To meet the Obama administration’s targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, some researchers say, Americans may have to experience a sobering reality: gas at $7 a gallon.

To reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the transportation sector 14 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, the cost of driving must simply increase, according to a forthcoming report by researchers at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

The 14 percent target was set in the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget for fiscal 2010.

In their study, the researchers devised several combinations of steps that United States policymakers might take in trying to address the heat-trapping emissions by the nation’s transportation sector, which consume 70 percent of the oil used in the United States.

Most of their models assumed an economy-wide carbon dioxide tax starting at $30 a ton in 2010 and escalating to $60 a ton in 2030. In some cases researchers also factored in tax credits for electric and hybrid vehicles, taxes on fuel or both.

Source – The New York Times

I can make a firm pledge, under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.
- Barack Obama

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Another ‘Ridiculous’ Waste of Taxpayer Money

The new U.S. Embassy in London will be the most expensive ever built — a $1 billion crystal compound whose cost and amenities are drawing ire from taxpayer watchdogs.

The State Department has unveiled its plans for an extravagant new embassy in London, an expensive crystal cube that features a 100-foot moat among its defenses — but the hi-tech hive is already facing angry salvos from fuming taxpayer watchdogs.

The new structure, reported by the Times of London to cost $1 billion, would set a glittering jewel in the crown of American presence abroad, even as soaring deficits and unemployment continue to threaten the economy at home.

Full report – FOX News

Click here to see images of plans for the new embassy.

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Adding a $1 per pack tax to cigarettes could raise more than $9 billion a year for states, health advocates said on Wednesday, and a poll released with the study shows Americans would support such a tax.

Read more from Reuters

Tobacco is just a scape goat for the politicians to gain revenue with the least amount of complaints.

End of life care is the most expensive care regardless of what caused the end of life. and guess what, none of us gets out of here alive.

If you take time to do the math, a smoker dies younger and costs the government the least amount of money because they are not likely to collect the social security and medicare as a “healthy” person would that lives well into their elder years.

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New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has landed himself a ticket to the Super Bowl – and the taxpayers are footing the bill.

Nagin expressed shock last week that as the city’s chief executive, he only had been offered the option to buy tickets in a “nosebleed section” of Sun Life Stadium in Miami, where the Saints make their Super Bowl debut Sunday.

But Nagin told a local radio station this morning that his fortunes have changed, though he wasn’t specific about where he’ll be sitting or with whom he’s traveling. “The Saints have come through. I got some good seats,” the mayor told WBOK radio.

“I paid for them,” Nagin told host Gerod Stevens before correcting himself. “Well, the city paid for them because this is an official visit, a business trip.”

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American International Group Inc. is set to pay out about $100 million in a fresh round of bonuses to employees of its financial products division, the unit whose risky bets helped sink the company leading to a $180 billion government bailout, according to reports published Tuesday.

AIG agreed to cut the retention bonuses by $20 million but will still hand out $100 million Wednesday, The New York Times reported, citing people with knowledge of the negotiations.

AIG should be paying the taxpayers a bonus for having to put up with their blatant arrogance and greed.

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