Did Kasich Just Do an About-Face on Climate Change?
Maybe it’s because he is still feeling his way as a late entrant into the GOP presidential campaign, but Ohio Gov. John Kasich did a fairly dramatic about-face over the weekend on the politically charged issue of climate change.
Kasich, a former House Budget Committee chair and Wall Street business executive, has positioned himself as a “kinder, gentler” conservative than Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz and the dozen other Republicans running for the 2016 presidential nomination. So it wasn’t surprising that he would take a more moderate stand on global warming during the first nationally televised GOP presidential debate Thursday evening.
Related: 10 Things You Need to Know About John Kasich
Kasich, a devout Christian, declared during the two-hour debate sponsored by Fox News that climate change is a real problem requiring government and society to protect the “creation that the Lord has given us.”
While the vast majority of Republicans on Capitol Hill and the campaign trail are highly skeptical of President Obama’s campaign to curb industrial carbon emissions to prevent the disastrous long term effects of global warming on the environment and economy, Kasich appeared to be one of the few who took the threat seriously.
He emphasized the importance of unity and cooperation, saying at one point that “we’ve got to unite our country again, because we’re stronger when we are united and we are weaker when we are divided.”
Just a few days later, though, after winning plaudits for his Thursday night performance – with some even favorably comparing his views on environmental threats to those of Pope Francis – Kasich sounded much like a climate-change doubter.
Related: Does Kasich Have a Chance? How He Can Catch Up to the GOP
During an appearance on NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” Kasich told moderator Chuck Todd that “I think man absolutely affects the environment, but as to whether, you know, what the impact is, the overall impact, I think that’s a legitimate debate.”
Kasich went on to say that in Ohio, “we preciously take care of Lake Erie, and we’ve reduced emissions by 30 percent over the last ten years.”
“We believe in alternative energy,” he added. “So of course we have to be sensitive to it, but we don’t want to destroy people’s jobs, based on some theory that’s not proven.”
According to National Journal, the Kasich 2016 campaign attempted to clarify his remarks following his appearance on “Meet the Press.” "The governor has long believed climate change is real and we need to do something about it,” according to the statement. “The debate over exact percentages of why it is happening is less important than what can be done about it. We know it is real, we know man has an impact, and we know we need to do something."
A number of prominent presidential candidates -- including former Florida governor Jeb Bush and Sens. Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Rand Paul -- are climate change doubters or deniers. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is one of the few who unquestionably accepts scientific evidence that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are a principal cause of global warming, and has sharply criticized his party for lacking a comprehensive environmental platform.
Top Reads From The Fiscal Times:
- How GOP Candidates Would Steer U.S. Foreign Policy
- Fiorina Takes on Trump in a Brave Battle of the Sexes
- As Politicians Bicker Over Funding, Military Families Cut Back on Vacations
The High Cost of Child Poverty
Childhood poverty cost $1.03 trillion in 2015, including the loss of economic productivity, increased spending on health care and increased crime rates, according to a recent study in the journal Social Work Research. That annual cost represents about 5.4 percent of U.S. GDP. “It is estimated that for every dollar spent on reducing childhood poverty, the country would save at least $7 with respect to the economic costs of poverty,” says Mark R. Rank, a co-author of the study and professor of social welfare at Washington University in St. Louis. (Futurity)
Do You Know What Your Tax Rate Is?
Complaining about taxes is a favorite American pastime, and the grumbling might reach its annual peak right about now, as tax day approaches. But new research from Michigan State University highlighted by the Money magazine website finds that Americans — or at least Michiganders — dramatically overstate their average tax rate.
In a survey of 978 adults in the Wolverine State, almost 220 people said they didn’t know what percentage of their income went to federal taxes. Of the people who did provide an answer, almost 85 percent overstated their actual rate, sometimes by a large margin. On average, those taxpayers said they pay 25.5 percent of their income in federal taxes. But the study’s authors estimated that their actual average tax rate was just under 14 percent.
The large number of people who didn’t want to venture a guess as to their tax rate and the even larger number who were wildly off both suggest to the researchers “that a very substantial portion of the population is uninformed or misinformed about average federal income-tax rates.”
Why don’t we know what we’re paying?
Part of the answer may be that our tax system is complicated and many of us rely on professionals or specialized software to prepare our filings. Money’s Ian Salisbury notes that taxpayers in the survey who relied on that kind of help tended to be further off in their estimates, after controlling for other factors.
Also, many people likely don’t understand the different types of taxes they pay. While the survey asked specifically about federal taxes, the tax rates people provided more closely matched their total tax rate, including federal, state, local and payroll taxes.
But our politics likely play a role here as well. People who believe that taxes on households like theirs should be lower and those who believe tax dollars are spent ineffectively tended to overstate their tax rates more.
“Since the time of Ronald Reagan, American[s] have been inundated with messages about how high taxes are,” one of the study’s authors told Salisbury. “The notion they are too high has become deeply ingrained.”
Wealthy Investors Are Worried About Washington, and the Debt
A new survey by the Spectrem Group, a market research firm, finds that almost 80 percent of investors with net worth between $100,000 and $25 million (not including their home) say that the U.S. political environment is their biggest concern, followed by government gridlock (76 percent) and the national debt (75 percent).
Trump’s Push to Reverse Parts of $1.3 Trillion Spending Bill May Be DOA
At least two key Republican senators are unlikely to support an effort to roll back parts of the $1.3. trillion spending bill passed by Congress last month, The Washington Post’s Mike DeBonis reported Monday evening. While aides to President Trump are working with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) on a package of spending cuts, Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) expressed opposition to the idea, meaning a rescission bill might not be able to get a simple majority vote in the Senate. And Roll Call reports that other Republican senators have expressed significant skepticism, too. “It’s going nowhere,” Sen. Lindsey Graham said.
Goldman Sees Profit in the Tax Cuts
David Kostin, chief U.S. equity strategist at Goldman Sachs, said in a note to clients Friday cited by CNBC that companies in the S&P 500 can expect to see a boost in return on equity (ROE) thanks to the tax cuts. Return on equity should hit the highest level since 2007, Kostin said, providing a strong tailwind for stock prices even as uncertainty grows about possible conflicts over trade.
Return on equity, defined as the amount of net income returned as a percentage of shareholders’ equity, rose to 16.3 percent in 2016, and Kostin is forecasting an increase to 17.6 percent in 2018. "The reduction in the corporate tax rate alone will boost ROE by roughly 70 [basis points], outweighing margin pressures from rising labor, commodity, and borrow costs," Kostin wrote.
