FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog

This supposed “DEAL” is NOT going to happen.

Reporting from Sacramento — State lawmakers began moving toward a deal this week to close California’s deficit with the help of steeper car fees that would cost many drivers hundreds of dollars annually, according to people involved in budget talks.

Under the plan, GOP lawmakers — most of whom have signed anti-tax pledges — would vote to triple the vehicle license fee that owners pay when they register their cars every year in exchange for a ballot measure that would impose rigid limits on future state spending. Motorists’ annual license fees would rise from 0.65% of the value of their vehicles to 2%. For a car or truck valued at $25,000, the increase would be $336.

Flap has heard from a California Republican Legislator who blasts this deal as a “liberal/L.A. Times rumor.”

TimesOnLine: American fury at plan to charge £27 green tax on long flights

AIRLINE passengers would pay up to £27 extra for a return ticket to cover the environmental damage caused by their flights, under European Commission proposals to address climate change.

Draft legislation to be published next month would require all flights arriving or departing from European Union airports to buy permits to cover their carbon dioxide emissions.

The document, a copy of which has been obtained by The Times, says that airlines would join Europe’s emissions trading scheme by 2011 and predicts that they would pass on the costs to their passengers.

The report estimates that passengers on flights within Europe would pay an extra €9 (£6) for a ticket, with the actual sum depending on the price of the permits. Those flying long haul would pay up to €39.60 (£27).

This will infuriate the United States and many other countries because it would affect all flights into and out of Europe, regardless of their origin or destination. US airlines would have to buy permits to cover their emissions on their European routes.

Trade War.

One that the European Union with their heavily subsidized airlines will lose.

But, hey, Europeans will either have to impose higher taxes or import more Muslim immigrants to pay for their economically failing economies. The EU’s decline will be exacerbated by this move.

Flap’s guess is that after the ruination of their tourism industry from the United States there will be some reconsideration/recapitulation.

Captain Ed has EU To Put Green Tax On Intercontinental Flights

Previous:

European Air Fares “To Double” As a Result of Green Tax

Timesonline: Air fares ‘to double’ as Europe votes for green tax

AIR passengers will be charged up to £40 extra for a return ticket within Europe to pay for the environmental impact of their journeys, under plans approved by the European Parliament yesterday.

MEPs voted in favour of the “immediate introduction” of a tax on jet fuel for flights within the 25 member states of the EU. The charge would double the cost of millions of budget airline flights.

The MEPs said that the scheme should cover all flights arriving at or departing from EU airports rather than just intra-EU flights, as had been proposed by BA. But the scheme is likely to be limited to flights within Europe in the early years to avoid legal challenges from the United States and other countries. MEPs also accepted the proposal for a separate environmental tax to cover the impact of nitrogen oxides and condensation trails emitted by aircraft.

The Europeans sure know how to kill their tourism business.

Oh well, better business for the United States and certainly for Boeing.

Technorati Tags: Europeanairfares, airfares, Europe, BritishAirways

White House budget director Rob Portman is seen on Capitol Hill, May 11, 2006. President Bush’s drive for line-item veto power to control deficit-spending is facing resistance in the U.S. House of Representatives where the outcome of a vote scheduled for Thursday is in doubt, Portman said on Tuesday.

AP: House approves watered-down line-item veto

President Bush would receive greater power to try to kill “pork barrel” spending projects under a bill passed Thursday by the House.

Lawmakers voted to give Bush and his successor a new, weaker version of the line-item veto law struck down by the Supreme Court in 1998, despite a recent series of lopsided votes in which they’ve rallied to preserve each other’s back-home projects. It would expire after six years.

The idea advances amid increasing public concern about lawmakers’ penchant for stuffing parochial projects into spending bills that the president must accept or reject in their entirety.

The House passed the bill by a 247-172 vote. Thirty-five Democrats joined with most Republicans in voting for the bill; 15 Republicans opposed the measure and others voted for the bill despite private reservations.

The measure must still pass the Senate, and that’s by no means a certainty.

The bill would allow the president to single out items contained in appropriations bills he signs into law, and it would require Congress to vote on those items again. It also could be used against increases in benefit programs and tax breaks aimed at a single beneficiary.

Under the proposal, it would take a simple majority in both the House and the Senate to approve the items over the president’s objections.

Well, this bill is better than nothing but NOT by much. And this bill is far weaker than the bill passed while Bill Clinton was in office - but later declared overtruned by the U.S. Supreme Court. In that particular bill, the President could strike out an item from appropriations or tax legislation and the Congress would have to overturn this veto by a 2/3 vote.

The Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional two years later because it let the president single-handedly change laws passed by Congress.

It’s not clear that the new spending control tool would be very effective. Congress easily mustered the two-thirds margins needed to override Clinton’s 1997 vetoes of military construction projects. More recently, lawmakers have united to reject attacks by a lone conservative, Rep. Jeff Flake (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., to strip from spending bills the very kind of projects the new line-item veto is aimed at attacking.

But, the pork-laden federal budget has to be controlled. There is too much parochial spending. If this legislation fails in the U.S. Senate, then the House should introduce a constitutional amendment and give the President a stronger and true line-item veto.

Stay tuned….

Captain Ed has Line-Item Veto Passes House

The roll call vote can be found here. Voters concerned about earmarks and corruption should note those who opposed this measure. The following Republicans decided to back away from the line-item veto:

Aderholt
Buyer (there’s a name for you!)
Emerson
Hobson
Jones (NC)
Lewis (CA)
Northrup
Otter
Paul
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Simmons
Simpson
Sweeney
Walsh

The inclusion of Jerry Lewis, the head of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, comes as no surprise. After all, Lewis sent $11 million in earmarks to Trident Systems, whose president paid Lewis’ stepdaughter almost a third of all the money raised by his PAC, for which she was employed. Lewis doesn’t want to lose his political heft and ability to direct federal funds to the beneficiaries of his family — which gives us more reason to cheer this vote.

Mitchell Rose holds the yellow stickers that hybrid owners must use to access carpool lanes. The decals, which are 7 by 3 inches and 5 by 2 inches in size, go on panels behind the rear wheels and on the bumpers.

The ASSociated Press has Hybrid Car Buyers to Receive Tax Breaks

Hybrid cars are a good bet for tax breaks in 2006. The new year will bring more savings for buyers of at least 13 gas-electric vehicles, with those showing the most improvement in fuel efficiency securing bigger tax breaks for their new owners.

The breaks will come in the form of tax credits, and they range from $3,150 for buyers of the Toyota Prius to $250 for Chevrolet’s Silverado pickup truck, according to an analysis by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

The credits give buyers of American hybrids incentives similar to those now enjoyed mostly by Honda and Toyota owners.

Official figures on the hybrid tax credits weren’t available Friday from the Internal Revenue Service.

Still, some car-shoppers already have figured out they would do better to hold off on buying a hybrid until after Jan. 1, when the new credits kick in.

Well, only one day to wait……..about those ugly stickers……….

Technorati Tags: Hybrid Automobiles, California, carpool lanes, Toyota Prius

An unidentified man smokes a cigarette in Sacramento, Calif., Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2005. A coalition of health organizations wants to increase the tax on a pack of cigarettes by 300 percent in California to boost funding for hospital emergency care, nursing education, cancer research and a variety of other health programs. The per-pack tax would jump by $2.60 under an initiative the coalition hopes to have on the November 2006 ballot, supporters said Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2005.

Timm Herdt of the Ventura County Star has Smokers might pay more

Hospitals and healthcare advocacy groups in California, which had been headed toward an intramural fight over dueling tobacco-tax initiatives, on Tuesday united behind a single, massive tax measure they hope to put before voters in November.

The measure would seek a $2.60-per-pack tax increase on cigarettes, which would raise the price of a pack of cigarettes by about 65 percent and give California by far the highest tobacco taxes in America. The increase alone is higher than the current top state tax rate of $2.46 in Rhode Island. Along Tobacco Road in North Carolina, the tax is just a nickel a pack.

When added to the existing 87 cents per pack in California, it would bring the state taxes on a single pack of cigarettes to $3.47.

The only jurisdiction that comes close is New York City, where the city and state each impose a $1.50 tax for a combined tax of $3 per pack.

Less Smoking is GOOD.

A Black Market in Tobacco Products is BAD

Can you imagine the hijacking of 18 wheelers full of Cigs?

And how about our native American folks on their soverign territory (Indian Casinos)? How will they cash in?

And…..redistribution of wealth for government programs through addiction taxation smells……..

And…..the amount?……..

It may pass but will cost too much to enforce……

Stay tuned……..