In a further example of the rush to the bottom in our political system, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told the Conservative Political Action Conference that he intends to scrap the EPA which he claims has waged a “war on American energy.”
Gingrich wants to create an Environmental Solutions Agency that rewards innovation. It is an incredible statement about the extreme of the conservative movement. While insisting that they are fighting for family values, they would eliminate the agency that protects the health of our families and particularly our children. The EPA is already struggling with limited funding and enforcement capacity. Yet, Gingrich wants to eliminate it — and views that pledge as a key to securing Republican votes.
Source: HuffPost
Ah yes… the conservative opportuntity society is once again on the march…
Has Newt been spending time with Mayor Bloomberg or Governor Cuomo recently…. he should inform them again about that little noticed reason for the original tea partiers to gather in Boston back in the 1770’s….
Court: NY Can Tax All Income of Owner of NY Vacation Home Used 17 Days/Year
Wall Street Journal, Out-of-State Owners Could Face Tax Bill:
Connecticut and New Jersey residents with a Hamptons summer cottage or a Manhattan pied-a-terre are about to get a nasty surprise: New York state wants more taxes from them.
A New York court ruled last month that all income earned by a New Canaan, Conn., couple is subject to New York state taxes because they own a summer home on Long Island they used only a few times a year. They have been hit with an additional tax bill of $1.06 million. [In re Barker, No. 822324 (NY Tax App. Jan. 13, 2011).] ….
For years, New York law stated that residents of another state who spend more than 183 days a year in New York have to pay taxes on any income they make in this state. But they generally haven’t had to pay New York taxes on income they make outside of the state or on their spouses’ income if they work elsewhere.
Under the recent ruling, this might change for many out-of-state residents who own vacation homes or apartments here. In effect, it reinterprets what counts as a permanent residence.
In defining a “permanent place of abode,” New York tax code specifically excludes “a mere camp or cottage, which is suitable and used only for vacations.” New York tax experts say the new ruling is the first they recall that counts summer homes as permanent residences. ….
[The judge] ruled that the couple’s Long Island vacation home qualifies under the law as a permanent abode because it was suitable for living year-round—whether or not the couple actually stayed in the home wasn’t relevant. Under the ruling, if an owner doesn’t spend a single a day in a home it could still count toward a permanent residence.
The Napeague, Long Island, house was purchased by John and Laura Barker for $260,000 in 1997, according to court documents. From 2002 to 2004, the period that was assessed for back taxes, the Barkers said they spent only [17] days a year at the home, usually during the summer.
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This also dovetails rather nicely with the news in a previous post about the move to strip college students of their voting rights in some states… but retain the right to tax any income that they earn.
So once again it seems… the only opportunity that most politicians are interested in is the opportunity to spend other peoples’s money… from whatever source derived…
anywhere any time… you don’t even have to live there… and
they certainly don’t want you voting there.
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Think Egypt.
UUMMMMMM!:
“The country has changed in that we are even more of a meritocracy today than at any time in the past. Women, minorities, gays, Jews … all can now work on Wall Street, in law firms, start businesses, and enter the market without being run out of town. Merely being one of the boys isn’t enough anymore. The level of shrillness is nothing but the last, desperate gasps of an aging demographic group left over from a time when America meant apple pie and baseball for some and lynchings, beatings, and disenfranchisement for others.”
http://www.joshuakennon.com/what-take-our-country-back-really-means/
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2011/02/obamas-epa-is-bulls-eye-of-house-gop-budget-cuts/1
Newt is a sad clown, with a better vocabulary than Palin, but far surpasses even her in incompetence and cynicism.
“I want you off the wall if you’re playin’ the wall.” – Beastie Boys
Well does not this announcement just make official what has been happening for years?
The programs they want cut,the agencies that they want to eliminate,it turns out the Urban Dictionary has a definition for people who think like Gingrich
“Off the wall
So crazy that it is hard to understand
Dang, that was so off the wall crazy, that it was off the wall and then back ON the wall.”
The Koch Brothers have pledged to spend 88 million dollars in 2012 ans they are not giving it to the democrats.
“and how would that effect commerce……..?”
W=c,
It would create a wave of litigation like a tsunami.
For example, look at health care insurance. It is controlled by a patchwork of state regulation which allows two effects: 1) the insurance industry to game the system in denying coverage and rigging rates and 2) creates a huge burden on the efficacy of the health care provision system. Centralization of control as an organizational process has two primary benefits: efficiency and standardization. Like any tool, centralization can be misused either in application (e.g. the unitary Executive illegal expansion of powers) or in not using it when appropriate to gain systemic efficiencies (e.g. regulation of pollution and insurance).
The polluters would welcome dismantling the EPA because it would create a regulatory patchwork for them to exploit ala health care insurance providers and a lack of standardization they could begin to exploit allowing them to pollute and toxify to their greedy lil’ black hearts content. The only people who would benefit from this are attorneys, CEO’s and shareholders. The people it will harm is everybody. Everybody who like clean air, potable water and non-toxic soil in which to grow healthy food.
I agree Mike A., they don’t say it openly. They don’t have to. It’s done quietly during the regulatory process when the lobbyists write it all up and that’s the end of it. Republicans are open frauds and Newt is particularly loathsome!
Hi, Jill. I have seen the film and I agree with you. Whenever Newt Gingrich opens his mouth, however, my hyperbole gland goes into overdrive. But I would note that I am not aware of any Democrats who have called for abolition of the EPA, the Department of Education, social security, Medicare or the Federal Reserve. In Republican ideology, freedom’s just another word for nothing left to use.
“EPA type departments need to be run through the state governments, not the feds. ”
and how would that effect commerce……..?
Mike A.,
Have you seen the film, “Inside Job”? It is an examination of the economic devastation which has befallen our nation. The documentary clearly shows the complete collusion between both Democrats and Republicans in this disaster.
I believe Democrats make a serious mistake by attributing everything bad to the other party while completely missing the complicity of their own party. It has taken both Republicans and Democrats to gut environmental protections, wage war for oil and deregulate the financial industry. That is the truth.
Thinking that it is only Republicans keeps everyone in the dark about the corporate oligarchy–people who use anyone from any party who will do their bidding (and they get a lot of takers!).
Cannot stand Newt, but this is a great idea.
EPA type departments need to be run through the state governments, not the feds.
Again, no constitutional authority.
I have grown exceedingly weary of the tendency of conservatives to describe every policy disagreement as a “war” against American values. I am certain that Koch Industries regards the EPA as the bureaucratic equivalent of the Antichrist. And Mr. Gingrich is dutifully spreading the message.
In 2004 I attended my 40th high school reunion and learned that one of my classmates had been an EPA attorney for many years. I jokingly asked him if he found himself with a lot of free time on his hands under the Bush administration. He laughed and told me my observation was truer than I might have thought.
For the first eight years of this century, the real wars were waged by Republicans. We commenced wars in the Middle East to impose democracy by the sword. We deregulated the financial industry to permit the “free market” to grow the economy. We imposed a de facto ban on protecting the health and safety of American workers and families by failing to enforce existing regulations or implement new ones. Those policies produced results with which we are all familiar: the prostitution of the Constitution and fundamental values to a bloated, privatized war machine; economic collapse and a burgeoning national debt; the Upper Big Branch and Sago mine disasters; the continued devastation from the Deepwater Horizon explosion; and the decline in international respect for U.S. credibility and moral leadership.
The neo-con militarists are now heavily engaged in writing a revisionist history of the war in Iraq. Neo-secessionists are writing revisionist histories of slavery and the Civil War to reinvigorate the false doctrine of states rights. And Mr. Gingrich and his colleagues are raising revisionist arguments about economic and environmental history. All of this, of course, is intended to preserve the myths of American exceptionalism, free market capitalism and Christian righteousness.
I suggest that in the interests of symbolic accuracy, Republicans abandon the elephant in favor of the Three Wise Monkeys.
Gingrich is nothing more than a late night info-ad pitch man with a sullied and useless product line. Click.
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At least Ron Popeil was harmless and kind of entertaining…
Thanks…Hepburn is my hero and Lion in Winter is in my top five of movies.
Gingrich is nothing more than a late night info-ad pitch man with a sullied and useless product line. Click.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCBq1mPnztY&w=480&h=390]
“he intends to scrap the EPA”
What does *intends* mean? Does he have some authority I don’t know about? Or some prospect of getting it?