Posted on 03/03/2009 4:28:30 PM PST by listenhillary
WASHINGTON, D.C. - President Obama sent his newly-minted economic gurus to Capitol Hill Tuesday to sell his $3.6 trillion budget to Congress.
White House Budget Director Peter Orszag started his testimony by telling members of the House Budget Committee that the spending outlays aren't as much as they seem.
"This budget is not a big spending budget," Orszag said. "Unlike what has occurred in the past, we pay for new initiatives in energy, education, and health care."
Much of the money to pay for those new initiatives will come from taxes. Orszag testified that half of the health care reform initiative will be paid for by dialing back tax write-offs for itemized deductions. Orszag says it would affect just the top 1.2 percent of taxpayers.
To make those $400 and $800 "middle class" tax cuts permanent, the administration plans to raise $80 billion a year by making companies that burn coal, oil, or natural gas pay for their pollution. Both Orszag and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner agreed that the costs would be passed on to consumers.
"Ultimately one of the things that will happen," responded Orszag, "is higher energy prices which will be borne throughout the economy."
That means gas, heating, electricity -- and any product made using fossil fuels.
Geithner told the House Ways and Means Committee that will achieve the goal of reducing our carbon footprint.
"If people don't change how they use energy then they will face higher costs for energy." warned Geithner.
The scenarios vary on how much. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, under the direction of Mr. Orszag prior to his appointment to the White House, estimated a "Cap & Trade" program would cost households between $560 and $1,800 a year, and that "poorer households would bear most of the burden".
Geithner and Orszag said the middle class tax cuts would help offset the increased energy costs, but Representative Dave Camp (R-MI) doubted that.
(There went your tax cut)
"The 20 cents an hour you might get under make work pay is not enough to cover the $1.60 extra per gallon EPA says gas would cost, let alone an 80 percent jump in electricity rates," said Rep. Camp.
Despite the criticism, both of the President's men defended the carbon tax, and the rest of the budget, saying it's our best shot to right the ship.
Secretary Geithner laid out the defense in his opening statement.
"This is a moral imperative, it's an economic imperative, and it's a fiscal imperative for the country", said Geithner, while Orszag chose to quote a song by country music star Toby Keith: "There's no right way to do the wrong thing."
Sorry for the crappy title, I didn't do it. I was simply looking for Geithner's comments today about cap and trade and this was all I could find.
Why psychobabble? Obama is a communist. Case closed.
And for everything else. Including the loss of their liberty.
...too bad being an idiot isn’t a hanging offense.
Orszag chose to quote a song by country music star Toby Keith: “There’s no right way to do the wrong thing.”
Does this mean they know they are doing the wrong thing?
Ping for later.
Did anyone ask them if the carbon tax policy was run through a climate model. Will the earth get cooler as a result? How many fewer hurricanes will there be?
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