A young woman was finishing her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat, and was very much in favor of the “redistribution of wealth.”

She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch Republican, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his.

One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the addition of more government welfare programs. The self-professed objectivity proc laimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father. He responded by asking how she was doing in school.

Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn’t even have time for a boyfriend, and didn’t really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying.

Her father listened and then asked, “How is your friend Audrey doing?”

She replied, “Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes, she never studies, and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus; college for her is a blast. She’s always invited to all the parties, and lots of times she doesn’t even show up for classes because she’s too hung over.”

Her father th en asked his daughter, “Why don’t you go to the Dean’s office and ask him to deduct a 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA.”

The daughter, visibly shocked by her father’s suggestion, angrily fired back, “That wouldn’t be fair! I have worked really hard for my grades! I’ve invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off!”

The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, “Welcome to the Republican Party.”

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100.00
If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this…

The first four men [the poorest] would pay nothing.
The fifth man would pay $1.
The sixth man would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man [the richest] would pay $59.

So that’s what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve ball.  “Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.”  Drinks for the ten men would now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes.  So the first four men were unaffected.  They would still drink for free.  But what about the other six men?  How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his fair share?

They realized that $20 divided by six people is $3.33.  But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by a higher percentage the poorer he was, to follow the principle of the tax system they had been using.  He proceeded to work out the amounts he suggested that each should now pay.

So, the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing [a 100% savings].
The sixth man now paid $2 instead of $3 [a 33% savings].
The seventh man now paid $5 instead of $7 [a 28% savings].
The eighth man now paid $9 instead of $12 [a 25% savings].
The ninth man now paid $14 instead of $18 [a 22% savings].
The tenth man now paid $49 instead of $59 [a 16% savings].

Each of the six was better off than before.  And the first four continued to drink for free.  But once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings.

“I only got a dollar out of the $20 savings,” declared the sixth man.  He pointed to the tenth man, “but he got $10 in savings!” Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man.  “I only saved a dollar, too.  It’s unfair that the richest among us got ten times more benefit than me!” “That’s true!” shouted the seventh man.  “Why should he get $10 back when I got only $2?  The wealthy get all the breaks!”

“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison, “we didn’t get anything at all.  This new tax system exploits the poor!” The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night, the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had their beers without him.  But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important.  They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the tab.

And that, boys and girls, journalists and government ministers, is how our tax system works.  The people who already pay the highest taxes will naturally get the most benefit from a tax reduction.  Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore.  In fact, they might start drinking overseas, where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

President Barack Obama has bragged in public about making significant energy investments to stimulate the economy. Yet, a federal watchdog has determined he terminated a major national energy project for purely political reasons, a decision that will cost taxpayers billions and could increase risks to public safety.

Citing no research and offering no scientific justification, a spokesman for President Obama’s Energy Department declared in 2009, “nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain is not an option, period.”

In summarizing a scathing new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, The New York Times recently wrote that, “The Obama administration’s rushed efforts to shut down Yucca Mountain were strictly political and could set back the opening of a nuclear waste repository by more than 20 years… The administration killed the repository program last year without citing technical or safety issues, and restarting the costly and time-consuming process of finding a permanent repository or an alternative solution could take decades and cost billions of additional dollars.”

Approved by Congress in 2002, Yucca Mountain is a multi-billion dollar facility built in the remote Nevada desert as the nation’s first long-term storage for high-level radioactive waste. Nuclear waste produced in the development of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons that are currently stored around the country were to be moved to Yucca beginning in 2020. This would have included waste from the Savannah River site, Duke Energy’s Oconee and Catawba nuclear plants, and SCANA’s Jenkinsville nuclear plant.

Yet after decades of studies and years of construction, President Obama decided to close Yucca Mountain to appease his liberal base of radical environmentalists and as a favor to Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Despite Yucca’s unexplained closure, the amount of hazardous nuclear waste continues to grow around the country at facilities that were promised by the government that there would be a secure long-term storage site. Currently, there are nearly 65,000 metric tons of spent fuel being stored at 75 different sites in 33 states. Each year, the inventory of spent fuel increases by 2,000 metric tons.

Since 1983, the government has spent more than $15 billion evaluating potential nuclear storage sites, studying Yucca Mountain and working towards obtaining the proper permits for it. The effort began to decrease the safety risk of having numerous above-ground storage sites of highly-radioactive materials around the country, and to instead centrally locate the materials safely underground where security could be tightened.

The National Academy of Scientists has said, “There is strong worldwide consensus that the best, safest long-term option for dealing with HLW (high-level radioactive waste) is geological isolation.” Yucca Mountain is one of very few locations that fit that requirement.

By shutting down Yucca Mountain, the Obama Administration has not only risked public safety and an enormous taxpayer investment, but also jeopardized the future of the country’s entire nuclear program. As the GAO report states: “Prolonging on-site storage could also increase opposition to expansion of the nuclear industry, according to state and industry officials… For example, Minnesota officials noted that negative public reaction to a proposal to increase dry-cask storage at a nuclear plant led the state legislature to impose a moratorium on new nuclear plants. At least 12 other states have similar prohibitions on new construction, 9 of which can be lifted when a means of disposing of spent nuclear fuel can be demonstrated.”

Although Yucca’s closing will impact millions of Americans who depend on clean nuclear energy and who work in those sectors, the Obama administration has offered little explanation for their actions.

It took decades of scientific studies to successfully prove Yucca Mountain would improve American energy security and safely store nuclear waste underground. But without a single scientific study, it took only a few short months for Obama’s Department of Energy to announce plans to terminate the program.

In February 2010 President Obama killed all funding for Yucca Mountain in his budget and a few months later the Department of Energy began taking aggressive actions to dismantle the program, terminating hundreds of workers and contractors, including a number of highly trained scientists and their support personnel. Truckloads of federal property were abandoned and hundreds of offices were shuttered in a matter of months.

GAO investigators said in their report, “Reconstituting this expertise and teamwork could be difficult. DOE has left itself vulnerable to losses in both experienced staff and physical property.” It went on to say, “Several DOE officials told us that they had never seen such a large program with so much pressure to close down so quickly.”

The Department of Energy has responsibility, under the law, to move forward with the Yucca Mountain project, and it clearly misspent money allocated by Congress that was intended to complete Yucca Mountain and instead used to close it down.

Simply put, the Obama administration ignored science, ignored the law, and ignored the years of taxpayer investment. While they chose dirty politics over clean energy, we will continue to fight for commonsense energy policy.

We will pursue legislation to require that the Department of Energy either restarts the Yucca project or repays the billions of taxpayer dollars back to the states that funded Yucca’s development. Additionally, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is independent from the Department of Energy, should resume its technical review of the Yucca application and release all pertinent data concerning the project, so that Americans may evaluate the project on its scientific and safety merits.

In June of 2010, President Obama said, “As we recover from this recession, the transition to clean energy has the potential to grow our economy and create millions of jobs — but only if we accelerate that transition. Only if we seize the moment.”

Unfortunately, President Obama has seized the moment to reward political allies at the expense of the nation’s prosperity and energy security.

Senate Panel to Investigate DOT Finances

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

COLUMBIA, August 19, 2011 — Senator Larry Grooms today announced that he will hold a special Senate hearing to hear from the South Carolina Department of Transportation concerning its financial situation.

The DOT reports that cash problems have caused the department to fall behind in paying vendors and contractors. There are also indications that the department could have difficulty meeting other future financial obligations.

“Roads and bridges are a vital to the safety and economic wellbeing of every South Carolinian,” says Senator Grooms, Chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee. “I don’t want to put the public at risk. People deserve clear answers about why DOT can’t pay its bills.”

DOT Secretary Robert St. Onge is expected to address the Committee. The hearing will be held on Thursday, September 8, 2011 at 1:00 p.m. in Room 308 of the Gressette Building, 1101 Pendleton Street, Columbia.
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Contact: David Owens – 803.212.6402