What’s Missing Here?
January 10th, 2008 | by Craig |This article in the Gazette talks about a think tank (refreshingly described as “left-leaning,” which is nice) here in Montana that wants to reinstate a fuel tax that was repealed in 1999 in order to fund the “Office of Energy Conservation”, which will, according to the group, “produce ‘hundreds of millions of dollars’ in economic benefits to Montana.
For the low, low price of just 1/2 to 3/4 million dollars per year, the Office of Energy Conservation will tax us into prosperity because:
“Enormous economic gains can be obtained through conservation, and many of those gains are distributed widely among all citizens,” said Bob Decker, executive director of the Helena-based Policy Institute.
[. . .]
Conservation and other proposals from the climate change group have a $750 million economic benefit for Montana over the next dozen years, Decker said.
Needless to say, I was very interested by this assertion. Parlaying $7.5 million over 10 years into $750 million over 12 years seems like a pretty good ROI to me, so I continued reading the article to find out just how those economic gains would be realized.
You can see where this is going already, can’t you?
Yup, there’s bupkus in the article about exactly where these “enormous economic gains” are coming from.
Perhaps they have a website where these position papers are laid out for examination and/or criticism.
Yup, bupkus there, too, but the website itself is definitely worth a read.
The secret, I think, lies in the last graf of the article, which is the mission statement for the Policy Institute.
The Institute describes itself as a think tank that pushes public policy “based on economic justice, fair taxation, corporate accountability and environmental responsibility.”
Now it’s all makes sense, doesn’t it? Increased taxes on “the rich” and income redistribution for all.
If this does come to pass, I’d be willing to wager right now, that in 10 years, the office will have grown to 20 people, occupy a new building and tripled its operating budget (which still won’t be enough) and has a net result of near zero dollars actually put into Montana’s economy.
I’m probably lowballing the budget number, too.
One Response to “What’s Missing Here?”
By montanamainstreetblog on Jan 10, 2008 | Reply
High energy prices are just below high health care costs for Montanans in our last P-base poll of Montana voters. Increasing taxes on fuel is about as popular as Congress itself. Good post.