Thursday, January 3, 2013

Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, January 3, 2013


Violence... targeted violence... is the only answer.

 For the context of the above statement simply refer to today's first newsbite...

 (Or spend a couple hours randomly browsing past stand-alone posts and newsbite!)

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5 comments:

William R. Barker said...

* THREE-PARTER... (Part 1 of 3)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323320404578216583921471560.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

In praising Congress's huge new tax increase, President Obama said Tuesday that "millionaires and billionaires" will finally "pay their fair share."

(That is, unless you are a Nascar track owner, a wind-energy company or the owners of StarKist Tuna, among many others who managed to get their taxes reduced in Congress's New Year celebration.)

There's plenty to lament about the capital and income tax hikes, but the bill's seedier underside is the $40 billion or so in tax payoffs to every crony capitalist and special pleader with a lobbyist worth his million-dollar salary.

Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) got the party started this summer when he said he would subject 75 special-interest tax breaks to a "tax reform" review. That was pretty funny. Nearly every attempt by Tom Coburn (R-OK) and others to pare back the list was defeated in a bipartisan rout.

* YEP... THIS IS AFTER ALL THE HARRY REID SENATE... THE DEMOCRAT-CONTROLLED SENATE.

The Senators even voted down, 14-10, an amendment to list the corporate interests that receive tax perks on a government website. This "tax extenders" bill passed Mr. Baucus's committee, 19-5, and then sat waiting until Harry Reid and the White House stuffed it wholesale into the "fiscal cliff" bill. Thus Michigan Democrat Debbie Stabenow was able to retain an accelerated tax write-off for owners of Nascar tracks (cost: $78 million) to benefit the paupers who control the Michigan International Speedway.

* TO BE CONTINUED...

January 3, 2013 at 11:16 AM
William R. Barker said...

* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 3)

New Mexico's Jeff Bingaman saved a tax credit for companies operating in American Samoa ($62 million), including a StarKist factory.

Distillers are able to drink to a $222 million rum tax rebate. (Perhaps this will help to finance more of those fabulous Bacardi TV ads with all those beautiful rich people.)

Businesses located on Indian reservations will receive $222 million in accelerated depreciation.

[Then] there are breaks for railroads, "New York Liberty Zone" bonds and so much more...

(*HEADACHE*)

But a special award goes to Chris Dodd, the former Senator who now roams Gucci Gulch lobbying for Hollywood's movie studios. The Senate summary of his tax victory is worth quoting in full: "The bill extends for two years, through 2013, the provision that allows film and television producers to expense the first $15 million of production costs incurred in the United States ($20 million if the costs are incurred in economically depressed areas in the United States)."

You gotta love that "depressed areas" bit.

The impoverished impresarios of Brentwood get an extra write-off if they take their film crews into, say, deepest Flatbush. (Is that because they have to pay extra to the caterers from Dean & DeLuca to make the trip? It sure can't be because they hire the jobless locals for the production crew. Those are union jobs, mate, and don't you forget it.)

The Joint Tax Committee says this Hollywood special will cost the Treasury a mere $248 million over 10 years, but over fiscal years 2013 and 2014 the cost is really $430 million because it is supposed to expire at the end of this year. In reality Mr. Dodd will wrangle another extension next year, and the year after that, and . . . . Investing a couple million in Mr. Dodd in return for $430 million in tax breaks sure beats trying to make better movies.

* FOLKS... I SWEAR... IF I WERE A BILLIONAIRE I'D...

* WELL... YOU CAN IMAGINE! (LET'S NOT PUT ANYTHING DOWN THAT MIGHT LEAD TO THE AUTHORITIES SHOWING UP AT MY DOOR...)

* TO BE CONTINUED...

January 3, 2013 at 11:16 AM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)

Then there are the green-energy giveaways that are also quickly becoming entitlements. The wind production tax credit got another one-year reprieve, thanks to Mr. Obama and GOP Senators John Thune (South Dakota) and Chuck Grassley (Iowa).

* TWO REPUBLICAN SCUMBAGS.

This freebie for the likes of the neediest at General Electric — which benefit indirectly by making wind turbine gear — is now 20 years old. Cost to taxpayers: $12 billion.

* VIOLENCE IS THE ONLY ANSWER.

Cellulosic biofuels — the great white whale of renewable energy — also had their tax credit continued, and the definition of what qualifies was expanded to include producers of "algae-based fuel" ($59 million).

Speaking of sludge, biodiesel and "renewable diesel" will continue receiving their $1 per gallon tax credit ($2.2 billion).

(The U.S. is experiencing a natural gas and oil drilling boom, but Congress still thinks algae and wind will power the future.)

Meanwhile, consumers will get tax credits for buying plug-in motorcycles ($7 million), while the manufacturers of energy-efficient appliances ($650 million) and builders of energy-efficient homes ($154 million) also retain tax credits. Manufacturers like Whirlpool love these subsidies, and they are one reason that company paid no net taxes in recent years.

(*CLAP...CLAP...CLAP*)

The great joke here is that Washington pretends to want to pass "comprehensive tax reform," even as each year it adds more tax giveaways that distort the tax code and keep tax rates higher than they have to be.

* AGAIN... TARGETED VIOLENCE IS THE ONLY ANSWER I CAN COME UP WITH. UNFORTUNATELY... IT'S NOT GONNA HAPPEN.

Even as he praised the bill full of this stuff, Mr. Obama called Tuesday night for "further reforms to our tax code so that the wealthiest corporations and individuals can't take advantage of loopholes and deductions that aren't available to most Americans."

* FOLKS... YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS SHIT UP. I'M LITERALLY GETTING SICK TO MY STOMACH NEWSBITING THIS CRAP.

One of Mr. Obama's political gifts is that he can sound so plausible describing the opposite of his real intentions.

The costs of all this are far greater than the estimates conjured by the Joint Tax Committee. They include slower economic growth from misallocated capital, lower revenues for the Treasury and thus more pressure to raise rates on everyone, and greater public cynicism that government mainly serves the powerful.

Republicans who are looking for a new populist message have one waiting here, and they could start by repudiating the corporate welfare in this New Year disgrace.

* THEY COULD... BUT THEY WON'T. THE LIKES OF GRASSLEY AND THUNE ARE THE ESTABLISHMENT GOP. (AND THE SCARY THING... THEY'RE FAR FROM THE WORST OF THE WORST!)

January 3, 2013 at 11:17 AM
William R. Barker said...

* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324001104578160983268581370.html?KEYWORDS=fracking

It has been four decades since Richard Nixon launched "Project Independence" with the goal of making the United States energy independent.

All presidents since then have said they shared that goal, yet never has it been within reach as it is today — thanks to domestic natural gas and especially to the extraction method known as hydraulic fracturing.

The International Energy Agency estimates that such technologies could allow the U.S. to supplant Saudi Arabia as the world's largest oil producer by 2020.

But... as ever... government regulation may stand in the way.

Hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," uses water and trace amounts of chemicals to create tiny fissures in deep-rock formations and coax energy-laden molecules to flow toward the surface. Fracking technology is driving America's oil and shale-gas boom, yet a White House executive order from April directs no fewer than 13 federal agencies to consider new regulations on fracking — even as it is already regulated by the states.

* I*N*S*A*N*I*T*Y...!!!

In recent years EPA has investigated fracking in three locations. In Texas and Pennsylvania, the EPA was unable to establish a link between fracking and groundwater contamination, the main ill effect that critics warn against. (Fracking contamination is the theme of "Promised Land," a movie starring Matt Damon that opened last week.)

(*ROLLING MY EYES*)

But the agency claims to have found a smoking gun at its third test site, in Pavillion, Wyo. There, according to draft findings, EPA investigators found "compounds likely associated with gas production practices, including hydraulic fracturing" appearing at levels "below established health and safety standards."

* DON'T THEY MEAN "ABOVE...???" (WELL... NEVERMIND... READ ON...)

The Pavillion study involves two water wells drilled by the agency in 2010 to test groundwater quality. Experts from the Wyoming Water Development Commission and elsewhere sharply criticized the EPA's results on several grounds, including that EPA investigators didn't follow their own guidelines on the timeliness of the testing and the purity of the water samples. The federal Bureau of Land Management said that "much more robust" testing would be needed to properly draw conclusions.

(*SNORT*)

So the EPA agreed to test the wells again, in April and May of last year 2012. In October, it claimed again to have found contaminated water. But this time there was a new wrinkle: The U.S. Geological Survey had conducted tests alongside the EPA, and its investigators reported different results. Unlike the EPA, the USGS failed to find any traces of glycols or 2-butoxyethanol, fracking-related chemicals that could cause serious health issues if they entered the water supply at levels the EPA considers contamination.

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

* TO BE CONTINUED...

January 3, 2013 at 12:21 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

Meanwhile, the USGS found significantly lower concentrations of other materials identified by the EPA — including phenol, potassium and diesel-range organics — which might not have resulted from the fracking at all. The phenols were likely introduced accidentally in the laboratory, for example, and potassium might be naturally occurring or the result of potash contained in the cement used to build the EPA wells.

The USGS also noted that in constructing the monitoring wells, the EPA used a "black painted/coated carbon steel casing," and EPA photographs show that investigators used a painted device to catch sand from the wells. The problem is that paint can contain a variety of compounds that distort test results — so it is poor scientific practice to use painted or coated materials in well-monitoring tests.

* DUH...!!!

After initially neglecting to disclose this information, the EPA eventually acknowledged it, but only while attempting to deflect criticism by releasing more test results and claiming that its data are "generally consistent" with the USGS findings.

(*SMIRK*)

These actions only muddied the matter and postponed the peer-review process until after Jan. 15.

(*NOD*)

As the Tulsa-based energy and water-management firm ALL Consulting concluded: "Close review of the EPA draft report and associated documents reveals a number of concerns about the methodology, sampling results, and study findings and conclusions. These concerns stem from apparent errors in sampling and laboratory analysis, incomplete information that makes it difficult to assess the validity of the results, and EPA's failure to seriously consider alternative explanations for the results of its investigation. . . . Taken together, these concerns call into question the validity of EPA's analytical results and their conclusions regarding the sources of the reported contamination."

With no clear connection between fracking and groundwater contamination, it is premature and counterproductive to propose new federal regulations on the practice. Shoddy science should not form the basis of federal policy.

* BUT IT DOES! AGAIN AND AGAIN IT DOES!

The fracking-facilitated development of shale gas and oil could create two million new jobs and billions in tax revenue over the next two decades, according to the research firm IHS Global Insight. Rather than look for reasons to stand in its way, the federal government should embrace hydraulic fracturing and take full advantage of its economic and security benefits.

* GOOD LUCK WITH THAT OVER THE NEXT FOUR YEARS OF OBAMA'S SECOND TERM...

January 3, 2013 at 12:21 PM

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