subsidies
lborkowski | March 27, 2017Many of us breathed sighs of relief on Friday when House Speaker Paul Ryan announced the withdrawal of legislation to roll back the Affordable Care Act. The bill, the American Health Care Act, would have resulted in 24 million people losing insurance and $880 billion less for Medicaid over the next 10 years -- while giving an $883 billion tax cut targeted to the wealthiest. At town hall meetings and over the phones, members of Congress heard from constituents urging them to leave the ACA’s coverage expansions in place. Yet the bill’s defeat doesn’t mean that the idea of healthcare coverage…
illconsidered | November 7, 2011Paul Krugman has some optimistic economic commentary on solar energy in the NYT today, titled "Here comes solar energy".
It can not be emphasized enough, his points about indirect subsidies to dirty energy sources in the form of shifting the indirect social costs (health and environmental damage) of coal and fracking onto the public. The playing field is not level and tipped in precisely the wrong direction if we are serious about a better future for ourselves and the planet.
sastyk | January 28, 2010My fellow Science blogger Eric Michael Johnson has a superb post up about possible strategies for reforestation in Haiti - and the enormous economic barriers to doing so:
In other words, by providing a 25% subsidy for seed and a 75% subsidy for fertilizers both large and small farms would improve their income while at the same time improving the conditions of their environment. These subsidies would also be less expensive than the current practice of punishing infractions.
"The modeling results indicate that agricultural subsidies tied to forest conservation can provide opportunities for…