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On Friday morning, Bloomberg reported that it had seen a copy of a questionnaire sent by the Trump transition team to the Department of Energy (DOE). The questionnaire includes 75 questions directed at the DOE and the Energy Information Agency (EIA), as well as any labs underneath the DOE's purview. The New York Times then obtained and published a copy of the document.
Although the questions are broad in nature, they seem to set the department up for budget and staffing cuts. They also appear to favor nuclear power and fossil fuel.
Questions that address cuts to the DOE's mission include: "Which Assistant Secretary positions are rooted in statute and which exist at the discretion and delegation of the Secretary?", as well as "If the DOE's topline budget in accounts other than the 050 account were required to be reduced 10% over the next four fiscal years (from the FY17 request and starting in FY18), does the Department have any recommendations as to where those reductions should be made?" A 050 account indicates national defense spending.
With respect to renewables and research, the questionnaire asks the DOE to provide a complete list of the projects shouldered by the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), which funds early-stage energy technology that would otherwise not be funded on the private market. ARPA-E opened its doors in 2009 under President Obama and works on battery research, biofuel production, and wind turbine projects.
Efforts to modernize the US' aging and inefficient grids also seemed to get a critical eye. "What is the goal of the grid modernization effort?" the questionnaire asks. "Is there some terminal point to this effort? Is its genesis statutory or something else?"
[Continues...]
[...] While divining the motivations behind the questions is difficult, some of them have potentially nefarious undertones. One of the questions asks for a list of all employees or contractors who attended meetings about the social cost of carbon, as well as a list of materials distributed at those meetings. Another asks "Can you provide a list of Department employees who attended any of the Conference of the Parties (under the UNFCCC) in the last five years?" According to the Washington Post , one unnamed Energy Department official expressed concern that "the Trump transition team was trying to figure out how to target the people, including civil servants, who have helped implement policies under Obama." Scientists have asked the administration to "refrain from singling out individual researchers whose work might conflict with the new administration's policy goals."
[...] The questionnaire also has pointed questions for the EIA, an independent agency under the DOE umbrella that provides energy market analysis. The questionnaire seemingly accuses the EIA of overlooking the costs of renewable energy when comparing it to fossil fuels. "Renewable and solar technologies are expected to need additional transmission costs above what fossil technologies need," the questionnaire states. "How has EIA represented this in the AEO [Annual Energy Outlook] forecasts? What is the magnitude of those transmission costs?"
Thomas Pyle, the head of the pro-fossil fuel American Energy Alliance, is leading Trump's Department of Energy Transition team, and he likely had a hand in assembling these questions. According to the Washington Post, Pyle recently wrote a fundraising pitch decrying "the Obama administration's divisive energy and environmental policies" and promising that "the Trump administration will adopt pro-energy and pro-market policies."
(Score: 5, Informative) by Francis on Sunday December 11 2016, @04:38AM
We have plenty of money to service our debts, we lack the political will to make the people who make all the money pay their fair share. Which is another reason why we shouldn't be allowing wealth to accumulate in the hands of a small number of oligarchs. If it were the poor people who had a quarter or more of the wealth in the country, we'd have no problem raising the funds to pay off our debt.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by jmorris on Sunday December 11 2016, @05:35AM
make the people who make all the money pay their fair share
Ok, I'm going to go total bastard on ya. Define fair share. If someone EARNS $100,000, tell me what is the amount you think you should be able to direct the use of, but taking another dollar would be unfair.
I use this one on a regular basis, never get an answer.
(Score: 2) by number11 on Sunday December 11 2016, @06:12AM
Define fair share. If someone EARNS $100,000, tell me what is the amount you think you should be able to direct the use of, but taking another dollar would be unfair.
Ok, I'll bite. Fortunately, you've phrased the issue using a standard tax category (EARNED income). Fair? It's certainly fair if everybody pays the same rate on "EARNED" income. We won't even delve into whether those CEOs with the multimillion dollar paychecks actually earned that much, even if their corporation says it lost money. But charge a multiple of that rate (say, 4X) on "UNEARNED" income. What's unearned income? That's the stuff that's not paycheck income, that you don't pay FICA taxes on. You know, dividends, capital gains, etc. I'd argue that since corporate "persons" don't pay FICA on their own income, that should count as unearned. A consideration in exchange for the government-bestowed privilege of being a corporation, if you like.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by BK on Sunday December 11 2016, @06:44AM
Your question is not as reasonable as you present it to be, but you should not have been down-modded for asking. Most people don't understand the meaning of the words they use. They say 'fair share' because they heard it someplace but they don't know what it is and have never really thought about it. It's not reasonable to expect that they'll suddenly understand.
For each $100,000 given for goods or services in a nation-state, what amount should the government of the nation-state be able to direct the use of, past which another dollar is unfair?
The correct answer, for as long as the question is asked, is the nation-state should take the equilibrium amount. No more. No less. The equilibrium amount is the amount where the budget is balanced. If the nation state takes less it is unfair for future citizens who one day must pay the bill for their predecessors excess.
The budget is not balanced. It is not nearly balanced. Most of the dollars made go to those that, According to Francis, 'make all the money'. It stands to reason that they are not paying their fair share.
It is a different question to ask how much a nation-state should spend or try to spend. We know 0 doesn't work. We know that those that must pay for it generally want it to do less. The rest falls to the realm of politics.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 11 2016, @04:35PM
Most of the dollars made go to those that, According to Francis, 'make all the money'.
About 40% of that goes to Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. Francis might not be entirely right here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @09:10PM
Sounds like a very good reason to socialize healthcare, you know, like most other successful western countries. If you find that unfair because "muh monies" then you should be hit with a major illness that racks up insane hospital bills and you will have recently been laid off so no insurance from work. We can stop letting insurance companies and hospitals make money off of sick people! Maybe ask yourself why something costs more when insurance covers it...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 12 2016, @07:24AM
Sounds like a very good reason to socialize healthcare, you know, like most other successful western countries.
Because? You do realize that the US already has a remarkably bad single payer system in the Veterans Administration. And another one in Medicaid. And another one in Medicare. If the US were in the habit of implementing successful health care systems, we wouldn't be having this conversation in the first place.
Maybe ask yourself why something costs more when insurance covers it...
Maybe you should do that too? My answer seems to be because government mandated a very expensive (rather than a very effective) level of care with a variety of ways that excessively high costs get passed on to insurance pools.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday December 13 2016, @08:58PM
Interesting that you define getting more care and getting it at around 60% of the cost to be "remarkably bad".
http://money.cnn.com/2014/04/21/news/economy/medicare-doctors/index.html [cnn.com]
What metric are you using by which you consider these programs to be failures?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday December 13 2016, @11:01PM
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday December 14 2016, @04:12PM
As the article I cited explained, what I mean is that Medicare users receive more treatment, and part of the reason for that is that they're less likely to have their claims rejected compared to private insurance. (Although some of the difference is just that Medicare users are on average older or low income and therefore *need* more care).
And the source I cited for those facts reported them in 2014, so the 2009 benefit cuts should already be accounted for there.
So yes, even after significant cuts, Medicare is *still* more likely to approve your claim than a private insurer. And they're still going to get that treatment at a lower cost. So once again, how is that a failure?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 14 2016, @04:58PM
All three programs I mention are failing, but failing in different ways. The Veterans Administration, for example, underwent a remarkably ill-thought cost reduction process that resulted in widespread denial of service with a fair number of dead patients to show for it. Medicaid has a bunch of people dumped on it while simultaneously cutting back on benefits. And Medicare is currently paying out much more per patient than it takes in per patient over the lifetime of the patient.
Further, these sorts of problems are showing up in other countries' more socialist health care systems too. In particular, every developed world country has a problem with health care costs growing much faster than their GDP does.
So I still dispute the idea that "socializing" health care will work better in the US, when we have several examples of it not doing so, no examples of it working in the US, and the same problems that the US experiences showing up in those other health care systems.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday December 14 2016, @09:41PM
Currently, healthcare spending is 17.5% of the US GDP. So if it's only 15% of the federal budget, that looks fine. Especially since much of the federal spending on healthcare is for the poor or elderly, who generally require more care.
The VA is a slightly different situation -- it's not really a public healthcare system, it's a job benefit. And in that regard it's hardly unique -- there's plenty of jobs with equally atrocious (and often significantly worse) private healthcare benefits. So any problems there say more about how the nation values our soldiers than it does about public healthcare in general.
We pay more than countries with universal healthcare for the same treatments. And while their costs are indeed increasing, our costs are increasing *faster*. So if every other country has a *problem* with rising healthcare costs, the US would seem to have a goddamn catastrophe.
https://epianalysis.wordpress.com/2012/07/18/usversuseurope/ [wordpress.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 15 2016, @07:19AM
Currently, healthcare spending is 17.5% of the US GDP. So if it's only 15% of the federal budget, that looks fine. Especially since much of the federal spending on healthcare is for the poor or elderly, who generally require more care.
Somewhere near 1% of US GDP is spent on illegal recreational drugs. So we should expect the US government should be spending a few tens of billions on the sale or distribution of those drugs (since that would be roughly 1% of the federal budget)? Conversely, a bit more than 15% of the US budget is spent on national defense. So we should expect the GDP contribution from national defense to be 15% of the US's GDP? It doesn't work that way.
Medicare is only part of the medical care that the federal government pays for. There's also, as I already mentioned, Medicaid, the VA, and some other stuff. In any case, as of 2015 medical spending [nationalpriorities.org], excluding veteran benefits, was 27% of the US federal budget with some addition health care spending in veteran benefits and Social Security. Whether or not that number appears out of line depends on your priorities, of course.
The VA is a slightly different situation -- it's not really a public healthcare system, it's a job benefit.
Is VA public? Why yes, it is. Is it a health care system? Why yes it is. And why can't job benefits be public health care systems? I would assert that the VA is the obvious counterexample.
We pay more than countries with universal healthcare for the same treatments. And while their costs are indeed increasing, our costs are increasing *faster*. So if every other country has a *problem* with rising healthcare costs, the US would seem to have a goddamn catastrophe.
And what makes you think that's going to stop being the case? My point here is that we already have several examples that indicate the socialized health care approach is already failing on a significant scale in the US with similar cost inflation to the non-socialist approaches (being that they're both dependent on the same medical infrastructure with its notable deficiencies).
(Score: 2) by BK on Monday December 12 2016, @04:53AM
You're reading the wrong financial statements. The 40% is a tax - a portion of jmorris' $100,000 that is already taken by current taxation. And if you're going to roll in employment taxes and total compensation into the mix, jmoris' $100k becomes $125k and your 40% becomes 33%. But we're still talking about lots of money.
For top earners this falls to Francis might not be entirely right here.
I realized that the first time he posted here. Did I miss something?
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 12 2016, @07:14AM
You're reading the wrong financial statements.
Look at the US's budget [wikipedia.org] sometime. The pie chart I linked to has almost 50% of the budget in Social Security and "health care" which is mostly Medicare/Medicaid.
(Score: 2) by BK on Monday December 12 2016, @08:02AM
Agreed. That's the budget. It doesn't change anything. It's immaterial unless you have something to add.
The link you provide speaks to the expenditures - the budget. Jmorris asked about the revenue side - specifically how much revenue is fair to take. I asserted that anything less than the amount which balanced the budget was fundamentally unfair. I'll further assert that the fact that the budget is not balanced, even on paper, on any time scale, is criminal. Francis indicated that the balance should be taken from those that 'make all of the money' - which, while somewhat simplistic, implies a knowledge that those that 'make all of the money' are more likely, logically speaking, to have some of that money, at any given time, than those that make none of it (which is, again logically, everyone else).
I'm assuming (feel free to correct me) that you are trying to offer a negative commentary on the wisdom of the particular expenditures. Expenditures are not revenues...
But, since I believe that absolutely all expenditures not supported by revenues, at least on paper, are criminal, I am forced to agree with your position. The sick should be denied treatment for even the simplest things and should be made to die in pain, the elderly should be left to starve and freeze, the the army should dismiss its soldiers by the division, the air force should sell its bombers to ISIS* and the navy should scuttle one ship each hour, and the prisons should turn loose all they hold, all this until the expenditures match the existing revenues... or until the revenues are raised.
*strategically this might keep some of the world busy not exploiting the chaos that the rest of this would cause.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 12 2016, @08:18AM
It's immaterial unless you have something to add.
I already added what I needed to add to make it material.
The link you provide speaks to the expenditures - the budget. Jmorris asked about the revenue side - specifically how much revenue is fair to take.
And I wrote about Francis's terrible characterization which you accepted. One can't look at a budget and say, this piece is the sole piece responsible for the budget exceeding revenue. All of the budget creates the deficit, not just the piece you don't like. As a result, I found an easy 40% of the federal budget which wasn't tax breaks for the rich or bailouts. There we go.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Bogsnoticus on Sunday December 11 2016, @08:13PM
That's easy. Courts have already ruled that you can consider corporations as people. As such, scrap the absurdly low company tax rate, and tax those "people" at the same rate as Joe Public.
Next problem?
Genius by birth. Evil by choice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 11 2016, @09:36PM
You're arguments are soooo bad. You're like the middle school dropout of SN. I notice you got answers and never replied back yourself, looks like your attempt at "a point" just stabbed you in the back.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Sunday December 11 2016, @11:35PM
Nobody has even tried to answer the question. I have used this one many time, in many places. Nobody EVER tries to answer the question. I'll leave answering the obvious followup question of WHY as an exercise for the student.
(Score: 2) by rondon on Monday December 12 2016, @02:43PM
You honestly don't think BK answered your question?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Monday December 12 2016, @03:33PM
Nope. He, correctly in my opinion, asserts that revenues should equal expenditures. But note what is carefully avoided. Nobody wants to point to the hypothetical stack of cash and say THIS much is fair for the State to seize but no more. Thus "Fair Share" remains undefined, capable of encompassing the 90%+ tax rates of the 20th Century or even the 100% more than a few Progressives of today speak of. And on the other hand, by remaining undefined it is free to assume in each listener's mind the amount they want to imagine as "Fair" and thus never being imagined as onerous.
But at bottom, this is all about the sins of Envy and Greed. It is the most common failure mode of Democracy and the primary reason our Founding Fathers warned so strongly against allowing our Republic to degenerate into one. It is always possible to convince those who do not produce, and thus pay no taxes, to vote for sharing in the spoils of those who do produce; and it only requires a demagogue of ordinary talent to convince the takers they are moral in doing so.