GOP looks to do away with tax subsidies in order to create tax cuts for everyone

Washington Free Beacon:
Tesla CEO Elon Musk's decision to quit serving as a business adviser to President Trump because of Trump's exit from the Paris climate accord is spurring additional scrutiny of the billions of dollars in tax subsidies Tesla, SolarCity, and other Musk companies have received over the last decade.

The Heritage Foundation's Stephen Moore called the "green-energy" tax credits Musk and his companies have benefited from "low-hanging" fruit that could help Republicans offset plans to lower the corporate rate, estimating there could be $150 billion in savings over 10 years by ending them.

"We're scrounging for offsets so those credits and subsidies are the low-hanging fruit," he told the Washington Free Beacon Friday.

Moore said Trump's decision to leave the Paris Agreement is a sign of the changing times with Republicans in control of the White House and Congress, and that Musk is simply reacting to the less hospitable political environment.

"Elon Musk has received $4.9 billion" in green tax benefits, Moore said. "He has a vested interest in making sure these subsidies continue so of course he's mad at Trump."

Trump pledged to end the climate accord on the campaign trail. Musk's decision to leave Trump's advisory team has only fueled more criticism of the green subsides and how he has made his living.

"Good riddance," said Benjamin Zycher, an American Enterprise Institute scholar and a vocal critic of the Paris deal. Musk's entire business model is based on government subsidies, Zycher added.
...
This would fit in with the GOP belief that Washington should not be picking winners and losers.  Let the free market make those choices and consumers will be better off.  Musk gets subsidies for selling inefficient solar energy and his car company gets government help with tax credits to the one percent who are buying what few cars he produces.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t
Read more

Bin Laden's concern about Zarqawi's remains

James Robbins: ... Bin Laden suggests that President Bush should allow Zarqawi’s body to be returned to his family in Jordan, but this is a matter that is up to the Jordanian government, which so far has not shown much interest in facilitating a homecoming. Bin Laden mocks King Abdullah II, calling him a Coalition minion, and asking “w hat scares you about Abu Musab after he’s dead? You know that his funeral, if allowed to happen, would be a huge funeral showing the extent of sympathy with the mujahedin.” A large crowd would definitely turn out, though most people would be on hand to demonstrate their anger and disgust. Last November’s hotel bombings in Amman , masterminded by Zarqawi, are still fresh in people’s memory, and mentioning them to Jordanians has the same visceral impact as memory of the 9/11 attacks does here. Jordan has adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards those who choose to mourn the country’s least favorite son, and four opposition members of parliament who paid con
Read more