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The advance word has been mixed about President Obama's September 8 jobs speech. Bold or not bold? Rumors have been floated that bold will be the order of the day, but some of the President's advisors have been attempting to diminish expectations.
Were I advising President Obama on his speech, sustainable and energy-efficient building programs would be included in the mix as a high-growth and cost-effective way to get America back to work and enhance American competitiveness.
Programs that focus on building energy-efficiency create jobs not only in construction, but also in architecture; engineering; interior design; energy audit; the design, manufacture and sale of building equipment, materials and supplies; finance; law; and -- to support the tracking of building energy savings -- software development and sales.
As economists would say, building energy-efficiency programs have a high multiplier effect—they create significant economic activity per dollar spent. And, by reducing the operating costs of homes and commercial properties, such programs are cost-effective and improve American competitiveness.
Here are several building energy-efficiency programs that have tremendous promise, have won substantial bipartisan support, and produce meaningful, long and which warrant aggressive implementation:
PACE. Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) programs are much-needed vehicles to create American jobs while reducing building energy costs. PACE programs allow municipalities, upon state authorization, to create building energy-efficiency retrofit programs that are repaid by tax assessments on participating properties.
The programs can be used for a wide range of building energy-efficiency improvements, ranging from weatherization, to upgrading heating, ventilating and air conditioning equipment, to installing solar panels and other renewable energy systems.
PACE initiatives, the local creation of which has been authorized in 27 states, have been largely sidelined since mid-2010. The Federal Housing Finance Agency put the kibosh on residential PACE programs [PDF] by precluding Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which buy the lion's share of U.S. home loans in the secondary mortgage market, from purchasing PACE-encumbered mortgages. FHFA's action shut down the residential PACE market and had a chilling effect on commercial PAC E initiatives. (Full disclosure: My firm has advised several jurisdictions on PACE and serves on a team that will be creating a commercial PACE program for the District of Columbia.)
Getting PACE back in gear should be easy for the President to support. Bipartisan legislation introduced in July in the U.S. House of Representatives, the PACE Assessment Protection Act of 2011, would require Fannie Mae and Freddie Mae to participate in PACE programs that met threshold criteria for safety and soundness.
Next page: EISA & the 179D Tax Credit
Republicans have had their
Republicans have had their taxes go to where they want and they chose the wars. Progressives pay taxes too and we must stand firm for them going where we want: the green economy.
More of the same
More of the same crapola.
What Obama should put forth is a CARBON TAX that Conservatives and Liberals can cheer!
The LMAD plan does just this.
Ironically, in advancing their respective causes, Liberals and Conservatives actually make the same apocalyptic arguments. Both claim the future is at stake and that future generations will suffer. Both claim that the facts are on their side. And both make good arguments for action. Still, the public couldn’t care less about global warming and is unwilling to make the hard choices on America’s fiscal problems.
So it’s time for Liberals concerned about rising global temperatures and Conservatives concerned about rising federal debt to realize the obvious: they need to BUY each other off in order to effectively address their pet ideological concerns—there is no other way. It’s just too easy for Washington political adversaries to thwart the other side’s priorities. “Buying each other off” means trading, among other things, a carbon tax and fully-funded healthcare for all for a balanced budget amendment and an enforceable limit on the size of government (limited government).
For starters, the LMAD plan buys off Liberals with a $600 billion carbon tax to fight global warming. It also adds fully-funded healthcare for every American, a public option health insurance entity, and the implementation of consumption-based tax schemes that are frequently advocated by Liberals such as a “salt-sugar-fat tax” and a value-added tax. The LMAD plan even grants overnight amnesty of 10 million illegal aliens. These are all long-sought ideological goals favored by Liberals that will never, ever pass otherwise.
Then, LMAD buys off Conservatives with a strict balanced budget and a limit on the size of government as a percentage of GDP. It also permanently ends future illegal immigration, adds tort reform and completely replaces all taxes on production, labor, saving and investment with the new carbon tax, the value-added tax and the salt-sugar-fat tax favored by Liberals. The LMAD plan even removes the burden of healthcare expenses from corporate balance sheets by ending America’s reliance on employer-provided health insurance. These are all long-sought ideological goals favored by Conservatives that will never, ever pass otherwise.
With LMAD, Liberals can breathe easier knowing that global warming is finally being addressed, that every American has adequate healthcare and that energy, consumption, waste and affluenza are appropriately taxed.
Conservatives can fire their guns in the air to celebrate that the budget is permanently balanced, the size of government is held in check, and those anti-growth taxes and business-borne healthcare costs that are killing American exports and penalizing work, savings and investment are forever ended.
Both sides will appreciate that the LMAD deal is a potent GDP-growth accelerant that puts the United States firmly in the China/India economic growth league. The country will be transformed from a debt-ridden, gluttonous net-importer afflicted with high structural unemployment, unaffordable healthcare costs and scant economic prospects to a lean, efficient, export juggernaut that creates millions of new, higher-income jobs and hosts an increasing number of world class companies that choose to relocate to the only country on the planet that doesn’t tax production or labor. With healthcare costs finally contained and economic growth unleashed, Medicare and Social Security will be made solvent without the need to impose politically painful benefit cuts.
Let's Make A Deal: A Hail Mary Pass to Get America Off the Bench and Back in the Game
Healthcare-for-All? It’s in there. Balanced budget? It’s in there. Carbon tax? It’s in there. Rational taxation? Amnesty? Border Security? Limited government? Social Security and Medicare solvency? It’s all in there; it’s all paid for and it’s all scalable and optimized for economic growth.
Blog: letsmakeadeal-thebook.com/
Facebook: facebook.com/pages/Lets-Make-A-Deal-The-Book/143298165732386
Twitter: twitter.com/#!/lmadster
Amazon: amazon.com/Lets-Make-Deal-Jon-Mitchell/dp/0982975716
B&N.com: barnesandnoble.com/w/lets-make-a-deal-jon-mitchell/1031386165
Or just Google "LMADster"