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5 Ways to Green Your Finances

by EbonyCastles Posted on April 7, 2018

If you’re making an effort to be more environmentally conscious, you probably already know that frugality and sustainability often go hand in hand. Wasting less usually means saving more, so by embarking on a more eco-friendly lifestyle, you’re probably greening your finances too. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t extra opportunities to be green in your financial life.

Here are?five tips for greening your finances ? the planet and your wallet will thank you!

Go Paperless

Going paperless?may seem obvious, but it’s the number one piece of eco-friendly financial advice for a reason. By opting out of paper bank statements, bills and other financial communications, you’ll save a whole lotta trees because of the envelopes, paper and stamps necessary to pay via snail mail. Have paperless statements emailed to you, and pay your bills with your bank’s mobile banking app.

Use Apps to Pay People Back

If you go out for dinner with friends or family (or owe them money for any reason), pay them back with an app like PayPal or Venmo, rather than using paper-intensive checks and cash.

Use an Affiliate Credit Card or Donation Program

Charities like the?The Nature Conservancy and The Sierra Club offer branded credit cards that donate a portion of your proceeds to the causes they support. Another option is to use a service like Amazon Smile. By selecting a charity ahead of time, you can designate that a portion of every order you place through Amazon Smile will be donated to the charity of your choice. However, there’s a caveat with the latter option… (keep reading).

Shop Brick and Mortar

Although Amazon Smile is great for the instances where you absolutely need to order online, it’s not the greenest way to shop, as Amazon often uses a lot of unnecessary packaging that’s horrible for the environment. Shop Amazon Smile when absolutely necessary, but otherwise, go to brick and mortar stores that offer products with as little packaging as possible.

Related: Ways to Reuse Shipping Boxes

Invest in Green Stocks

Finally, show your support for sustainable initiatives by investing in socially responsible investments. These kinds of options?are stocks and mutual funds that back sustainability-focused companies and initiatives.

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5 Ways to Green Your Diet and Save Money
10 Best Foods to Buy in Bulk to Save Money
10 Tips for the Thermostat: Your Key to Savings

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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5 Ways to Green Your Finances

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Are Fuel Additives Really Green?

by GSCClarita Posted on March 26, 2018

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As gas prices trend upward, you may be wondering about ways to maximize the fuel economy in your car. One commonly assumed option is adding a gasoline additive when you fill the tank, and there are plenty on the market.

In fact, it’s estimated the fuel additive market will reach over $11 billion by 2024, with environmental concerns one of the top reasons. This leads to the question: Are fuel additives actually eco-friendly?

What Is a Fuel Additive?

Simply put, fuel additives are products that will increase gasoline’s octane rating (so you can buy 87 octane and get the benefits of 89 or 91 octane) or help prevent engine corrosion. They have been around since 1970, when Chevron gas featured a new additive called polybutene amine, marketed as F-310.

F-310 was promoted as reducing emissions by up to 50 percent and increasing fuel economy by up to 7.7 percent. This product has eventually been modified into Techron, arguably the most recognizable fuel additive today.

For F-310, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigated claims of deceptive advertising, and Chevron ended up pulling the campaign. Ever since, the FTC has kept tabs on how fuel additives promote their benefits to consumers.

This hasn’t stopped the market from developing. Because the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requires gasoline additive companies to register their products, we know that there are more than 10,000 fuel additives on sale today. Not surprisingly, over 100 have the word “green” in the company or product name.

How Are Additives Regulated?

The additive registration process does not include testing for fuel economy increases or emissions reductions, although manufacturers must include the chemical composition of additives. The EPA makes a point to say that even though a product is registered, that doesn’t imply an EPA endorsement of its benefits.

However, the EPA does have a voluntary testing program called the Evaluation Program for Aftermarket Retrofit Devices, where manufacturers allow their additives to be tested to verify marketing claims. So far, 92 fuel additives have been tested, most recently in 2005, and most have had either “a neutral or negative effect on fuel economy and/or exhaust emissions.”

For some companies, the FTC may step in and challenge claims. This was the case in 2013, when the manufacturer of EnviroTabs was fined $800,000 for stating its product increases fuel efficiency and reduces emissions.

When to Use Fuel Additives

While the jury is still out on improved fuel economy, there are a few areas where fuel additives have been shown to help your car:

  1. Fuel stabilizers can be used in seasonal vehicles (boats, RVs) or classic cars to preserve the gasoline over time.
  2. Fuel injection cleaners are helpful if most of a commute is via short trips where the engine doesn’t heat enough to burn off the carbon that accumulates over time.

Fuel additives have their place if your goal is to beat Vin Diesel in a drag race, but there isn’t much evidence that they will save you at the gas pump or produce fewer emissions. If that’s your goal, here are 11 free steps you can take while driving.

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Are Fuel Additives Really Green?

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Surprisingly Sustainable: Oktoberfest’s Green Side

by WilliamXQM Posted on October 10, 2017

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Some celebrations are almost synonymous with waste. Picture the plastic-bead-strewn streets of New Orleans after Mardi Gras, or the mountains of plastic packaging and wrapping paper after Christmas. For the environmentally conscious, the incredible wastefulness of these occasions is enough to make a Scrooge out of even the most festive individual.

Surprisingly, an environmental hero has arisen from a most unlikely holiday. A celebration that seems to have no other purpose than excessive drinking. No, not St. Patty’s Day (although there are ways to go green then, too!). Friends, we’re talking about Oktoberfest.

Yes. Really.

The Environmental Oscars

Here’s a tidbit that might shock you — it certainly surprised us. Oktoberfest — the real one, that is, held in Munich, Germany, each autumn — is one of the most environmentally friendly events out there. So much so, in fact, that it was awarded the Environmental Oscar in 1997 for its efforts to be as minimally wasteful as possible.

How have Oktoberfest organizers achieved this? Three main aspects contribute to their environmental success:

Disposing of Disposables

In 1991, the city of Munich banned disposable servingware. No more paper plates, no more plastic forks. Instead, food was served on real plates, with real silverware. Drinks were served in glasses, rather than plastic tumblers. This one change reduced waste at the annual festival by over 90 percent. It’s an encouraging statistic for festivals worldwide, especially those that think that waste-free celebrations are beyond their capabilities. After all, Oktoberfest is hardly a small-time operation; it hosts six million visitors each year. If they can go without one-time-use tableware, surely your next backyard barbecue can too!

Organics & Recycling

Gray water from washing all these dishes doesn’t just go down the drain, either. In almost half the festival tents, gray water is reused to flush the toilets (I’ve always wondered why we don’t do this everywhere). Reusing water like this drastically reduces the need for fresh water, and ensures that Oktoberfest gets the most use out of every drop. Much of the food served at Oktoberfest — including the meat — is also organically sourced. And while we could definitely make a strong case for reducing the amount of meat eaten at the bacchanalian beer fest (each year, attendees devour tons of sausages and almost 500,000 chickens), choosing poultry that’s been organically raised does make a huge difference.

Renewable Rejoicing

Since the year 2000, streetlights, toilets and all other public areas of the festival have been powered by renewable energy, making the festival one of the greenest in terms of how it powers its raucous celebrations. This attitude of environmental awareness has filtered through to its vendors, too — approximately 60 percent of them have followed suit and also chosen renewable power sources.

Oktoberfest is one of the purest festivals out there when you look at pure intent. It was originally celebrated to mark the marriage of Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig to the Saxon-Hildburghausen Princess Therese on Oct. 12, 1810. These days, it’s a chance to celebrate good beer, great brats and dudes in lederhosen. But the way Munich has focused on creating sustainable Oktoberfest celebrations is an example to all of us that life needn’t be dour and stark to be eco-friendly. In fact, quite the opposite.

Your Own Green Event

So, how can you bring a little of Munich’s environmental sensibilities to your own Oktoberfest celebrations — or any other party, for that matter? It is possible, even if you can’t use gray water to flush your toilet or suddenly switch to renewable energy:

Use e-vite sites like Green Envelope or Paperless Post to create online invites instead of mailing paper ones.
Follow Oktoberfest’s lead and ditch the disposable plates, cups and silverware. If you’re worried about tipsy guests breaking your good dishes, pick up an inexpensive set at Goodwill or Value Village. It’ll likely be the same price as (or cheaper than) disposable stuff, and you can reuse for many parties down the road. Just remember to wash well before use.
Provide bins for compost, recycling and garbage. Often just providing guests options for eco-friendly waste disposal is all you need to do to decrease the amount of waste your party produces.
If you’re going all out for the celebration, rent a costume instead of buying one. Good lederhosen don’t come cheap, and cheap ones won’t last long. Get into the spirit by renting a costume that’ll help you dress the part without taking up space in your closet the rest of the year.
If it’s in your budget, offer your guests organic refreshments and food — organic and/or local chickens, sausage and even beer if you can find it!

We hope you have a fantastic time celebrating good beer, great friends and the crisp arrival of fall. Happy Oktoberfest!

Feature image courtesy of Shutterstock

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Trump’s proposed cuts to weather research could make it much harder to prepare for storms

by JacobTonkin Posted on August 25, 2017

This story was originally published by Newsweek and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Hurricane Harvey is strengthening as it approaches the Texas coast, and the massive storm is underscoring another big disturbance on the way: the battle over President Donald Trump’s proposed cuts to the National Weather Service.

Charged with providing weather forecasts and warnings, the National Weather Service also makes its data available to hundreds of companies that use it for everything from smartphone applications to agricultural equipment. Trump earlier this year proposed cutting its budget by 6 percent and that of its parent agency, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), by a mammoth 16 percent. It was an unprecedented proposal in the National Weather Service’s storied history, which extends back to 1890, when it was founded as the U.S. Weather Bureau.

Trump also proposed huge subcuts for programs that engage in computer modeling of storms, as well as observation of storms and dissemination of data. Tsunami research and prediction would be cut, along with supercomputing investments and a program to extend more accurate modeling to 30 days from 16, which could have huge benefits for everything from the insurance to the transportation industries.

The Trump proposal “is opposite to the ‘leave it better than you found it’ philosophy. This is take the money while you can, and let someone else in the future put Humpty Dumpty (aka NOAA) together again,” David Titley, director of the Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk at Penn State and a retired Navy rear admiral, told Climate Central, a consortium.

Already, the U.S. is behind Europe in its forecast accuracy, and further cuts to research would likely leave the country farther behind in what’s been called “climate intelligence.” The National Weather Service’s main forecasting model, the Global Forecasting System, has seen a major drop-off in accuracy. The White House’s budget proposal would only make it worse. It seeks to cut 26 percent from NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, which supports data collection, climate and science, as well as research into more accurate weather forecasting models. The budget blueprint also would cut $513 million from NOAA’s satellite division, the National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service, a 22 percent reduction.

Such cuts would cripple NOAA’s ability to keep afloat its satellites and data-gathering activities. That would not only affect the military but any business that relies on data and governments that have to plan how to handle snowstorms and hurricanes.

Scientists and meteorologists have worried that the cuts, and much more devastating reductions in climate change programs at NASA and other agencies, would harm the agency’s ability to forecast storms. In recent decades, the improvement in forecasting technologies has saved hundreds of lives, especially when it comes to tornadoes. The National Weather Service notes that hundreds used to die from pop up tornadoes like the ones that blew through Oklahoma in the mid-1970s, and that deaths are way down due to accurate predictions.

Harvey, which was just upgraded to a Category 3 hurricane, the first of that strength in more than 11 years, illustrates the point. The deadliest hurricane in U.S. history, which hit Galveston, Texas, in the year 1900, led to 6,000 to 12,000 deaths. By contrast, 72 deaths were associated with Superstorm Sandy in 2012 and fewer than 2,000 with Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

James Franklin, who headed the hurricane forecast team at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, a part of the National Weather Service, laments the budget cuts that are being proposed, including to the Hurricane Forecast Improvement Program that was launched in 2009. “It’s hanging on really by a thread in terms of funding,” said Franklin.

Trump has yet to nominate an administrator to lead NOAA. By contrast, President Barack Obama had named his pick before his 2009 swearing in. Speculation has centered on Barry Myers, the CEO of Accuweather — a weather business — but he is not a scientist.

A Senate panel passed smaller cuts to NOAA; the cuts by the House panel were significantly closer to President Trump’s proposed reductions. By the time a new budget is due in October, the country will be deep into hurricane season — as well as the fiscal budget storm.

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Trump’s proposed cuts to weather research could make it much harder to prepare for storms

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Federal Judge Rules That Texas Intentionally Discriminated Against Minority Voters

by StephanLeavens Posted on April 11, 2017

Mother Jones

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A federal judge Monday ruled that the state of Texas intentionally discriminated against African American and Hispanic voters when it enacted a draconian voter ID law in 2011. The ruling could pave the way for courts to require Texas to get approval from federal authorities before making future changes to its voting laws.

This is the second time Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos has found that state lawmakers purposefully engaged in illegal discrimination when it adopted the photo ID requirement in 2011. In 2014, Ramos found that the law had a discriminatory effect and intent. A finding of discriminatory effect is sufficient to force a voting law to be change, but a discriminatory intent finding can open a state up to more significant punishments. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Ramos’ finding of discriminatory effect but asked her to reconsider the question of intent. Her ruling on Monday reaffirmed her previous decision.

Critics of the photo ID law pointed to the fact that Texas lawmakers allowed voters to use concealed gun permits, which are more likely to be held by white voters. But the law disallowed identification cards issued to state employees and public university students, which are more likely to be used by minorities. In her opinion, Ramos pointed out that Republican lawmakers refused to include more forms of acceptable ID, reduce the cost of acquiring an ID, adopt a more lenient policy toward expired documents, or approve voter education about the new requirements. “These efforts revealed a pattern of conduct unexplainable on nonracial grounds, to suppress minority voting,” Ramos wrote in her opinion.

In 2013, the Department of Justice joined civil rights groups, Democratic lawmakers, and voters in challenging the law. On the day President Donald Trump was inaugurated, the department signaled that it might change its position. In February, the department’s lawyers asked the court to allow the US government to withdraw from the case and urged. The DOJ also urged Ramos not to rule on the intent question until the Texas legislature had taken steps this spring to amend the law, which the Fifth Circuit had ordered it to do. Ramos allowed the federal government to withdraw from this part of the case but rejected its request to hold off on the intent ruling. However, Ramos did indicate that she would wait until the legislature recessed to issue any remedy in conjunction with her findings.

The intent finding is a major victory for voting rights advocates because the courts have wide latitude to remedy intentional racial discrimination. Most importantly, a finding of intent allows the courts, if they choose, to put jurisdictions under federal oversight so that future changes to election procedures must be approved by the DOJ. Civil rights groups are requesting such a remedy and feel their argument for putting Texas back under federal supervision—which ended when the Supreme Court gutted a central provision of the Voting Rights Act in 2013—is strong. Last month, a three-judge panel in a federal district court in San Antonio found, in a separate case, that Republicans had racially gerrymandered congressional districts in order to weaken the growing power of minority voters. Taken together, voting rights attorneys believe the two findings of racially discriminatory intent make a convincing case that Texas should be placed under federal supervision.

“This is a great win for Texas voters, but it shouldn’t surprise anyone who looked seriously at the evidence,” Myrna Pérez, deputy director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center said in a statement after Ramos’ ruling. “Texas legislators crafted a law they knew would hurt minority voters, without any good justification or attempt to ameliorate the harms, and they mangled the legislative process to get it through.”

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Federal Judge Rules That Texas Intentionally Discriminated Against Minority Voters

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There’s Only One Big Thing That Matters About the Upcoming Republican Health Care Plan

by GlennaManess Posted on February 25, 2017

Mother Jones

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Politico has gotten its hands on a leaked copy of a Republican health care plan. It’s a discussion draft of a bill that’s a couple of weeks old, but it still provides a good idea of what Republicans are thinking these days. Here’s my summary of Sarah Kliff’s summary:

Good news: Compared to previous plans, it’s better on pre-existing conditions; more generous in its funding of high-risk pools; generally cheaper for young people; and includes bigger tax credits than earlier Republican plans.
Neutral news: Loosens the list of “essential” benefits for all plans. This is generally better for healthy people and worse for sick people.
Bad news: Eliminates Medicaid expansion; cuts Medicaid funding; is terrible for the poor; and is far more expensive for older workers.

There’s other stuff (all Obamacare taxes are repealed, for example, which is great news for the rich), but I submit to you that these are pesky details. There’s really only one big thing that matters: how much the program costs.

Obamacare spends roughly $100 billion per year on subsidies to make health coverage affordable for the poor, and even at that premiums are too high for many people and deductibles are too high for almost everyone. Handwaving aside, there’s no way to produce a plan that’s even remotely useful with any less funding than Obamacare. That’s just reality.

If the funding is sufficient, we can all have a good time arguing over continuous coverage penalties, age ratios, essential benefits, and all that. If the funding is insufficient, it’s all just whistling in the wind.

Rumor has it that an outline of this plan was already submitted to the Congressional Budget Office, and the score they returned was so horrific that it never saw the light of day. So when Republicans do finally release a bill and a CBO score, just turn immediately to the section that estimates the ten-year cost. If it’s substantially less than a trillion dollars, you can skip the rest.

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There’s Only One Big Thing That Matters About the Upcoming Republican Health Care Plan

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Of Course Trump’s Health Secretary Is a Friend of Big Tobacco

by HarriettL00 Posted on February 10, 2017

Mother Jones

The man Donald Trump has chosen to direct health policy for the federal government has close ties to the tobacco industry he will soon be charged with regulating. Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), who will likely be confirmed as health and human services secretary by the end of the week, has repeatedly voted against bills that could harm big tobacco. At the same time, he’s received thousands of dollars in political contributions from the industry and held investments in tobacco companies—investments he says he didn’t know about.

Early in Barack Obama’s presidency, Congress renewed the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. In order to pay for the program, lawmakers raised cigarette taxes by 62 cents per pack and cigar taxes by 40 cents per cigar. Price blasted the new fees. “Today’s tax hike serves as a useful reminder that the president is comfortable raising taxes on hard-working Americans to feed his reckless agenda,” Price said in an April 2009 statement. “President Obama has done nothing to demonstrate that he is a responsible steward of taxpayer money. Yet, he is forcing the American people to burn through even more of their income in the name of more government.”

A few months later, Congress passed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which empowered the Food and Drug Administration regulate tobacco products. (The Supreme Court had ruled in 2000 that the FDA did not have that authority under existing law.) The legislation has enabled the agency to ban certain flavored cigarettes that might entice young people to begin smoking. It also allows the FDA to require additional warnings on packages.

Price joined most Republicans in voting against the FDA legislation. But thanks to that bill, as health secretary, he will now have immense influence over how the tobacco industry operates. (The FDA is part of the Department of Health and Human Services.) In 2011, the Obama administration proposed adding graphic warning labels—including images of diseased mouths and lungs—to the top half of cigarette packs. That regulation was tied up in legal challenges but was ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court in 2013. After several years of inaction by the administration, a collection of medical and public health groups, including the American Cancer Society, sued the government last fall in an attempt to force it to finalize the new label requirements. Once he’s in place at HHS, Price can ask the FDA to move forward with the new rules, weaken them, or abandon them altogether.

The conservative website Hot Air celebrated the latter possibility when Price’s nomination was announced in November. “Fortunately for all of us, most of the sore spots on the HHS and FDA regulatory front don’t require cooperation from Congress or the courts,” the site said, pointing to regulations on cigars and electronic cigarettes. “These are things which can essentially be tidied up with a stroke of the pen once Trump and Price are in office.”

Price has benefited from numerous tobacco industry donations during his political career. Back when he was a state legislator in Georgia in 1998, Philip Morris gave Price’s campaign $300. More recently, the PAC for Altria Group, parent company to Philip Morris, donated $18,000 to Price’s congressional campaigns. From 2008 to 2012, Price also received $19,000 from the PAC of RJ Reynolds, the company behind Camel and other cigarette brands.

Price’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn) raised concerns about Price’s personal investments in tobacco companies during his confirmation hearing last month. According to Price’s financial disclosure forms, he sold off 768 shares in Altria and Philip Morris International for $37,000 in 2012. (Altria owns the American Phillip Morris brand. Phillip Morris International has been a separate company since 2008.) Franken started by asking Price to identify the “leading cause of preventable death” and then informed him that it was smoking.

“That hits home,” Price replied. “I lost my dad, who was a Lucky Strike smoker from World War II, to emphysema. He prided himself on the fact that he never smoked a cigarette with a filter for years and years.”

Franken expressed surprise that Price, a physician, would invest in products that lead to the deaths of about 480,000 people in the country each year. “Congressman Price, you’re a physician, which means you took the Hippocratic oath, a pledge to do no harm,” Franken said. “How do you square reaping personal financial gain from the sales of an addictive product that kills millions of Americans every decade with also voting against measures to reduce the death toll inflicted by tobacco?”

“It’s a curious observation,” Price responded, claiming that he had “no idea” about the stocks he owned; he suggested that they were purchased by a mutual fund or pension plan he had invested in. The tobacco investments were publicly disclosed in his financial report, and at other points in his hearing he acknowledged that he had the ability to direct his stock broker on other investments he held.

“I find it very hard to believe that you did not know that you had tobacco stocks,” Franken responded.

Watch the full exchange above.

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Of Course Trump’s Health Secretary Is a Friend of Big Tobacco

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Judge Grants National Stay Preventing Removal of Green Card Holders and Others Being Detained at Airports

by CathleeSpradling Posted on January 29, 2017

Mother Jones

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Earlier today the ACLU filed a motion for an emergency stay against President Trump’s immigration order. The hearing was held in New York in front of federal judge Ann Donnelly:

This is a very partial victory. It applies to green card holders and others with legal residence status who are on US soil but are being detained in airports. They do not have to be allowed entry into the country, but they cannot now be sent back to their home country. Their eventual status will be determined in subsequent hearings. However, the overall refugee ban stays in place, and the overall entry ban for those from seven Muslim countries also stays in place. Those who are overseas are—for now, anyway—still banned from entering the US, even if they are green card holders.

UPDATE: Here’s a copy of Donnelly’s order. It applies to “individuals with refugee applications approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services as part of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, holders of valid immigrant and non-immigrant visas, and other individuals from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen legally authorized to enter the United States.”

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Judge Grants National Stay Preventing Removal of Green Card Holders and Others Being Detained at Airports

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Report: Trump Team Wants to Slash Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Everything Else Except Defense

by NorrisClunie Posted on January 19, 2017

Mother Jones

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Here’s the latest news on squeezing our bloated government down to size:

Donald Trump is ready to take an ax to government spending. Staffers for the Trump transition team have been meeting with career staff at the White House ahead of Friday’s presidential inauguration to outline their plans for shrinking the federal bureaucracy, The Hill has learned….Overall, the blueprint being used by Trump’s team would reduce federal spending by $10.5 trillion over 10 years.

This is terrifying, of course, but it’s also puzzling. $10.5 trillion over ten years? That’s a trillion dollars a year. If you eliminated the domestic discretionary budget entirely, you’d only save half a trillion bucks. So how do they do it?

Well, we’re told that the proposed budget cuts “hew closely” to a recent Heritage Foundation report, so I went and took a look. The answer, of course, is that the only way to cut that kind of money is to take a meat axe to everything, including Social Security and Medicare. Here’s a chart:

Let’s break this down. How does Heritage manage these whopping cuts? According to a modest little footnote in the appendix on page 165, here’s the answer:

Medicaid: No details. There will be a spending cap, and all mandatory spending will somehow be cut to fit.

Medicare: Increase eligibility age, add a “temporary” premium for Part A, increase premiums for Parts B and D, phase out subsidies for seniors with “significant” income, “reform” cost-sharing arrangements, transition to vouchers premium support starting in 2021.

Domestic Discretionary: Magic spending cap.

Social Security: Increase retirement age, index retirement age so it keeps going up, reduce benefits by adopting chained CPI for inflation adjustments, and “transition the payment to a flat, anti-poverty benefit focused on individuals who need it most,” whatever that means.

In fairness, there’s a bit more detail on the domestic discretionary side. Actually, a mountain of detail: over the course of 140 pages, Heritage recommends cuts to over a hundred programs. These include catfish programs, the Ex-Im bank, climate programs, Amtrak, the National Endowment for the Arts, etc. etc. Cutting all this stuff might be harder than they expect, since some senator somewhere probably thinks very highly of the USDA Catfish Inspection Program, but I guess they can try. In any case, about 80 percent of the savings come from a small number of programs:

Energy subsidies: $28 billion
Land and Water Conservation Fund: $20 billion
Various HHS/HUD jobs program: $10 billion
Davis-Bacon: $9 billion
Federal Transit Administration: $4 billion
Nine climate programs: $4 billion
Military health care: $4 billion

So there you have it. Slash a bunch of hippy-dippy stuff (clean energy, water conservation, transit, climate); some employment stuff (jobs programs, Davis-Bacon); and military health care spending. Then take a meat axe to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and everything else, and you’re done! Piece of cake.

Perhaps someone should start asking our president-elect if he’s on board with this stuff.

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Report: Trump Team Wants to Slash Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Everything Else Except Defense

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S&P Says Obamacare Isn’t Failing

by TeriHLMGdow Posted on December 27, 2016

Mother Jones

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S&P says that Obamacare isn’t failing at all:

With better data supported by actual individual market experience, most insurers put in for increased premium pricing for 2016. Also, several insurers introduced narrower network products to control medical costs. Regulatory changes such as tightening the SEP rules also helped this year-over-year improvement. We expect the full-year 2016 underwriting losses to be lower than in 2015 and 2014.

….Insurers have put in meaningful premium rate increases for 2017…but we view 2017 as a one-time pricing correction….For 2017, we believe the continued pricing correction and network design changes, along with regulatory fine-tuning of ACA rules, will result in closer to break-even results, in aggregate, for the individual market, and more insurers reporting profits in this segment.

Hey, how about that! Now that insurers are pricing their coverage about where the CBO expected it to be, they’re starting to move toward profitability. Who could have guessed that?

This reminds me of something. A lot of lefties were unhappy with Obamacare because, in the end, it didn’t include a public option. Thanks, Joe Lieberman! But the truth is that although a public option would have been nice, it’s not really what Obamacare needed. What Obamacare needed was two things:

About twice as much funding.
A higher tax penalty for not buying insurance.

That’s it. But Democrats were fixated on Obamacare costing under $1 trillion (over ten years), and that prevented them from creating a program that people truly would have loved. If, instead, they had supported funding of, say, $2 trillion, generous subsidies would have continued into the working and middle classes; maximum deductibles could have been set much lower; and more insurers would have entered each local market. Combine that with stiffer penalties to back up the individual mandate and a lot more young people would have joined the insurance pools—and would have done so without resentment since the cost would truly be affordable. All of this together would have made Obamacare far more popular with the public and much easier to manage for insurers.

But where would that extra trillion dollars have come from? This is where the hack gap comes into play once again. If this were a Republican plan, and it were something they really wanted, they wouldn’t have bothered with funding. They would have just made up a story about medical inflation coming down (which it is) and broader health coverage leading to improved economic growth blah blah blah. Democrats weren’t willing to do that. Alternatively, they could have just funded a $2 trillion program. That would have meant even higher taxes on the rich and maybe some higher taxes all the way down into the upper middle class. Or maybe a small increase in the payroll tax. Who knows? There are plenty of possibilities.

But Democrats weren’t willing to be hacks and they weren’t willing to raise taxes more than they did. This is despite the fact that the public plainly doesn’t care much about deficits no matter how much they may say so, and the public is positively delighted with higher taxes on the rich. Multiple polls repeatedly show this by a wide margin.

This would have solved virtually every problem Obamacare has had. Higher taxes on the rich would have been a populist winner. Higher funding would have made the program genuinely affordable and far more popular. And the increase in both funding and the mandate penalty would have made the eventual insurance pool closer to what insurers expected, which would have kept them nearer to profitability and truly duking it out to gain market share against their competitors. It was a missed opportunity.

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S&P Says Obamacare Isn’t Failing

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