J.C. Moore Online

Current Events from a Science Perspective

There are a lot of articles and posts on social media lately which blame Republicans for a variety of ills in our society. The people responsible for those ills are not necessarily Republicans, and certainly not traditional Republicans. Abraham Lincoln started the Republican Party, freed the slaves, and established that all men are created equal. There been many great Republican presidents since Lincoln, up until Eisenhower. Below is Eisenhower’s Republican platform for 1956. It defines what a traditional Republican mostly supports.

After Eisenhower, with the exception of George H. W. Bush, the Republican Party has had as their presidential candidates a crook, an actor, a cheerleader, and a reality TV star. And, each of those has had a deleterious effect on the Republican Party.

We can probably blame President Johnson for planting the seed. Up until his presidency, the Democrats were mainly responsible for segregation, voter suppression, and human rights violations. Johnson championed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, which angered southern Democrats, and many of them changed to the Republican Party. That may have been the reason that Nixon won. Nixon did some good things such as creating the EPA and proposing an affirmative action program for federal employees, but he also expanded the Vietnam War and resigned from office under threat of impeachment.

Presidents Reagan signed the Montréal Protocol, which limited the greenhouse gases which were damaging the Earth’s ozone layer. Reagan also brought the Moral Majority into the GOP and, by sowing distrust in the government, brought in a number of right wing groups who didn’t like Federal authority. He also brought in the oligarchs by cutting their taxes from 70% to 26%. This greatly increased the national debt and began the income inequality that has plagued our nation since. He also appointed Justice Scalia, who led the Supreme Court in gutting the Voting Rights Act and deciding Citizens United, which allows almost unlimited cash into politics. Reagan, more than anyone, was responsible for starting the GOP down a bad path.

George H. W. Bush gets a pass, as he labeled Reaganomics as voodoo economics, which it is. Though he led little to do with it, it was during term that the Tea Party came into existence at the behest of the oligarchs who didn’t like taxation. As a third party, they would have had little political party power, so they took up residence in the far right wing of the Republican Party.  

George W. Bush won the presidency with the support of the Texas oil companies and he went from being a cheerleader at Harvard to being a cheerleader for the oil companies. He won without the popular vote, due to a controversial ruling by Scalia’s Supreme Court. With the help of Cheney and Rumsfeld, Bush began to undermine environmental regulations –  which brought the anti-environmentalists into the Republican Party. When 9/11 occurred we had the support of almost all the nations in the world, and Bush could have brought them together to root out terrorism and end human rights violations. Instead, again with Cheney and Rumsfeld’s encouragement, he invaded Iraq on a pretense and started an ill-advised war in Afghanistan which has drug on for 20 years, costing over a million lives, destabilizing the Middle East, and adding $3.5 trillion to the national debt.

Donald Trump used his experience with the media and his international business connections to win the presidency, again without the popular vote. Though he was impeached twice, investigated for his ties to Russian interference in our elections, and tried to overturn the results of the last presidential election, he is still being supported by a number of Republicans who describe themselves as conservatives. They apparently are not too concerned about conserving democracy.

Some Republicans have now changed to the Democratic Party. There are still a number of traditional Republicans who support what the GOP was under Eisenhower and want to reform the party. Please try to understand how the Religious Right, the oligarchs, the Tea Partiers, the anti-environmentalists, the militants, and the self-described conservatives managed to establish themselves in the right wing of the Republican Party – and most of all, please do not stereotype traditional Republicans. All Republicans are not the same.

The leaders of the Republican Party in 26 states plan to sue the EPA to stop the Clean Power Plan. Those same leaders often justify what they want to do by claiming it is what the people want. But in this case, they are doing more what the fossil fuel companies want. The public in 23 of the states does not support the lawsuits, as in the chart below.

The governors and attorney generals of the states want to make a name for themselves as “conservatives”, but it is a losing proposition for a number of reasons. The lawsuits do not actually represent a conservative position, as the EPA’s plan will lead to a shift to renewable energy which will keep billions of tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. In that respect, the EPA has the more conservative position.

The reason often given for the lawsuits is saving money on energy, but the politicians seem more interested in campaign money than saving money for their citizens. The EPA’s plan may lead to increased electricity costs in the present, but will lead to lower electric rates in the future. Coal and transportation prices are certain to increase in the future while the cost of renewable energy is falling. It costs upfront to build wind turbines and solar installations but, once they are in place, they are expected to function for 30 years or longer without any need for fuel.

It will cost the states lots of money for the lawsuits, and their chances successes is slim.   And, it will likely harm a number of citizens of the states if the lawsuit succeeds. There are many coal burning power plants in the US which operate without scrubbers to remove particulates, because coal is cheap and  scrubbers are expensive. The EPA projects the Clean Power Plan’s  proposed guidelines for particulates alone could  prevent up to 3,600 deaths, 1,700 heart attacks, 90,000 asthma attacks, and 300,000 missed work and school days per year. As a result, for every dollar Americans spend on the Clean Power Plan, we will gain up to $4 worth of health benefits.

So in terms of future energy costs, environmental benefits, and health benefits the EPA Clean Power Plan is a winner for the citizens. Perhaps the Republican Attorney Generals clamoring to sue the EPA should reconsider.

(c) 2015 J.C. Moore

This was taken from Apollo 11 as the Earth rose over the disc of the Moon.

2015x-(3) The-Science-of-Climate-Change with notes

Please click on the link above. You will need a PowerPoint program to view the slides – or you may  download a free viewer here. The slides will display as set in your viewer. Explanations of the slides are in the notes section.

We have heard so much bad economic news that most people believe it, even though it is not true.The economy has recovered to the point that the economic stimulus is being ended. That would normally be good news. It is strange that it has not been widely disseminated and many people may be unaware of it. You may read a little piece here and there in the paper about it, but it hasn’t seemed to enter the public’s mind. Actually, since it would help the Democrats, great efforts have been made by some money interests and obstructionists to downplay the recovery.

The chart at the right summarizes the recovery in the last five years. Though it was put together by the Occupy Democrats, the numbers seem to be accurate and can be checked. Normally the President would get credit for the recovery, but not so much in this case as it would likely help the Democrats in the next election. The news could probably have been even better except for the missed opportunities caused by obstructionists in Congress. I hope some of them will join the jobless after the next election.

With the heating up of campaign rhetoric, I’ve been hearing a lot about this $716 billion dollars that Romney is publicly saying President Obama “robbed” from Medicare. That is the exact word Romney uses. Well, if someone is stealing, I want to know how they are getting away with it so I did my research and discovered what the $716 billion is.

First, let me remind you that the Medicare trust fund does not have that much money and it’s not a piggy bank that can be raided. At the end of 2011 the Part A trust fund had only $244.2 billion.  The Part A, hospital insurance program, is financed through a payroll tax that goes into a trust fund similar to the Social Security trust funds. And that hospital insurance trust fund is being spent much more rapidly than the Social Security funds. No president can actually take money out of the Medicare trust fund as this money is in Treasury bonds which can only be cashed by Medicare at any time it is needed. As it is, with the continued increase in medical cost, Medicare can’t cover all the benefits without either more revenue (taxes) or reduced spending.

Ok, so where did the $716 billion come from? Actually this figure is for reductions in spending, so it really doesn’t take any money that is in the trust fund out of the trust fund. (Hum, isn’t that what Republicans are always saying—that we need to reduce spending?)

 Sorry Romney, there is no “robbery”. These reductions do not take any money out of Medicare, they are necessary adjustments to vendors who receive Medicare payments, and do not affect payments to beneficiaries.  They are aimed at insurance companies, hospitals, nursing homes and most of all, the Medicare Advantage companies. Medicare Advantage was started under President George W. Bush, with the idea that competition among the private insurers would reduce costs. But in recent years the plans have actually cost more than traditional Medicare. So the health care law scales back the payments to these private insurers. Medicare Advantage plans currently receive higher payments from the government on average than traditional Medicare – 9% higher than it was in 2010. The government pays Advantage companies 14-20% to manage patients health care. The Affordable Care Act cuts this fee to private companies. Romney and Ryan have a countdown clock showing how many days until Medicare (part A) is broke. The truth is that there would be even fewer days until the fund’s exhaustion if Obama’s health care law hadn’t included those $700 billion in spending reductions.

Romney’s campaign ad incorrectly claims that the “money you paid” for Medicare is being used to pay for Obama’s health care law. It is incorrect because the law doesn’t take money out of the existing hospital insurance trust fund. It cuts the future growth of spending. And in the future, seniors will still receive the benefits to which they are entitled.

Sources: Politifact.com, Factcheck.org

This is a guest post from Barbara Moore.

© 2012 Barbara Moore

Congressman John Sullivan (R-OK) held a town hall meeting in Tulsa, Oklahoma where he discussed the budget, Social Security,  energy issues, EPA regulations, jobs, and the XL pipeline. The article gives Congressman Sullivan’s positions, comments and questions asked by the audience, and compares the authors views to Congressman Sullivan’s.

Congressman John Sullivan conducted two town hall meetings in Tulsa on January 26, 2012. The first was held at Tulsa Community College’s Metro Campus where a number of his constituents challenged Sullivan’s views. That meeting was reported  by the Tulsa World’s Randy Krehbeil in, “Sullivan town hall-goers applaud Obama speech”.  The afternoon meeting, which was held at the Hardesty Library in South Tulsa, had a much more partisan crowd. Congressman Sullivan’s opening remarks were much like those at his Sand Springs meeting last November. At the Hardesty meeting, he did not give people the opportunity to applaud Obama’s speech, he just criticized it. When people tried to point out the errors in his criticisms, they were interrupted by people shouting,” Ask a question”. Sullivan was there to hear what his constituents thought, but apparently his supporters did not want to hear anything good about the President.

 Gridlock: Congressman Sullivan likened Obama to a football coach who gives a great locker room talk but doesn’t win. It was a bad analogy as the coach cannot win without cooperation from the players, and many players in Congress seem more interested in beating the coach than winning for the country. Every winning team needs a reasonable budget, but many Congressmen have insisted on cutting taxes and 206 legislators, Sullivan included, have signed Norquist’s pledge not to raise taxes. He blamed the President and the Democrats in the Senate for the gridlock, saying that the house had sent the Senate 26 bills that were not enacted. However, most of those bills contained a “poison pill”. For instance, H.R. 3630, the badly needed Middle Class Tax Relief and Jobs Creation Act of 2011, also had a provision to delay implementation of the Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate, to hinder the EPA, and to force approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. It is hardly fair to blame the Senate when they are not sent clean bills.

 Energy : Congressman Sullivan said that we needed the XL pipeline to create jobs and claimed that it would create hundreds of thousands of jobs directly and indirectly – and that the only problem was just a few miles through Nebraska wetlands. The problems are actually much greater.  They involve destruction of the boreal forests in Canada, pollution of Canadian rivers, acquiring the water and energy needed to process tar sands, and the carbon emissions the project would cause. Then, it is still not clear how many jobs it will actually create, who will profit from the project, and whether much of the oil will be shipped to foreign countries, possibly without being taxed as some of the refineries are in a tax-free zone.

 The Congressman said he has introduced legislation encouraging the development of natural gas as a fuel. He pointed out that natural gas provides about three times as much energy and costs much less than gasoline. Natural gas is plentiful in Oklahoma and developing the infrastructure to use it as a fuel would help Oklahoma’s economy and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. That is about the only positive contribution that Congressman Sullivan has made on environmental issues. Using natural gas would also significantly decrease our carbon emissions – but the Congressman did not mention that as he does not accept the scientific research on climate change. His supporters claim to be conservatives, but it is hard to imagine how they could support someone who is not also a conservationist. Congressman Sullivan scored a 9% on the League of Conservation Voters scorecard (page 52).

Audience Questions: The wife of a veteran told of the problems her husband had getting help from the Veterans Administration and asked if Sullivan could help. Congressman Sullivan said he would see what he could do. I hope he can help that veteran, but it is not likely that all the veterans needing help will get it if we cut the budget as Congressman Sullivan wanted. The veteran was certainly a good man, and when pressed to speak, he said that it would really help if people would recycle more. He pointed out that we throw away a lot of things that are still useful and that by recycling them we could create a lot of jobs and save our resources.

 Another woman complained that the EPA’s rules about Freon were making it difficult to get the refrigerant needed for their air-conditioning business. Congressman Sullivan took it as an opportunity to criticize the EPA and the Obama administration, apparently unaware that those rules had been signed into law by President Reagan.

A CPA in the audience brought it to the Congressman’s attention that the low interest rates were hurting people who had their nest egg in savings accounts and CDs. He also pointed out that the mandatory IRA withdrawals required at age 70 1/2 are making people withdraw the money that they may need to save for later in life. The Congressman agreed that some changes need to be made there.

 When the Congressman was asked about who he would like to see as the Republican presidential candidate, he said he would support whoever could beat President Obama. A member of the audience tried to point out that there were other things more important than beating Obama, and that the President and his wife were good role models and examples of family values. She was almost drowned out by disagreements from the audience.

 Entitlements: There was a time when Republicans were fiscal and environmental conservatives. Congressman Sullivan said he wanted to cut what he calls “entitlement programs”, but one of his own supporters set him straight by pointing out that those were “earned benefits”, not entitlements. I want my children and grandchildren have the same benefits I did, and I want them to have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink and a beautiful Earth to enjoy. They are entitled to that.

Research Credit: Barbara Moore

(c) 2012 J.C. Moore

A Winning Flip: I can remember when Republicans liked Cap-and-trade. (1) For instance, John McCain cosponsored cap-and-trade bills in the Senate in 2003, 2005, and 2007 and, during his 2008 presidential campaign, proposed a pragmatic national energy policy based upon good stewardship, good science, and reasonableness. As he said then,

“A cap-and-trade policy will send a signal that will be heard and welcomed all across the American economy. And the highest rewards will go to those who make the smartest, safest, most responsible choices.”

And he was right. Having to pay the true cost of fossil fuel use is fair and would create incentives for renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Cap-and-trade was once considered to be the market solution to reducing carbon emissions. While popular, a number of key Republicans, such as Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) went on record as endorsing the policy. Even Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), only two years ago, while supporting a version of a cap-and-trade bill in the Massachusetts legislature said:

”Reducing carbon dioxide emission in Massachusetts has long been a priority of mine. Passing this legislation is an important step … towards improving our environment.”

But somewhere amid lobbying, big donations from power companies, and criticisms from so called conservatives who don’t really want to conserve much, the Republicans are now calling it cap-and-tax, essentially making fun of what was once their own idea.

The Sticker Shock Distortion Flop: In an effort to kill the bill, Republicans such as Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) are now claiming cap-and-trade would cost each U.S. households about $3,100 a year, a cost that has considerable sticker shock. However, that number was fabricated by doing some misleading  additional math on a MIT study. Dr. John Reilly, the economist who authored the study, has criticized Republicans for distorting his work. In his words,

“It’s just wrong, It’s wrong in so many ways it’s hard to begin.” Not only is it wrong, but he said he told the House Republicans it was wrong when they asked him. “That’s just not how economists calculate the cost of a tax proposal”, Reilly said. “The tax might push the price of carbon-based fuels up a bit, but other results of a cap-and-trade program, such as increased conservation and more competition from other fuel sources, would put downward pressure on prices.” Moreover, he said, consumers would get some of the tax back from the government in some form. (2)

What Is the Uninflated Cost? The report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the entity responsible for providing Congress with nonpartisan analyses of economic and budget issues, estimates that the net annual economywide cost of the cap-and-trade program in 2020 would be $22 billion—or an average of about $175 per household. That figure includes the cost of restructuring the production and use of energy but it does not include the economic benefits and other benefits of the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and the associated slowing of climate change. Households in the lowest income bracket would see an average net benefit of about $40 in 2020 while those in the highest bracket would see a net cost of $245. Overall, net costs would average 0.2 percent of households’ after-tax income. (3) That doesn’t seem so bad, particularly as the CBO experts also estimate the climate and energy bill now stalled in the Senate would reduce the federal deficit by about $19 billion over the next decade. (4)

The High Cost of Doing Nothing: The cost of doing nothing may be unacceptably high in the long run because of resource scarcity, environmental damage, and the risk of reachng catastrophic tipping points. A recent report by the National Academy of Sciences details the high economic costs of reduced streamflow, rainfall, and crop yields (5). Estimates by the World’s top economists such as Britain’s Nicholas Stern (6) or the US’s Paul Krugman (7) are that right now it would cost about 2% of the worlds GDP to mitigate environmental damage – but if delayed, that amount could rise to 20% or more of the world’s GDP and put us at risk of an environmental catastrophe.

A Flip is Needed: What is it worth to have clean air, clean water, a more sustainable economy, and a less risky future? Can we risk doing nothing? We need a flip by our Republican leaders.

(1) http://www.grist.org/article/2010-06-29-remember-when-republicans-liked-cap-and-trade/

(2) http://flavcountry.blogspot.com/2009/05/mit-economist-john-reilly-calls.html

(3) http://cboblog.cbo.gov/?p=300

(4) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38130006/ns/politics-capitol_hill/

(5) http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_15536630

(6)   http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTINDONESIA/Resources/226271-1170911056314/3428109-1174614780539/SternReviewEng.pdf

(7)  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/magazine/11Economy-t.html