The thrust of the ideas are necessary, but I'm skeptical of the legislation.
I'm skeptical of the continuing EV credit helping much. Something like a quarter of carbon emissions from the US are due to transportation. Focusing on the 50% arising from electricity and industrial generation seems like the closest alligator to the canoe. We know how to make static green energy sources and those technologies have rapidly increased in efficiency. Schumer has admitted that the EV credits don't amount to much in emissions reduction. I do like the incentives for building solar, wind and nuclear which appears to be part of the bill, but I would like to see more of how it plays out before passing judgment.
I like the carbon capture funding. Getting carbon out of the air is going to be an important part of climate fighting as we lower emissions because of how long it takes CO2 to dissipate from the atmosphere. It will be past the year 3000 before CO2 levels get back to normal absent technological intervention. This technology is inefficient right now and it could use an innovation funding boost.
If this actually does result in deficit reduction, deficit reduction is indeed essential as our debt to GDP ratio is out of control. Just like businesses, countries go bankrupt slowly and then quickly. The United States falling into a sovereign debt crisis would trigger a world wide depression and likely lead to massive stability concerns. Josh is 100% wrong that austerity was not necessary in 2013. But he is 100% right that it is needed now and it is needed even more than it was in 2013. The problem is that United States federal government receipts to GDP stays within a relatively narrow band of 15-20%. Which makes GDP growth the easier way to drive increases in receipts. Finding a tax policy that maximizes current receipts without a substantial impact on future receipts (like wealth tax for example) is pretty important. I don't see great evidence that we're on wrong side of the Laffer curve, which means increasing taxes is the correct thing to do (as is lowering spending, but these are Democrats so they aren't going to espouse that policy anytime soon, and Republicans don't know how to lower spending either).
None of this seems necessary
The thrust of the ideas are necessary, but I'm skeptical of the legislation.
I'm skeptical of the continuing EV credit helping much. Something like a quarter of carbon emissions from the US are due to transportation. Focusing on the 50% arising from electricity and industrial generation seems like the closest alligator to the canoe. We know how to make static green energy sources and those technologies have rapidly increased in efficiency. Schumer has admitted that the EV credits don't amount to much in emissions reduction. I do like the incentives for building solar, wind and nuclear which appears to be part of the bill, but I would like to see more of how it plays out before passing judgment.
I like the carbon capture funding. Getting carbon out of the air is going to be an important part of climate fighting as we lower emissions because of how long it takes CO2 to dissipate from the atmosphere. It will be past the year 3000 before CO2 levels get back to normal absent technological intervention. This technology is inefficient right now and it could use an innovation funding boost.
If this actually does result in deficit reduction, deficit reduction is indeed essential as our debt to GDP ratio is out of control. Just like businesses, countries go bankrupt slowly and then quickly. The United States falling into a sovereign debt crisis would trigger a world wide depression and likely lead to massive stability concerns. Josh is 100% wrong that austerity was not necessary in 2013. But he is 100% right that it is needed now and it is needed even more than it was in 2013. The problem is that United States federal government receipts to GDP stays within a relatively narrow band of 15-20%. Which makes GDP growth the easier way to drive increases in receipts. Finding a tax policy that maximizes current receipts without a substantial impact on future receipts (like wealth tax for example) is pretty important. I don't see great evidence that we're on wrong side of the Laffer curve, which means increasing taxes is the correct thing to do (as is lowering spending, but these are Democrats so they aren't going to espouse that policy anytime soon, and Republicans don't know how to lower spending either).