Obama Tax cuts v. energy taxes/cost

Obama's tax cuts sound great, don't they? In fact, on a commercial for Obama he essentially purchases your vote by telling you his tax cut will put an extra 1000 in your pocket versus McCain who will put only $150 (isn't buying your vote illegal? I digress).

Did you know that 47% of our energy comes from coal? You're going to need that $1000 to pay for your energy costs when Obama not only stops new coal plants, but forces coal plants to retrofit/rebuild:

"His campaign Web site states bluntly that he will "use whatever policy tools are necessary, including standards that ban new traditional coal facilities" to deploy low carbon coal technology and that his "stringent cap on carbon will also make it uneconomic to site traditional coal facilities and discourage the use of existing inefficient coal facilities."
SOURCE

And now from the San Francisco Chronicle:
“So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.”

Response from the Ohio Coal Industry:
"Senator Obama has revealed himself to be nothing more than a short- sighted, inexperienced politician willing to say anything to get a vote."


I'm a tree hugger! A conservationist. A granola. My kids know more about conservation, recycling, and energy than most adults. But I'm wise enough to realize that by doing this in an already shaky economy, we could easily be sent into another Great Depression. This might have worked during the Clinton administration when we were doing rather well financially. But not now. Not when we will all struggle this winter to heat our homes. Not when my dad, who is ready to retire, lost half of his portfolio in the stock market crash.

I believe that solar and (esp.) wind energy are going to be big steps forward in cleaner energy. But if you've ever studied alternative energies, it's not that simple; environmentalists want clean energy, but then they complain about the look of the landscape with wind turbines and the statistics of dead birds from the blades.



Why does it matter? If it is so expensive to heat our homes, we will purchase less. If we do not purchase, the economy crashes.