Blatant Blue State Hypocrisy by Paul Driessen

From energy and spending, to climate and debate – silencing all dissenting voices is essential

You’ve got to admire the full frontal audacity of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio, and their union and pressure group comrades in arms. Their hypocrisy, fraud and tyranny are boundless, especially on fiscal, energy and climate change issues.

Amid the seventh year of a “New York is open for business” advertising campaign that has spent $354 million thus far, they are presiding over tax and regulatory regimes, mountains of debt, intransigent public sector unions, anti-nuclear, anti-fossil fuel energy policies that are anything but business friendly – and press conferences that promise more of the same for state businesses, taxpayers and pensioners.

As Wall Street Journal columnist William McGurn notes, Cuomo and his fellow warriors against Trump and Republicans will do almost anything – “except address the root problem by lowering their taxes and spending. Because to do so would require taking on the public unions that drive much of state spending and debt, and are the key constituency of the 21st-century Democratic Party.”

Across the river in New Jersey, unions resist any reforms to their payrolls or pensions just as fiercely. The NJ pension system is already $90-billion short of what it needs to pay future benefits, says the Manhattan Institute. The state will collect some $35 billion in 2018 taxes, but any new revenue will go to pension payouts and spending on new government programs. Connecticut is in the same boat.

Meanwhile, electricity prices continue to climb: In New York 18.8 cents per kilowatt-hour for families, 15.0 cents for the businesses the state is so eager to attract, and 6.2 cents for its few industries. In Jersey, 14.7, 11.4 and 9.6 cents, respectively. In Connecticut, a whopping 21.3, 16.8 and 13.5 cents per kWh!

On the Left Coast, similarly exorbitant electricity rates pummel California businesses, families, factories, farms, hospitals and schools – while neighborhoods confront monstrous mudslides, resulting from winter rains in the wake of fiery hillside-denuding conflagrations. The fires and floods have destroyed nearly 9,000 homes, killed over 60 people, and devastated entire forests and neighborhoods.

Golden State forests have 129 million dead trees, and enough dry brush to fill LA Memorial Coliseum several times. But state regulators, environmentalists and judges make it impossible to remove any. It’s more “natural,” “sustainable” and “climate friendly” to have it erupt in 1,400 to 2,200 degree F infernos.

Compare those fiscal and environmental train wrecks to results thus far of the deregulation, tax reduction, pro-fossil fuel policies of President Trump and congressional Republicans: new jobs, higher wages, nice bonuses, a coming repatriation of trillions of now overseas dollars to fuel new investment and innovation, the lowest black unemployment since recordkeeping began, and the DJIA stock market reaching a record high of 25,575 January 11, following a record 92 closing highs since President Trump was elected.

Compare that to Nobel Prize winning Blue economist Paul Krugman’s dire prediction after the election: the markets will crash and “never” recover, amid a long “global recession.” Meanwhile, multi-multi-millionaire Nancy Pelosi belittled the $1,000 bonuses as “crumbs.” Tell that to families bringing in $25,000 to $50,000 a year. The House Minority Leader is completely out of touch with average families.

The Democrats need bogeymen, scapegoats, distractions – to deflect attention away from this lunacy. That’s the best way to explain the Cuomo and De Blasio press stunts this past week.

Rather than confronting public sector unions and rabid greens – or supporting onshore and offshore drilling and fracking that would create jobs and improve economies in poor counties far from Albany and Manhattan, generate tax revenues, and reduce electricity prices – the gov railed against the new $10,000 cap on how much of their state and local taxes “the rich” NY residents can deduct on their federal forms.

Mr. Cuomo proposes to transform personal income taxes into corporate payroll taxes, or even charitable deductions! California is trying the same ploy. Friendly IRS auditors will be busy shutting that down.

Meanwhile, Mayor De Blasio went on a rant against fossil fuels – announcing that the city is suing five major oil companies for billions of dollars in “climate damages,” and insisting that the Big Apple must divest its police, teacher and other public pensions from any and all fossil fuel stocks.

Energy stocks are leading the latest US stock market rally, fossil fuels will continue providing 75-80% of US and global energy for decades to come, resurgent economies overseas are booming thanks to coal, oil and natural gas, and forecasters are predicting $80-per-barrel oil in 2018, as demand surges. So Liberal Logic says it’s time to divest from fossil fuels – and maybe switch to ideologically sympatico holdings, like subsidized wind turbines or booming economies like Argentina, Venezuela and North Korea.

Greenhouse gas emissions produced disasters like Superstorm Sandy, De Blasio railed. “I remember those days. I remember how desperate it was, how much fear and confusion there was. This tragedy was wrought by the actions of fossil fuel companies.” Now New York needs $20 billion “to build resilience against rising seas, more powerful storms and hotter temperatures.”

Nice try, Mr. Mayor. But blaming sub-hurricane-strength Sandy for the actions and incompetence of city and state officials won’t cut it. As environmental consultant Pat Moffitt and I explained in great detail in a three-part series (here, here and here) several months after the storm pounded the NYC area, fossil fuels and GHGs had zero to do with the damages – any more than they did for Harvey, Irma or other storms.

They likewise played no role in California’s wildfires and mudslides, despite Governor Jerry Brown’s scapegoating insistence that GHG emissions are responsible for that too. It’s all self-serving fraud.

Fuel oil and natural gas got millions of New Yorkers and New Englanders through the recent record cold snap, while wind turbines froze up, solar panels went AWOL, and Al Gore blamed the cold on global warming! But who are we to argue with Hizzoner da Mare about fossil fuels, dangerous manmade climate change, Sandy or divestment? He might sic his RICO attack dogs on us again.

Indeed, such prosecutions are part and parcel of the new leftist-fascist world order, under which partisans, politicians and professors shut down debate, impose uniform thinking, decree corporate policy, and even punish intolerable contrarian views with physical violence when those views threaten their “safe spaces.” 

It’s not yet as dicey as getting into a Moscow elevator. But one climate doomsayer wants to ship climate chaos skeptics to a Kerguelen Island gulag off Antarctica, where he probably assumes they could watch the entire continent melt – from GHG emissions, if not from the volcanoes and magma beneath its ice.

Antifa leftist-fascists have learned well from their predecessors and contemporaries, but are now employing their technological prowess as well. Google and Facebook use clever algorithms to steer searches and help liberal news and views reach audiences, while conservative perspectives get shunted to the “back pages.” Google now displays “fact checks” next to Daily Caller and other conservative views, though not with liberal leaning stories; Snopes says its fake news, but others say it’s absolutely true.

Twitter allegedly uses “shadow banning” algorithms to make users think their tweets have been posted, when in fact they’ve been sent to cyber oblivion. And talk show host Dennis Prager is suing YouTube for using “restricted mode filtering” to keep PragerU educational videos from reaching audiences. The LA Times and other liberal papers won’t even publish letters to the editor challenging climate alarmism.

Former Colorado Democratic Governor Richard Lamm would instantly recognize these tyrannical tactics. In 2005, Mr. Lamm said they were integral parts of an eight-step program to “destroy America.” (This audio of the talk on YouTube must have escaped their censors.)

The future of our free speech and other democratic safeguards and institutions is at stake. So is the future of sound, evidence-based science, on climate and other topics – and of reliable, affordable energy.

Blue State officials, unions and activists may be delighted with how their agenda is “progressing.” The rest of the United States … and world … are not so happy.

Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of articles, reports and books on public policy.

Comments from Comments Following an Article Attacking Ayn Rand's Ideas

A very scurrilous article called This is what happens when you take Ayn Rand Seriously by Denise Cummings has elicited many comments.  The article itself sets up many a straw man interpretation of Ayn Rand's ideas and makes some incredibly obvious false statements about her ideas.  I have commented rather extensively in the comments following it.  Here is one of my comments in reply to other comments opposing Ayn Rand's ideas:

Blaming businessmen for their business practices is one of the frauds most commonly used to justify governments that micromanage our lives and prevent us from individually choosing our own values and pursuing them in a rich and robust private sector. The bogeyman businessman is all too often the false justification for forcing us to give up our individually optimal choices for the sake of one-size-fits-all laws and regulations which are not enforced on the friends of big government, but are often enforced on those who just want to get on with their lives.

Average Joe is always free to start his own business, except that governments make it hard for him to do so and will require him to spend huge blocks of time on paperwork and tax him at every turn. Big government institutes many of its regulations more for the purpose of preventing the formation of small businesses and for preventing them from competing with bigger businesses who find it much easier to comply with the 80,000 pages of new regulations each year. Of course, even some big businesses are not favored by Big Government, such as the fossil fuel businesses.

It is only when a business is allied with big government that it can get away with mistreating employees and customers. A really free market always offers alternatives, as people take advantage of their freedom of association and either start competing businesses or turn to existing competitors or make suitable substitutions. Of course government should prevent the actual use of force or fraud throughout our society. But, what we find is that government itself is the abuser and uses much too much force and defrauds the citizens on a routine basis.

To which one Paul Ruggiero, who often shows up whenever Ayn Rand is the subject, replied:

"Bogeyman businessman" - how about tobacco companies? Was it rational to sell products to people that the company knew were addictive and highly likely to kill them over time? Where was the "self regulation" or rational or moral nature of this?
Businesses can mistreat employees or their customers very easily without the help of government. You are making a lot of assumptions about free market capitalism in your argument without stating them. Many of your assumptions though are not true. State some, and I'm happy to knock them down.

Rand's ideas about companies are unfortunately not true. She assumes that without govt interference all businesses would be rational. This is crap.

To which this patient soul replied:

The left likes to picture the businessman as frequently a predator and government as a protection against these powerful and many predators. Yes, bad people can be found in the business world, but they are actually much less likely to be bad than the politicians and bureaucrats of the government which wields much more power than do businessmen.
Tobacco is addictive and I have never used it for that reason and for health and hygiene reasons. Everyone else also has had this choice, whereas when government runs up the cost of energy or denies me paying a high school summer intern less than the minimum wage, I have no choice. I am forced to comply. It is worse to be robbed of a choice and forced to comply than to be offered a product I should not choose to buy.

Let us also note that government, your tainted angel, long subsidized tobacco farming. It also delighted and still does in the taxes it collects on this dangerous product.

Rand absolutely does not assume that all businesses will be rational or that those that are usually fairly rational will always be so. She also does not assume that all purchases of goods and services will be rational. The trades of the free market and private sector generally are akin to freedom of speech. We do not assume that everything everyone says will be rational or true. We know it will not be. But, there will be a rich diversity of ideas and knowledge in that flow of speech in a free society. People are free to evaluate what others have to say and incorporate or reject viewpoints and ideas according to their own choice. The same is true of the many products and services offered in the private sector.

To the degree that the customer chooses badly, he will be hurt. But he is also free to choose wisely and to benefit greatly from good choices. It is stultifying to be so terrified of making bad choices that one refuses to allow oneself the opportunity to make good choices. I have confidence that most people make more good choices than bad ones and that they benefit greatly from the diversity of choices offered by the free market, just as we benefit greatly from the rich and diverse flow of ideas and information we are offered due to freedom of speech. Just as we tend to stop listening to people who always rattle off nonsensical viewpoints, so do most people refuse to buy goods and services from companies that do not meet their needs. Bad products and poor service tend to bring an end to the company that offers them.

Now, I understand that you think that most people are bad and will fleece everyone else at every opportunity. You also have no confidence in the people to be mostly rational consumers. I do not think so. Then you turn around and seem to believe that the same bad sellers and consumers are capable of choosing good representative politicians and good government policies to protect these basically incompetent people. Your inconsistency could not be more apparent.

To which a good man (Threnody) added:

Savin' this one.

Echoes of Bastiat

"When it is time to vote, apparently the voter is not to be asked for any guarantee of his wisdom. His will and capacity to choose wisely are taken for granted. Can the people be mistaken? Are we not living in an age of enlightenment? What! are the people always to be kept on leashes? Have they not won their rights by great effort and sacrifice? Have they not given ample proof of their intelligence and wisdom? Are they not adults? Are they not capable of judging for themselves? Do they not know what is best for themselves? Is there a class or a man who would be so bold as to set himself above the people, and judge and act for them? No, no, the people are and should be free. They desire to manage their own affairs, and they shall do so.

But when the legislator is finally elected — ah! then indeed does the tone of his speech undergo a radical change. The people are returned to passiveness, inertness, and unconsciousness; the legislator enters into omnipotence. Now it is for him to initiate, to direct, to propel, and to organize. Mankind has only to submit; the hour of despotism has struck. We now observe this fatal idea: The people who, during the election, were so wise, so moral, and so perfect, now have no tendencies whatever; or if they have any, they are tendencies that lead downward into degradation."

The comments following articles misrepresenting and misunderstanding Ayn Rand's ideas are often very interesting.  There really are huge numbers of people who either cannot understand her or who are endlessly eager to misrepresent her ideas.  Many people become so deeply rutted in their line of "thought" that they literally are unable to see any other viewpoint, especially when that viewpoint fundamentally differs with all of their own reference points.  The most blatant inconsistencies in their own viewpoint go totally unrecognized and unaddressed.  Even when you bring such a person to admit they have a problem through hours of discussions, by the next day almost everyone of them will have found some way to forget that they admitted a severe inconsistency the prior day.

Few people can change their worldview after they have held it for many years.  It is often claimed that Ayn Rand's ideas appeal only to the young and therefor to the immature.  It is not entirely true that only the young are greatly influenced by her ideas and it is certainly not the case that her ideas only attract interest from the immature.  But, there is a reason why so many individuals who do become interested in Ayn Rand's ideas do so when they are young.  It is because such a large fraction of those older are mired in deep ruts in the mud of ideas they have held a long time and which have so distorted their view of the world that they cannot see or will not see the truth anymore.

Plano, Texas Suppresses Student Speech

The Plano, Texas school district has banished all religious expression from its schools.  Religious expression is surely a form of freedom of conscience, which is the sovereign right of every individual.  It is hardly surprising that government-run schools, which are mostly controlled by the forces of big government, are now prohibiting virtually all non-verbal student speech in any school-related activities.  This has resulted in a court case, Morgan v. Plano Independent School District, hearing which the Fifth Circuit chose to uphold the school district's speech restrictions based upon the United States v. O'Brien immediate scrutiny test of "time, place, and manner."  Apparently, this test will allow schools to further erode all student speech relating to religious and political content.  The Cato Institute joined three organizations that support religious liberty to file a brief asking the Supreme Court to re-examine the Fifth Circuit's approach in favor of the alternative Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District test that free speech cannot be suppressed unless that speech "materially and substantially disrupts" the educational process.

The statist authorities want to train students from an early age to give up their inconvenient freedom of speech and their freedom of conscience.  It is very important to stop this.  Of course, the best way to stop this is to end the reign of government-run schools and to promote private educations.  As we discussed recently, private schools have the added benefits of generally providing a better education and they are less expensive compared to the real costs of the public schools.

Disclosure:  I hold a grudge against Plano, Texas.  In the late 1960s, I was given a speeding ticket there for going 45 mph in a 35 mph zone.  I had exited US 75 going north, returning to Tulsa from a visit with a Brown University friend who lived in Dallas, and was driving through farmland.  I was concerned about what the speed limit was and could find no speed limit signs.  Soon, a police car pops out and pulls me over for a speeding ticket.  He hauled me into town where I had to wait for a judge to finish his checker game.  I had to pay a fine on the spot.  On returning to US 75, I searched again for a speed sign and found none.  Plano, Texas was then a small town, which it is no more, and was raking in income from unsuspecting interstate drivers.  It was their racket.  So, I have an additional minor reason for wanting to see the Supreme Court clean Plano, Texas's clock.  The need for freedom of conscience and freedom of speech are much more important, of course, but I will still have an added bonus in this if the Supreme Court makes the right decision.

A First Amendment Free Speech and Free Association Victory

The valiant defenders of liberty at the Institute for Justice and the Center for Competitive Politics have partially won a free speech, free association, and elections court case before the D.C. Court of Appeals on behalf of SpeechNow.org.  The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC expanded the free speech rights of incorporated entities, including corporations, unions, and non-profits, but did not address the right of independent citizens to form an unincorporated association to pool their money and perhaps other resources to advocate a particular viewpoint at or near election time without undue restrictions administered by the Federal Elections Commission (FEC).  Those restrictions included limits on how much one person could donate to the political action committee, despite the fact that one person acting alone has no limits.  Some of these restrictions on free speech and free association were due to the infamous McCain-Feingold so-called election reform law, which was designed to protect incumbent politicians from public criticism.

A September 2009 decision by the D.C. Court of Appeals in EMILY's List v. FEC struck down a number of FEC regulations that severely limited the ability of non-profit organizations to raise and spend money for political purposes.  It ruled that such entities could raise unlimited funds for non-federal political campaigns.  If they set up a federal political action committee (PAC), for most practical purposes they could use unlimited funds as long as they do not coordinate with candidates.

Incomprehensibly, the SpeechNow.org D.C. Court of Appeals decision, however, retained some restrictions on private individuals banding together for political free speech purposes which were deemed by the U.S. Supreme Court to be too restrictive of free speech for corporations and unions.  It removed the individual limit on contributions, but it retained disclosure requirements and other regulations on political action committees. One would think that this part of the decision should not long stand, given its absurdity!

The announcement of the court case win from the Center for Competitive Politics is here and that from the Institute of Justice is here.  Bradley A. Smith, Chairman of the Center for Competitive Politics and a former FEC chairman said,

It's unfortunate that the court did not recognize how political committee status regulation by the FEC places restrictive burdens on grassroots political groups.  The court's decision means that the FEC regulatory regime will continue to favor large, established special interests over ad hoc groups of like-minded citizens who gather together to enhance their voices in politics.

I certainly agree with him.  The rise of the many small groups in the Tea Party movement will surely challenge the right of the FEC, on behalf of incumbent politicians, to make it difficult for these groups to challenge the many incumbent Senators and Representatives who will not listen to us, who look down their elitist noses at the vast majority of the American People, and who find our sovereign rights an inconvenience.  The SpeechNow.org ruling may be carried on to the Supreme Court to try to remove more FEC restrictions for unincorporated associations.  If they do so, they might lose something they have already gained, but that is quite unlikely given the Citizens United v. FEC ruling by the Supreme Court.  If they do not carry this case onward, there will soon be other cases to challenge these continued unconstitutional restrictions on our freedom of speech and on our freedom of association.

It would be best to get these issues straightened out before the November 2010 elections.  It is clear that the incumbent Democrats and perhaps some incumbent Republicans too, would like to use such FEC restrictions to prevent the People from challenging them for their wanton disregard for our individual liberties and for the financial soundness of America.  We know we can count on the Democrats playing dirty pool.  They are specialists in deception, lies, and dirty tricks in their never-ending quest for the power to subjugate the American People!