Thanks Obama for the Tax Credit

[Torie]

I hope I live long enough to outlive this alternative energy mania, in its search for some way out of the box, by hoping that dumping a bunch of money into it, and some technological deus ex machina will make it all better, with boatloads of "green jobs" to boot. It is basically a scam. The end.

Yes, I am getting very irritable about this issue. Enough already!

[Torie]

Just purchased 3 new storm doors for the house. Couldn't and wouldn't have afforded it without the tax credit. Good for the door manufacturer, good for the contractor who installed them, good for our family using less energy, multiplied x 1000's its good for the environment and good for America by being less reliant on imported energy.

But Obama did it so THIS tax cut must be bad, bad, BAD! Hopefully the new GOP House will repeal it and raise our taxes cause....

What percentage of the cost of the your doors was paid for by the taxpayer?

[Torie]

Just purchased 3 new storm doors for the house. Couldn't and wouldn't have afforded it without the tax credit. Good for the door manufacturer, good for the contractor who installed them, good for our family using less energy, multiplied x 1000's its good for the environment and good for America by being less reliant on imported energy.

But Obama did it so THIS tax cut must be bad, bad, BAD! Hopefully the new GOP House will repeal it and raise our taxes cause....

What percentage of the cost of the your doors was paid for by the taxpayer?

By the taxpayers? Nothing. By this taxpayer (me) a total of about $450. It was my taxes that were lowered, no one else paid a cent for them, Torie.

Now, I perfectly realize its not that simple. The deficit is increased by any tax cut. BUT, how is this ANY different than any other tax cut? Can not the exact same thing be said of the upper income tax cuts Bush and the GOP passed and with Boehner vows to defend to the death? Arguably this tax credit has a much more targeted value.

$150 per door, which each door costing maybe $350? Not good. A tax credit is precisely the same as the government cutting you a check as if you were a welfare queen, as a economic matter. Money is fungible.  Maybe you can help educate many of my Pubbie friends about that one - they typically are just about as delusioned about that as Democrats, if not more so.

Tax rates are a bit different, at least to the extent that they are not about sending you a check or not based on your consumption patterns, and to the extent they are, I have largely come to the conclusion that they are a bad  idea, admitting that unwinding some of these black holes, like deducting interest for purchase money principal residence mortgages, if unwound now, would probably generate more pain than it is worth. Sometimes we can just not "afford" to get rid of earlier bad government programs, because of the attendant dislocations - and that is very sobering.

[Torie]

Tax credits make some theoretical sense, to and only to, the extent they mitigate economic externalities, to wit, costs and benefits not internalized into the price system. And about that, folks have different points of views in how to quantify such externalities. As an example, is "global warming" going to extirpate our species before I would otherwise assume room temperate or not? 

[Torie]

Yes, it would be nice Badger if supply side existed to the degree fantasized by so many in my party. So many fantasies, so little time, they go on and on. I guess whether or not I am a welfare queen because my tax rate is less than 100% in the end is a philosophical issue. And you know how those arguments go.