Since 2000, the United States has reduced its carbon dioxide emissions more than any other country in the world. U.S. emissions are down 21 percent, while the rest of the world has increased its emissions by 47 percent. Clearly, America “showing leadership” reducing carbon dioxide emissions is leading to nothing other than the rest of the world free license to jack up their own emissions.
The Biden administration has just signed an economic suicide pact that would require the United States and six other Western democracies to shut down its coal power plants by 2035, while China, India and the rest of the world currently have more than 1,000 new coal power plants in the planning or construction phase. The no-coal pact allows all nations but the Suicidal Seven to continue using as much affordable coal power as they like.
Climate activists often point to China as a climate role model, noting that China manufactures more wind and solar power equipment than any other nation. China, however, isn’t stupid enough to use much of that equipment. Realizing that conventional energy – and especially coal power – is more affordable and reliable than wind and solar power, China manufactures wind and solar equipment, sells the equipment to America and Western Europe, and then powers its own economy primarily with coal power.
In America, government intervention has already caused the shutdown of many coal power plants and the construction of expensive wind and solar projects. In more than half the states, renewable power mandates require a certain percentage of electricity in the state to come from wind or solar. Federal laws and regulations punish coal power at nearly every step of coal mining and utilization. Massive subsidies for wind and solar allow wind and solar providers to charge substantially reduced prices for their product at taxpayers’ expense.
Even with government tipping the scale so heavily in favor of wind and solar power, the so-called green transition is coming with an enormous price tag. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, there was a 21 percent increase in wind and solar power since Joe Biden took office in January 2021 through the end of 2023. At the same time, electricity prices also rose by 21 percent. Prior to Biden taking office, the long-term electricity price trend was an increase of approximately 1 percent per year. The green transition has increased the pace of electricity price inflation by 700 percent. And that doesn’t account for all the wind and solar subsidies that are hidden in our tax bills.
There is little reason to believe we are on the verge of a climate crisis. A good resource documenting this good news is ClimateRealism.com. Yet, even if a climate crisis were imminent, unilateral coal disarmament is a foolish way for America to approach carbon dioxide emissions.
Since 2000, the United States has reduced its carbon dioxide emissions more than any other country in the world. U.S. emissions are down 21 percent, while the rest of the world has increased its emissions by 47 percent. Clearly, America “showing leadership” reducing carbon dioxide emissions is leading to nothing other than the rest of the world free license to jack up their own emissions. Even if the United States and the rest of the Suicidal Seven could somehow eliminate all of their emissions, it would have little impact on the global trend.
Ultimately, Biden’s pact to eliminate American coal use will further ramp up inflation. After all, energy is an important cost component in almost every product bought and sold in the economy. In addition to the inflation impact, Biden’s pact will force American businesses into a major competitive disadvantage versus businesses in China, India, and the rest of the world, which will be paying substantially lower energy costs than American businesses.
Under Biden’s plan, we will end up sinking vast economic resources into eliminating coal power and as much carbon dioxide as possible from the American economy. Even then, we will still be looking at global emissions continuing to rise. At that point, Biden’s plan is for America to assume the lion’s share of global “climate reparations” and financial bribes to induce China, India, and the rest of the world to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions. After sabotaging our own economy with higher energy prices, we will literally borrow money from China in order to then bribe China to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions.
It would be hard to think of a crazier domestic energy policy.
James Taylor ([email protected]) is president of The Heartland Institute.
Originally published by The Center Square. Republished with permission.
For more on the U.S. electric power system, click here.
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People criticize capitalism. A recent Axios-Generation poll says, “College students prefer socialism to capitalism.”
Why?
Because they believe absurd myths. Like the claim that the Soviet Union “wasn’t real socialism.”
Socialism guru Noam Chomsky tells students that. He says the Soviet Union “was about as remote from socialism as you could imagine.”
Give me a break.
The Soviets made private business illegal.
If that’s not socialism, I’m not sure what is.
“Socialism means abolishing private property and … replacing it with some form of collective ownership,” explains economist Ben Powell. “The Soviet Union had an abundance of that.”
Socialism always fails. Look at Venezuela, the richest country in Latin America about 40 years ago. Now people there face food shortages, poverty, misery and election outcomes the regime ignores.
But Al Jazeera claims Venezuela’s failure has “little to do with socialism, and a lot to do with poor governance … economic policies have failed to adjust to reality.”
“That’s the nature of socialism!” exclaims Powell. “Economic policies fail to adjust to reality. Economic reality evolves every day. Millions of decentralized entrepreneurs and consumers make fine tuning adjustments.”
Political leaders can’t keep up with that.
Still, pundits and politicians tell people, socialism does work — in Scandinavia.
“Mad Money’s Jim Cramer calls Norway “as socialist as they come!”
This too is nonsense.
“Sweden isn’t socialist,” says Powell. “Volvo is a private company. Restaurants, hotels, they’re privately owned.”
Norway, Denmark and Sweden are all free market economies.
Denmark’s former prime minister was so annoyed with economically ignorant Americans like Bernie Sanders calling Scandanavia “socialist,” he came to America to tell Harvard students that his country “is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.”
Powell says young people “hear the preaching of socialism, about equality, but they don’t look on what it actually delivers: poverty, starvation, early death.”
For thousands of years, the world had almost no wealth creation. Then, some countries tried capitalism. That changed everything.
“In the last 20 years, we’ve seen more humans escape extreme poverty than any other time in human history, and that’s because of markets,” says Powell.
Capitalism makes poor people richer.
Former Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) calls capitalism “slavery by another name.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) claims, “No one ever makes a billion dollars. You take a billion dollars.”
That’s another myth.
People think there’s a fixed amount of money. So when someone gets rich, others lose.
But it’s not true. In a free market, the only way entrepreneurs can get rich is by creating new wealth.
Yes, Steve Jobs pocketed billions, but by creating Apple, he gave the rest of us even more. He invented technology that makes all of us better off.
“I hope that we get 100 new super billionaires,” says economist Dan Mitchell, “because that means 100 new people figured out ways to make the rest of our lives better off.”
Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich advocates the opposite: “Let’s abolish billionaires,” he says.
He misses the most important fact about capitalism: it’s voluntary.
“I’m not giving Jeff Bezos any money unless he’s selling me something that I value more than that money,” says Mitchell.
It’s why under capitalism, the poor and middle class get richer, too.
“The economic pie grows,” says Mitchell. “We are much richer than our grandparents.”
When the media say the “middle class is in decline,” they’re technically right, but they don’t understand why it’s shrinking.
“It’s shrinking because more and more people are moving into upper income quintiles,” says Mitchell. “The rich get richer in a capitalist society. But guess what? The rest of us get richer as well.”
I cover more myths about socialism and capitalism in my new video.
A report published by the Fraser Institute reaffirms just how much more economically free some states are compared with others. These are places where citizens are allowed to make more of their economic choices. Their taxes are lighter, and their regulatory burdens are easier. The benefits for workers, consumers and businesses have been clear for a long time.
There’s another group of states to watch: “movers” that have become much freer in recent decades. These are states that may not be the freest, but they have been cutting taxes and red tape enough to make a big difference.
How do they fare?
I recently explored this question using 22 years of data from the same Economic Freedom of North America index. The index uses 10 variables encompassing government spending, taxation and labour regulation to assess the degree of economic freedom in each of the 50 states.
Some states, such as New Hampshire, have long topped the list. It’s been in the top five for three decades. With little room to grow, the Granite State’s level of economic freedom hasn’t budged much lately. Others, such as Alaska, have significantly improved economic freedom over the last two decades. Because it started so low, it remains relatively unfree at 43rd out of 50.
Three states—North Carolina, North Dakota and Idaho—have managed to markedly increase and rank highly on economic freedom.
In 2000, North Carolina was the 19th most economically free state in the union. Though its labour market was relatively unhindered by the state’s government, its top marginal income tax rate was America’s ninth-highest, and it spent more money than most states.
From 2013 to 2022, North Carolina reduced its top marginal income tax rate from 7.75 per cent to 4.99 per cent, reduced government employment and allowed the minimum wage to fall relative to per-capita income. By 2022, it had the second-freest labour market in the country and was ninth in overall economic freedom.
North Dakota took a similar path, reducing its 5.54 per cent top income tax rate to 2.9 per cent, scaling back government employment, and lowering its minimum wage to better reflect local incomes. It went from the 27th most economically free state in the union in 2000 to the 10th freest by 2022.
Idaho saw the most significant improvement. The Gem State has steadily improved spending, taxing and labour market freedom, allowing it to rise from the 28th most economically free state in 2000 to the eighth freest in 2022.
We can contrast these three states with a group that has achieved equal and opposite distinction: California, Delaware, New Jersey and Maryland have managed to decrease economic freedom and end up among the least free overall.
What was the result?
The economies of the three liberating states have enjoyed almost twice as much economic growth. Controlling for inflation, North Carolina, North Dakota and Idaho grew an average of 41 per cent since 2010. The four repressors grew by just 24 per cent.
Among liberators, statewide personal income grew 47 per cent from 2010 to 2022. Among repressors, it grew just 26 per cent.
In fact, when it comes to income growth per person, increases in economic freedom seem to matter even more than a state’s overall, long-term level of freedom. Meanwhile, when it comes to population growth, placing highly over longer periods of time matters more.
