November 28, 2012

Cole: Join with Obama on quick deal

Source: Politico

Republican Rep. Tom Cole urged colleagues in a private session Tuesday to vote to extend the Bush tax rates for all but the highest earners before the end of the year — and to battle over the rest later.

The Oklahoma Republican said in an interview with POLITICO that he believes such a vote would not violate Grover Norquist’s anti-tax pledge and that he’s not alone within Republican circles.

...

“I think we ought to take the 98 percent deal right now,” he said of freezing income tax rates for all but the top 2 percent of earners. “It doesn’t mean I agree with raising the top 2. I don’t.”

Instead, he told POLITICO, Republicans should fight the president over tax rates for the top earners after everyone else is taken care of. That would rob the president of the argument that Republicans are holding up tax cuts for all but the top earners, Cole said.





Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1112/84306.html?hp=l1

---

Yes, take the 98% deal. Declare victory and go home. Otherwise, you'll have to take the same deal, but with egg all over your face, in January.

November 13, 2012

Despite business opposition, California's cap-and-trade auction starts Wednesday

Despite fierce opposition from much of the business community, California's grand experiment in taming global warming begins in earnest Wednesday. State officials are set to auction tens of millions of dollars' worth of carbon-emission allowances to scores of oil refiners, cement manufacturers and other large industrial polluters.

The computerized auction marks the beginning of California's "cap-and-trade" market. The market is the centerpiece of Assembly Bill 32, the state's 2006 law aimed at reducing greenhouse gases, and Wednesday's kickoff is being closely watched.

...

Cap and trade will force affected companies to scale back their carbon pollution – or purchase allowances to get into compliance. State officials and environmentalists say the market-based approach gives companies flexibility in how they reduce emissions.

Many affected businesses call it a cleverly disguised tax that will cost them upwards of $1 billion in the first year. The expense will balloon in 2015, when refineries will have to buy more credits to cover greenhouse gases spewed by cars and trucks.

http://www.sacbee.com/2012/11/13/4980905/despite-business-opposition-californias.html

November 12, 2012

Jerry Brown: California tax vote start of national tax hike sweep

Gov. Jerry Brown said in a television interview this morning that passage of his initiative to raise taxes has national implications, with California at the start of a broader movement to increase taxes on the rich.

"Revenue means taxes, and certainly those who have been blessed the most, who have disproportionately extracted, by whatever skill, more and more from the national wealth, they're going to have to share more of that," Brown said in a taped interview on CNN's State of the Union with Candy Crowley. "And everyone is going to have to realize that building roads is important, investing in schools is important, paying for the national defense is important, biomedical research is important, the space program is an indicator of the world leader - all that takes money."

The Democratic governor's remarks follow passage last week of Proposition 30, his initiative to raise the state sales tax and income taxes on California's highest earners. Brown was governor before when the state passed its landmark tax-limiting measure, Proposition 13, in 1978.

"California was the start of the tax-cut sweep," Crowley said "Do you think California's the start of a tax increase sweep?"
"Yeah, I do," Brown said. "I was here in 1978, when (Proposition 13 backer) Howard Jarvis beat the entire establishment, Republican and Democrat, because the property taxes had just gotten out of control. Now the cutting, the cutting and the deficits are out of control. Our financial health, our credibility ... as a nation that can govern itself, is on the chopping block."

Read more here: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2012/11/jerry-brown-california-tax-vote-start-of-national-tax-hike-sweep.html#storylink=cpy

November 11, 2012

CBS News (yes, really!): The scientific truth about climate change

By CBS' David Pogue:

Here's what we know for sure: The decade beginning in the year 2000 was the hottest decade ever recorded. Arctic ice has melted to its lowest levels in recorded history, and sea levels have risen eight inches since 1870.
...
So the debate will continue over how fast the Earth is warming and what the effects will be. But on the three key questions, all my experts are unanimous.

Is climate change real? Yes.

Is human activity contributing to it? Yes.

And is there anything we can do about it? Yes.

"We can do a lot. If we decide this is serious, we can avoid most of it," said (Pieter) Tans (chief scientist at NOAA's global monitoring division).

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3445_162-57548138/the-scientific-truth-about-climate-change/?tag=re1.channel

Also, a 9-minute video saying the same thing as the article, but with visuals, stated simply so even Fox News watchers can understand, with a hopeful, "we can change this if we try" ending:

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50134919n&tag=re1.channel

November 8, 2012

LA Times: Raul Ruiz defeats Mary Bono Mack in Riverside County upset

Raul Ruiz, a Democratic emergency room doctor, eked out a victory over Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-Palm Springs) in the race for the 36th Congressional District seat in the Coachella Valley.

The often-caustic political slugfest is the first defeat for Bono Mack in her 14-year political career, which began when she was elected to replace her husband, singer Sonny Bono, in Congress after his death in a skiing accident.
...
Bono Mack accused Ruiz of being a "radical" for taking part in a Native American protest of Thanksgiving when he was a Harvard medical student in the late 1990s.

Ruiz assailed Bono Mack for supporting the budget plan of GOP vice presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin; Ruiz said the plan would decimate Medicare. The political parties and outside groups spent more than $3.3 million in the race.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/11/raul-ruiz-defeats-mary-bono-mack.html