December 06, 2009 01:13 AM UTC
Michael Bennet Interview
49 Comments- by: DavidThi808
( – promoted by ClubTwitty)
The Senate moves with all due deliberation. The federal government changes direction slowly. Sometimes this is good, sometimes it is bad, oftentimes it is frustrating. But our government was designed to change slowly and in this the founding fathers were very effective.
Michael Bennet is a Senator. And the thing that most struck me in this interview is that he talks about what can be done, and how items need to be accomplished. Not a word railing against the constraints of the system but instead straightforward discussion of getting the job done. Senator Bennet’s approach will tend to be less satisfying to those that want major changes, and want them now. But his approach will also make him a much more effective Senator. I prefer effective.
On to the interview. This was over the phone as the Senate is in session this weekend and so Michael is stuck in D.C. And it was just ½ hour long (actually 35 minutes). I haven’t interviewed over the phone before and it does reduce the level of communication. It is a much more cut & dried conversation.
We started on Afghanistan. This was a long discussion which pretty much mirrored President Obama’s speech at West Point. Michael does acknowledge that the real fight is occurring in Pakistan and that is being conducted by the Pakistani Army. That the job in Afghanistan is to not let the terrorists retreat from Pakistan to Afghanistan which would then eliminate the effectiveness of the fight in Pakistan.
He then discussed how the present effort is very limited in scope. It is focused in the South & East, it is working with the local governments (because of the corruption and ineffectiveness of the central government), and it is limited to building up an honest & effective police force and otherwise providing security. He even specifically called out that this is not about building schools and other “nation building” efforts. (Even the limited effort, I think, qualifies as nation building – although on a more limited scale.)
He clearly does have well informed view of the situation there and spoke bluntly of the problems. A critical step 1 is to have a clear picture of the problem. Senator Bennet does have that and speaks of the situation as it is. He also said multiple times that Congress needs to “hold the administration accountable” while watching their efforts on an ongoing basis.
Next was the question about why we gave the large banks everything they wanted, but have nothing substantive for everyone else. Michaels’s reply was to discuss the needs for credit to be loosened up for small business. This seems to be the conventional wisdom in D.C. right now – that the big issue for the economy is to get credit to small businesses, and from that there will be more jobs created. I agree this is needed (at my company we have to pay our credit card bills every 2 weeks because they won’t give us a limit that can handle a month’s worth of charges – and we have zero debt). But I don’t think this is going to bring us out of recession.
On that note, I asked what are they doing in the Senate to address this issue as they keep talking about it, but we need action. Senator Bennet’s reply was “they [the White House] seem to have finally got it because they had their jobs summit this week and we’ll have to see what comes out of that.” I am disappointed that I heard nothing else on this issue – not even thoughts on things they might consider to address the economy.
Note: Every interview, after it ends, I think of one question I should have asked. For this one I should have asked him how we’re going to address the Craigslist effect. Ten years ago the newspaper classified industry probably supplied 100,000 jobs. Craigslist with 28 people eliminated those jobs. How do we find jobs for all the cases where massive numbers of jobs are eliminated with new technology.
I then asked Senator Bennet if he was too tied to the financial industry to be willing to address the changes needed. He came back speaking with great emphasis that he is not worrying about protecting Wall St. He then read me the statement he put out on this issue (the one time in the conversation he was reading from a script). His concern is the community banks that did not cause this problem, are by and large not an issue, and he doesn’t want them “to have a series of regulations that further constrain their lending.”
He also discussed how his financial background is a benefit as it lets him better understand what happened. And he called out the disaster as being driven by “pure greed” on the part of the major banks. His desire is to address the “massive irresponsibility of the Wall St bank holding companies.” He also wants to make sure we don’t bring in regulations that cause problems while not helping.
We then went on to “too big to fail” and Bennet immediately launched in to the moral hazard of the bank rescue because we’ve now made it clear that the government does back the large banks which, by itself, will allow even greater risk taking. Here’s where he had a very interesting choice of words, that “we need to put very onerous capital requirements on financial institutions that get to a size…” If Senator Bennet is in thrall to the big banks as some have claimed, I don’t see why he would use phrases like this in passing. This is the phrasing of someone who is looking to bring in some real restraint on the system.
He sees the solution having two main parts. First that the TB2F banks will have significantly increased capital requirements. Second will be a fund used to handle the failure of any TB2F bank, self-funded by those same banks. He believes that this self-funding will cause the institutions to self police as they are the ones that will have to pay more into the fund if one of them goes belly-up. (I’m not sure the self-policing will do much to stop all of them racing off the cliff together.)
I then asked about full disclosure and transparency for the derivates market. He says we will have a clearinghouse model for most of them. But that there are some that don’t fit this model and they will be handled differently. He believes they can stop people from trying to push everything through the exceptions case which don’t have all the requirements.
He then brought up the very good point that the people who buy and sell derivatives are in favor of a clearinghouse as they will then get better pricing. He stated that the market has been opaque for no good reason. (Actually it was opaque for a very good reason – it let the banks make more handling the trades.)
Note: I did not ask him about his vote on cram-down because time was limited and I didn’t think I would get a different answer from the other 40 times he’s been asked the question.
Then on to healthcare. I asked if he thinks the public option will pass, and he thinks it will. He also thinks the chances of it passing are much better today than even 2 months ago.
I then asked about reducing what we spend on healthcare. Interesting answer – Michael then discussed the subsidies available to people to help them buy insurance. (That doesn’t do squat to reduce what we spend as a country on healthcare, it just changes who pays for it.) He then brought up trying to move healthcare to pay for outcomes rather than procedures (this does reduce total costs).
He then discussed a number of proposals to give people more info about what procedures should cost, reducing administrative costs, etc. He further discussed the core issue – how well the administration implements the system. This is a giant piece of the puzzle and I think he is spot-on to bring this up as the biggest influence on costs.
I also asked about pharmaceutical research as that can bring us gigantic savings. He discussed a bill that helps pharma get a good return on their investments and does see this as a major solution to costs. But nothing else on this issue (I guess Senators can’t be on top of every single aspect of every issue).
We were out of time so for the environment I asked what he personally thought cars will be running on in 10 years. He thinks fleet vehicles will be on natural gas and personal vehicles will be electric. (T. Boone Pickens will be pleased with that answer.)
On education I asked him what he thought of the idea of having a GI Bill type effort to pull a bunch of people out of the job market and push them in to college. He discussed the increases we have in Pell funding and how the colleges are full because so many more are going to college right now. He also spoke of the funding crisis state systems are facing, calling out Colorado & California specifically.
I closed asking when was the last time he went to one of the Smithsonian Museums. It was before he was a Senator. He once asked his scheduler if they ever got free time and she told him no. Personally, I think Washington would run a lot better if all of our Congresspeople would take an hour once a week to leave their cell phone in the office and wander the mall.
Conclusion
First off, what I never heard. There was not a single word that could be viewed as partisanship. I don’t think he ever said the word Republican and maybe said Democratic once. He said Iraq was a mistake but aside from that not a word denigrating anyone. Even when I made a comment about the Bush Administration ineptitude, he didn’t pile on.
Second, not a single word that could be construed as campaigning. He faces a serious primary challenger and a really bloody general challenge – and not a word about what a great job Michael Bennet is doing, how much we get from him, etc. He’s not an idiot and I’m sure he is thinking about the campaign at least some of the time. But in over ½ hour of an interview – not a peep.
Which leads to what we have with Michael Bennet – a Senator who takes the responsibility of his job seriously, is working to be well informed on the issues they face, and is giving a lot of thought to those issues. He also speaks directly and honestly to those issues, and that is of tremendous benefit in having effective conversations about what we should do.
I do think the people who call him a Conservadem are off-base. He is definitely more of a centrist (as is the state of Colorado – outside of Boulder). But a lot of that “centrism” is his trying to determine what will work best, what makes financial sense, how can we afford what we want to do. A lot of that deserves the label of being grounded in reality more than anything else.
Full interview: Michael Bennet Interview podcast at end.
Not one real question on healthcare justification on reduced costs, cap and trade or card check.
Here’s my take away:
AFPAK: parrots POTUS.
Financial: can’t defend TARP, see more regulation as the solution, TFTF a moral hazard.
Healthcare: parrots the Party crap, PHARMA gets a sweet ROI, can’t articulate the financials.
Environment: in 10 years cars will be electric and everything else NG.
Education: PELL grants are up
RE-regulation as the solution; DE-regulation was the problem. (Don’t make me review the specific sequence of laws passed first time ’round, dropped, and now needed again, okay?)
Otherwise, wasn’t TARP a creation of a certain Republican Treas. Sec? My memory fades as I awake from the nightmare…. In any case, once Sarah Palin is in charge, we’ll have the degree of sophistication needed to deal with such issues.
It’s
virtuallyimpossible to make a rational case for health care reform outside single-payer, so we can hardly fault Daddy’s Laddy for that!as much shit as you rightly get around here [ 😉 ] I think you nailed this one. Unlike you I’m practically begging (silently begging) Bennet to show me a reason to vote for him, and I’m not getting anything yet.
I know his immigation positions, but it would have been nice to sdk for the sake of others.
And I’ll dive into everything of significance. You had good questions but the ½ hour meant 4 main topics tops.
especially given the constraints.
thank you – that means a lot coming from you.
I was offline yesterday and am just getting around to reading this. A fine job you did with the amount of time given and I appreciate your write up.
On the subject you started with, Afghanistan, I believe that HRC’s latest remarks are instructive for understanding the administration’s goals. From your interview, I think that Sen. Bennet, along with those of us inclined to give the administration the benefit of the doubt on their policy, might find this at least somewhat encouraging:
More quotes are always useful; people don’t have time to listen, but not to worry. Your conclusions are something entirely different and seemingly could have been written before you got on the phone! (The bit about not campaigning in the interview–that would have been wildly out of line for such a thing! He doubtless took you for a professional.)
As to what Ben.net said, well…. First, there were no especially embarrassing or hard to answer questions. Second, nothing asked that couldn’t have been read from a campaign paper (and he even resorted to doing so in at least one case; wonder who wrote that, or what else he was reading: v. poor form. Didn’t he know the answer? Uncertain of his answer? Afraid to defy his handlers?) When you’re campaigning–Bennet, Romanoff, Betsy Bopper–and granting interviews as part of that, whether to the “new media” or the “old, everything is a campaign appearance, especially the interviews. Don’t let yourself be taken in (“not a single word that could be construed as campaigning”) and then comment on it! Yikes, as we said in the days of trikes.
And third: we are coming through a perilous time in our nation: just off a generation-long flirtation with reaction (Nixon-Bush 2); an economy based on the Cold War, which is now long over; a aging industrial base that was new and modern at the outset of the American Era (following the decline of the Brits), but is now largely dated and, increasingly, literally crumbling to the ground (take a tour of the industrial northeast if you don’t believe me); a challenge by Islamists who hold increasing sway, most especially over petroleum resources; a profound challenge from global warming, the basis of W. Civilization since, when, James Watt? Any need to list more?
Yet, he has no particular knowledge or expertise in public life, in how to get things actually done (as opposed to studied and analyzed) in public life, and–reading your interview twice–he seemed to turn to the administration for solutions when you raised a number of questions (e.g. the core to health care reform is “how the administration implements the system;” doesn’t the system it implements matter? Doesn’t the system come with its instructions, mandates, requirements to implement?).
Politicians often like to come across as Average Guys, amateurs really, razzmatazz around the cocktail table. They’re not. Would you hire a lawyer to represent you in a software copyright case whose experience was in an entirely different area? Would you hire a criminal lawyer who had never before appeared before a judge (as opposed to analyzing the disposal and reorganization of failed movie theatres?).
If you liked Bennet’s answers, try interviewing ME sometime! BUT, to repeat, his feeble answers weren’t the fault of the interviewer! Again, your best interview on here to date!
Good job.
JO is an ideologue and a purist and I do not mean that in a pejorative sense.
I am not a purist, but pragmatists like me need them to remind me of the stakes and the risks of compromise.
I don’t completely agree with it, but I like it.
that “ideologue” is a pejorative to me.
I can’t think of too much that ideologues have done for their parties except to get their candidates beaten at the polls.
And that goes for both parties.
Not to seem ungrateful for the defense–I’m not, really–but the word “pragmatism” in opposition to myself does make we wonder….
–Did Bill Clinton succeed with his version of GOP Lite? Wasn’t that the new, practical, non-ideological version of
Democratic Socialismerrr, “Democratic politics whatever they mean,” post-Reagan?–Wasn’t Hillary the practical candidate last time? Wasn’t Barack the idealist being pushed by a buncha college kids driving into Iowa from Illinois?
–Was GWB-and-Cheney’s foreign policy ideological and pure? Or did they think of themselves as pragmatists: guy drops three planes, bomb hell outta him. That’s practical–isn’t it?
–If capitalists are “practical,” as I perceive they often like to think, how do we explain (a) recession, (b) 17.% un/underemployment, (c) environmental degredation; (d) massive trade deficits; (e) massive government deficits; (f) ever-greater concentration of wealth… Etc?
And here’s the big one: Where do we go from here — as a people — and who leads the way? An impure (whatever that means), non-ideological practician?
But not to distract from David’s interview, on Bennet: what does the Appointed One represent? (Does failing to qualify his qualification in any way diminish the importance of being elected? Yeah, I think so too.) Is he Mr. Practicality? For whom? One answer in black and white: his list of contributors. Are they giving away money “ideologically”?
There are groups that contribute to my mom even though her votes drive them up the wall – because the Dems are even more problematic for them. On the flip side, there are groups that contribute to her opponent just because she’s a Republican.
When she ran for the U.S. Senate against Akaka the Sierra Club in Hawaii said that my mom was the more environmentally friendly of the two, but they were supporting Akaka because he was the certain winner.
So take contributors with a grain of salt.
…the American Bankers Association, then he’s my man.
…for the Pharma industry, then he’s my man.
Et cetera. Contributions work in multiple directions.
(BTW, I’m on a low-salt diet.)
Idealogue only means someone who theorizes.
Clinton was a pragmatist and was successful as he could be considering this country was still in the midst of Reagan worship and Bubba’s personal baggage. A purist would have failed.
Speak idealistically, govern pragmatically is the rule. I wish Obama was the a little more of an idealist.
GWB spoke pragmatically (Remember “compassionate conservatism”), threw a few pragmatic bones and then governed with an ideological purity that bordered on insanity.
“Capitalist” is not a monolithic group. 2nd what is good for an individual is not necessarily good for the system. This is the fundamental argument between conservatives and liberals. It is also why I am a liberal while I am also a capitalist.
A good politician is both a pragmatist and an idealist as necessary: idealism for the vision, pragmatism for the execution. Most politicians are a blend, but have a tendency. For those with a tendency, they need to be reminded of the other side on occasion.
Bennet is a pragmatist, but then again so is Andrew.
You’re certainly right about Bush2. Of course, ideologists don’t think all other ideologists are right! Au contraire!
It’s sometimes less clear what practicians think to be right… whatever works for most, most of the time? Might work? Doesn’t violate too many peoples’ rights too much too much of the time? I’m not accusing you in the least or by any means, but to illustrate the point: the world has seen one example of a system that was made to work–very practical!–about 70 years ago in central Europe. (Reds, haired or otherwise, not welcome, DankeschГ¶n.)
Nor is it clear to me how practicians fit the diverse elements of social/economic life into any kind of coherent whole…the dreaded “law of unintended consequences” ’cause they hadn’t been considered. Capitalism and socialism, to take the two [politics=economics], have imperfections (until either one of us is put in charge); it’s a matter of balance, which I take to be your point.
Would you say that JMKeynes was an “ideologist,” to take one example?
Now, back to Texas-Nebraska.
you’ll swing around on him right?
discredits your argument. You have the ability to think clearly, and can write fairly well. If you added a touch of professional courtesy you can be just as acerbic and get your point across without having people tune you out the minute you refer to the Senator as “the anointed one”
Seriously, you;d reach more people, communicate your concerns, and might even persuade people if you could cut down on the disrepect for not only the man, but the office.
OTOH:
Has Michael Bennet done anything to earn respect, mine or yours?
Is it healthy in a democratic (lower case) society to fawn over office-holders, many (not all) of whom turn out to be crooked scoundrels (when was the last time you read that word?). States like Nevada and Louisiana are drifting into my mind.
IF a man is chosen by the people, that’s one thing (maybe). IF he is appointed, that’s something else entirely. He might be someone’s widow!
MB started life with quite a few advantages; has he really done something to repay the society that gave them to him? Or did he think it was more important to earn a chunka change? What job did he spend doing more than any other single job?
I suspect both you and I have been in contact with enough legislative officials (hell, officials of all stripes) to know they are no smarter, no better (but maybe richer) than you or me, but that they often like to be made to feel otherwise. (“Hail to the Chief” and other catchy tunes, for example.)
There may be other arguments here, about the Sovereigns of the People, BUT: people who were appointed to an elective office are, well, Appointed Ones. Aren’t they?
a number of appointed representatives and senators in our state legislature. Would you say they deserve the same kind of haranguing, or do you only care about national issues (and federal pols), rather than state issues (and local pols)?
They were voted into office by vacancy committees–and most of these committees had several candidates to choose from.
The vacancy committees are comprised of precinct committee chairpersons and officers of the district–so, it is a large group of people who vote, and the candidates had to campaign to get these votes.
Personally, I don’t have a problem with the law as it currently stands in regards to appointment. My point was that there are multiple ways in which representatives in Colorado are picked when there is a vacancy, and Michael Bennet is not the only appointed representative.
I think if people have a problem with the law as it currently stands, then they should be working to change it rather than using a crucial election year to turn a US Senate race into a referendum on the appointment process. At best, it’s an ad hominem attack on Michael Bennet.
Neither Mr. Romanoff, nor his supporters, had a problem with the Governor appointing a replacement for a vacated Senate seat when they were part of the process late last year–that is, when they thought they were going to win.
Setting Bennet up as a straw man to attack Bill Ritter is a truly bizarre strategy for such a crucial election year. Stick to attacking Bennet on policy germane to his work as a US Senator, and you will go much further in persuading your intended audience.
know what you are talking about. First, I didn’t say anything about the current law; I merely noted that the vacancy committee elects the replacements.
And your comments about a referendum on an appointment process, ad hominem ‘attacks’ on MB, and straw man to attack Ritter are bizarre.
You need to face some simple facts: First, AR has decided that he is going to run for the office; second, he has numerous supporters who are glad he decided to run, and third, there isn’t anything you can do about these facts.
And regarding your handwringing about ‘crucial’ election years, hey, they’re all crucial.
that though you were trying to say that the vacancy committee appointment process under which state legislators are appointed is more democratic than the executive process under which Michael Bennet was appointed; it is, in fact, highly undemocratic, and is more like an oligarchy than democracy.
at winning appointment to any of the three positions he sought — secretary of state, the Senate seat or lieutenant governor — you’d be just as derisive and mocking?
and often sounds like it.
I’ll back off when he rips AR the same way for similar pragmatism and moderation.
JO generally does not add much to the conversation other than bitter, angry rhetoric. If that serves a purpose, other than to divide, I’m unaware of it.
JO, you obviously have it in for Bennet because he made a lot of money 10 years ago, but spewing nonsense like that only undermines your zealotry.
I should have said:
He has no knowledge or expertise whatsoever in getting bills passed, working on committees, dealing with the national and international affairs of a country fighting two wars in a recession and a monster deficit, a failing health system and education system, all at the same time–before breakfast.
who has experience at all those things (or at least any more than Bennet, who’s been at it almost a year), I’m willing to consider expertise in public life.
One candidate was chief of staff for a big-city mayor, ran successful bond issue campaigns, helped get Denver out of the last recession, ran a difficult school district, got more bond issues passed, made the short list for Obama’s cabinet, and has served a year in the Senate.
The other was a part-time legislator from a safe district, ran the House for a couple terms, and failed to get a ballot issue passed.
You’re right. The difference is clear.
and has mentors in te Senate that have confidence in him.
Yikes! Some of The Mentors like The Boy. Well, hell, if I’d known that… Say no more!
PS: Will you share the name of his tailor? What shampoo does he use? Who does he go to for smiling lessons? I’ve seen him bang away at the gavel on CSpan… Without order so objected… errrr… not to worry, he’s learning! Confidence indeed! CSpan today, Comedy Hour by the end of the week. Now, if we could just get that smile to shine through! Cheese, Mike, not sheet! Cheese…
Granted, a 1/2 hour really isn’t enough to do justice given the number of topics. But I would like to comment on a couple of them.
First, obviously Sen. Bennet is a man of intelligence, but I see very little in his background in foreign affairs (don’t think foreign affairs was a big concern as head of DPS or working for Uncle Phil).
That being said, he spoke of needing to have a clear picture of the problem in Afghanistan, so I would suggest he get his senatorial arse over there and spend some time, so he can see first hand what the problem is, instead of trying to figure it out from inside the Beltway (that’s basically what’s been done the past 8 years and it obviously hasn’t worked). I realize he’s a busy man, but his number one priority is to the 100,000 men and women who are going to have their boots on the ground risking their lives every day, so he damn well owes them that.
Secondly, I would have asked him if the banks were “too big to fail”, doesn’t that imply they amassed an inordinate amount of power, financial and otherwise, and why were they allowed to get “too big to fail” in the first place? Instead of putting onerous capital requirements on huge financial entities, why not instead break them up? After the total collapse of our economy due to the financial sector, everything should be on the table to mitigate this happening again. And it does no good to pass regulatory reform if the regulations are not enforced.
Again thanks for your interview. Good job.
I like the value of the 1st interview being “let them talk” and just try to get a feel for who they are. The Larry King model.
And I like the value of the 2nd interview being “get clear detailed answers” on the main questions. (And thank you all for the kind words above.)
So when it comes around to the 3rd interview – what then? Q&A again? Or is there some other approach. I don’t think I’m going to change any-one’s mind in a 1 hour discussion – the people we have in office at this level are without exception (keeping in mind I have not interviewed Lamborn or Udall) very smart and have thought these topics through.
But if there was something more/different than just getting clear detailed answers, that would be interesting. Any ideas???
But seriously, good interviewing is an art, not unlike the art of horsetrading.
A politician is always running for office, so everything they say is political and calculated to maximize their assets and minimize their liabilities – that’s what PR is all about.
The best interviewer knows his shit, and uses the followup question to cut through the bull. Keep him on topic, you have to control the interview, not him.
Interviewer: So why are we putting 100,000 troops in Afghanistan?
Senator: Well, we need to eliminate the presence of Al Queda so they can’t use Afghanistan to stage attacks against us.
Interviewer: But our own intelligence agencies recently stated there are only 100 active Al Queda fighters in Afghanistan. Why do we need 100,000 troops to eliminate 100 fighters?
Senator: Well,………
but I’ve only ever tried interviewing a serious public figure once. It was unusual for that figure in the sense that I didn’t ask about a bunch of different topics. I focused on one particular thing that concerned me, and got all possible information about it that I could. It wasn’t pleasant for either of us, but the nice thing about it was that it revealed something about this person’s thinking in a way that most interviews really couldn’t.
A lot of an interview can (and perhaps should) end up going in unexpected directions depending on the conversation, but if you decide in advance you’re going to pin down Bennet’s position on one issue, you can probably get a much better sense of it than anyone else ever will. So especially once you have a little bit of a rapport, this is easier to get away with. Pick one thing that he’s been involved with, and just ask question after question about that. It doesn’t have to be aimed at finding a “gotcha” (frequently if anyone talks long enough about one topic, you’ll find out things they didn’t want you to know).
If you think about the most famous interviews (Frost/Nixon is of course the first one that comes to mind), they weren’t all that wide-ranging. Frequently they were discussing some great recent notoriety of the interviewee. I understand not asking about cramdown in this interview, but what if there were a whole interview just focused on housing issues? (Again, I don’t know if this would actually work, but it would get him to talk about it in a way he’s avoided talking with everyone else, since everyone else just asks him why he voted that way and if he’d do it again.)
As allyncooper says, if you try it, it’ll have to be about something you’re really prepared to go on about: a list of questions won’t work at all, you have to know enough to make up the right questions as you go.
Ugh. One does get the sense that he views issues through the lenses of big corporations, even when he happens to find the right position on an issue. Even his position on health care is supported by certain big businesses (just not the health insurers). I wonder how he’d answer a serious question where it’s really big corporations against the rest of us. Cap-and-trade for example.
He’s against “pure greed,” although even Gordon Gekko might have some qualms about pure greed. Still it sounds good.
But the worry that banking regulations will affect “community banks”? This sounds as disingenuous as the concern that we can’t tax large corporations because small businesses might be affected: no, you can exempt small businesses, and it’s done all the time.
He was very clear on that – that he wants to make sure the new regulations hit the banks they should hit, but not draw in others that don’t need the additional regulation.
So he was not arguing against additional regulation for all banks, just that it was not needed for smaller banks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
Buffet is correct in saying the carbon taxes will simply get passed on to the consumer. It will make carbon based energy more expensive. That’s the intent.
The theory is that presently carbon based fuel sources have costs that aren’t being covered in current pricing. These costs are global warming (take your pick there), other costs to the environment in the extraction of carbon fuels, and costs to public health (air pollution)in burning carbon fuels. So C & T is an attempt to bring the market in line with what is argued is the true cost of burning carbon fuels.
Of course an intended consequence of this would be making cleaner or renewable energy sources more attractive in the market relative to the higher “true” cost of carbon fuels under C & T.
Few remember, but in 1993 the Clinton administration proposed a carbon fuel tax. This would have added about 7.9 cents to a gallon of gasoline, at that time selling for about $ 1.95 a gal. The revenue from the tax was earmarked to pay down the deficit.
It never got out of committee,(the oil, gas, and coal industries made sure of that), and for the next ten years America went on a SUV binge with cheap gas.
ok Sen Bennet has lead on health care, contrary to some people’s beliefs.
Sen Bennet treats everyone that I’ve seen him with respect and dignity.
In fact, he is almost too humble.I have not had that experience with his opponent.TO be fair, that changed when I sent his opponent an e-mail about a year ago asking why.
Sen Bennet has an excellent relationship with the President and will continue to lead the fight for that agenda. Contrary to some people’s claims, that matters.
Many Democrats joined the Obama bandwagon for the ride, and didn’t truly support him. They are demonstrating their true beliefs now. Once again, to be fair this is not just in context to the Senate race. Many true Obama supporters back the Speaker because they like him.
Sen Bennet worked for the US Justice Dept.
Sen Bennet has succeeded at everything he has ever sought to do. So he made Mr.Anshutz a ton of money. That means he is competent and understands both financial law, but where reform needs to take place.
Mr.Anshutz has moved on to support the Republicans in both the Governor’s and Senate race.
Contrary to some very partisan objections, his stewardship of DPS significantly improved the scores, and quality of education for the Denver School system
One half hour is a helleva lot of time…..the fact that he gave you that time is a credit to your interviewing skills and objectivity. Congratulations.
I see nothing in here that makes me reconsider my “vanilla” assessment about Mr. Bennet’s stances, actions, political positions, etc. I certainly see nothing in here that shows me why people are getting all firedupreadytogo!! passionate about Mr. Bennet. The only bit in here that wasn’t full-on boilerplate was “we need to put very onerous capital requirements on financial institutions that get to a size…”
Dave, thanks for all the work you’ve been putting into the interviews for the past…what, 2 years now? Good job!
for the nice comments.