006 More Sloppy Journalism from the WaPo

By Pat Cleary

It is one of the central tenets of effective communications to not repeat a bad story, but we will violate it in the spirit of making a point about the WaPo's sloppy journalism

Exhibit A is Steve Pearlstein's piece in Wednesday's Post entitled, "No Longer No. 1 and No Wonder." As we noted yesterday, we released a study on the cost disadvantage we have with our trading competitors. We embargoed the study -- or any stories on it -- until our press conference at 9 a.m. on Wednesday. Pearlstein wanted a dispensation from the embargo since he was writing about the new World Economic Forum report and wanted to tie in our study but we held firm. And, we figured it'd be a bad story anyway. As you'll see, not having the facts didn't really deter him.

Posted in Miscellanea — Comments (6) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 12:44pm on Aug. 28, 2006 Of Hurricanes and Hockey

By Pat Cleary

While writing our weepy tome below on Katrina we went to the City of New Orleans website. If you go there and look at the top left corner, you'll see a picture of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin. Next to his photo, you'll see some links. We clicked on "BNOB", to get information on the "Bring New Orleans Back" program. When we did, we got the website for the Dallas Junior Hockey Association.

Posted in Blogosphere — Comments (2) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:52am on Aug. 25, 2006 Katrina: Climate or Engineering Disaster?

By Pat Cleary

Giving credit where it's due, thanks to RealClimate.org for the link to this site, called, "No Se Nada." As we near the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, there will be lots of finger-pointing and opportunism from the left. (Isn't it funny that Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour isn't whining, as he got his house in order...?). There will be carping about the Bush Administration (we'll write more about that this weekend) and there will be the global warming Gore-ist opportunists.

Posted in Blogosphere — Comments (41) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 12:04pm on Aug. 23, 2006 Potential Democratic Committee Chairs

By Pat Cleary

Following up on a post from Erick of a few months ago, here's a list of the likely Democratic leadership and committee chairs in a Democratic-controlled House or Senate.

Also included are their NAM vote ratings – for existing and would-be chairs alike. We should emphasize that these voter ratings are decided by our members -- manufacturers large and small -- not by Washington staff, unlike most other groups.

Posted in Archived — Comments (4) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 7:41am on Aug. 23, 2006 The WaPo: Which Is It?

By Pat Cleary

It's almost comical to read the WaPo every day. In the last month, they've had almost a daily dose of stories about how badly they expect the Republicans to be trounced in the upcoming elections, their glee barely disguised. And so it was no surprise that this story by Zachary Goldfarb appeared on Sunday entitled, "GOP's Financial Edge Shrinks: Challengers Gain On Incumbents." The first two paragraphs read like this:

Posted in 2006 — Comments (4) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 11:46am on Jul. 27, 2006 Watch President's Speech Live Today

By Pat Cleary

The President will speak to the NAM today at about 1:30 EDT. His top economic adviser, Al Hubbard will speak first, around 1:15.

We will be offering live webcast of the event at this link. It will be available at that same link for viewing later as well.

Posted in User Blogs — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 1:09pm on Jul. 16, 2006 Staring Into The Abyss: France Head-Butts Entrepreneurship

By Pat Cleary

Good article in the WaPo today by Molly Moore entitled, "Old Money, New Money Flee France and Its Wealth Tax."  It notes therein France's continued prominence on Forbes' annual Tax Misery Index and the resulting flight of entrepreneurs and capital. In France is an object lesson for us all. Their tax rates are so high that in some cases, notes Moore, a person's tax bills can be higher than their incomes. This "wealth tax", officially called the "solidarity tax", says Moore, "is collected on top of income, capital gains, inheritance and social security taxes." This is a tax that has brought in $2.6 billion annually but is estimated to have cost France over $125 billion in capital flight since 1998. This is like our own death tax that costs more to collect than it brings into the treasury. Lunacy.

Incidentally, the WaPo might take a page out of the WaPo's book. They're the ones who keep saying that tax cuts won't help the deficit, but unfortunately for them, reality overtook their flawed theoretical argument. Tax cuts lead to growth. Higher taxes stifle growth.

So let us walk to the edge of the abyss that is France's economic policy and hopefully learn an important lesson. We need to keep taxes low so that entrepreneurship and innovation -- our lifeblood -- can flourish.

Posted in User Blogs — Comments (3) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 12:56am on Jul. 16, 2006 Global Warming Boggarts

By Pat Cleary

In the Harry Potter books, the Boggarts are a special kind of foe that will always take the form of the thing you dread most. Looks like global warming is the 2006 version of the Boggarts.

Yesterday's WaPo had on its front page a story we ran here back in May, ie.., that global warming was making poison ivy grow. Isn't it bad enough that the media's been in a  feeding frenzy over global warming for the past year? Do they really have to keep re-heating the old stories and old theories? No matter, here's the idea: pick something that skeeves people out and blame it on global warming. Next it will lead to more monsters under the bed.

Here's what we don't understand: Along he same lines of our post of a few days ago, is more vegetation a bad thing, even if it's poison ivy? The story last week said that global warming was causing trees to grow in Antarctica. That's good, isn't it? Would it be better if trees and vines were dying off? Wouldn't that be worse for the environment?

So mark us down as confused. The bottom line apparently is that global warming is causing all the bad stuff you can think of. It's killing the stuff you like and causing the stuff you don't like to grow faster.

Curse you, Boggarts!

Posted in User Blogs — Comments (14) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:09am on Jul. 14, 2006 The NEA Spends $8 Million -- Not on Education

By Pat Cleary

"The National Education Association (NEA), the nation's largest professional employee organization," says their website, "is committed to advancing the cause of public education."

And so it was a little shocking when USA Today reported earlier this week that the NEA has dished out over $8 million -- which is still a lot of money to us -- to various left-wing groups to fight the No Child Left Behind Act. This law of course pushes concepts like accountability and other notions considered heresy by the NEA. According to this study by Education Sector, among the groups benefiting from the NEA's largess were the left-leaning Americans for Democratic Action and an NEA front group called Communities for Quality Education.

At a per pupil spending rate in the US of roughly $8000, figure the NEA just flushed enough money down the rathole to educate a thousand kids. Sure is a funny way to advance the cause of public education.

Posted in User Blogs — Comments (4) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:22am on Jul. 13, 2006 The ATLA: Putting Lipstick on a Pig

By Pat Cleary

According to this story, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA) is poised to change the name of their organization to the American Association for Justice. We can only conclude that the "Association of Money-Hungry Plaintiff's Lawyers Who Don't Give A Damn About Justice" probably didn't test well. This is a classic case of putting lipstick on a pig. It won't work.

Any suggestions for a more accurate name for this group of ambulance-chasers...?

Posted in User Blogs — Comments (11) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 7:44am on Jul. 12, 2006 The Shrinking Deficit: Whose Talking Points Are These...?

By Pat Cleary

Is it just us or does the New York Times Tuesday "what's the big deal about the shrinking deficit?" editorial make the same arguments as the Democrats' talking points and Democrat Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi's statement....?

Posted in User Blogs — Comments (23) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 7:35am on Jul. 11, 2006 John Sweeney: Another Big Splash, Another Big Failure

By Pat Cleary

Poor John Sweeney, king of the disappearing AFL-CIO. First the guy presides over the slow withering away of his membership and then stubbornly refused to step down, causing the entire labor movement to split in two. But you gotta hand it to the guy -- he's undaunted.

He's always been one to rule by press release, issuing a splashy proclamation, announcing some ambitious plan and then hoping like H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks that nobody remembers. And, he's usually been lucky in that regard as Washington is not a city blessed with institutional memory. Indeed, every day begins anew.

Read on . . .

Posted in User Blogs — Comments (4) / Email this page » / Read More »