More leftist lunacy: Let's put a carbon tax on babies

“Should We Be Having Kids In The Age of Climate Change?” That was the audacious question NPR’s website and All Things Considered radio show asked recently as it promoted a college professor’s “radical” proposal that people need to have fewer children because of the “prospect of climate catastrophe.”

The academic proposed a “carbon tax” on children to decentivize procreation in wealthy nations.

NPR correspondent Jennifer Ludden reported that Professor Travis Rieder presented these “moral” arguments to James Madison University students, claiming the best way to protect future generations from the threat of climate change is “by not having them.”

A philosopher, Rieder told students that having fewer children reduces carbon emissions more effectively than not eating meat, driving hybrid cars, and using eco-friendly appliances.

According to the NPR piece, Rieder and his Georgetown University colleagues, Colin Hickey and Jake Earl, have a plan to save the earth which was described as “carrots for the poor, sticks for the rich.” They are asking richer nations to “do away with tax breaks for having children and actually penalize new parents.”

Rieder described his strategy as a “carbon tax, on kids,” and said it should be “based on income” and raised for “each additional child.” He claimed that punishing people in wealthier nations for having large families is “not like China’s abusive one-child policy” because it targets the rich rather than the poor. Apparently he doesn't know that even China is abandoning its one-child policy because of the negative consequences it is discovering, like Russia and Japan are, that reduced populations pose on a country. But I digress.

Rieder claimed to have the moral high ground, saying, “It's not the childless who must justify their lifestyle. It's the rest of us.” In the radio program, he said his family is “one and done” even though his wife Sadiye formerly wanted a “big” family.

When a student asked, “What happens if that kid you decided not to have would have been the person who grew up and essentially cured this,” Rieder called it a good question. But then he added that “valuing children as a means to an end...” is “ethically problematic.” 

Such anti-life arguments are typical of the left, including the environmental left. What I want to know is, why is it that every time some pseudo-intellectual proposes fewer people are needed, they never volunteer to lead the way? They always want their spot at Earth's table, but want to deny it to others.

These people obviously hate humanity whom they consider pests to be eradicated in the name of phantom climate change. They purposely ignore earth's actual climatic history to promote their suicidal agendas of population control as a means of climate control. 

The bottom line is, there is, in general, no overpopulation problem (there are plenty of corruption-induced government problems that lead to things like poverty, however). In fact, I am willing to concede that the earth is overpopulated by misanthropes who think there is a population and climate change problem. Maybe we should put a carbon tax on these environmental extremists for the ludicrous anti-human ideas that they spew.

Hillary's trickle-down economics bad for everyone (except maybe the wealthy)

When it comes to America’s future, at least in terms of the economy, what do we want? Do we want the stagnant European, cradle-to-grave “security” socialist model, or do we want the American model of vigorous growth, low taxes, and individual liberty to get things moving again? It should be a very clear choice.

Today Hillary Clinton reveals her plans to raise taxes on individuals, the wealthy and corporations, increase and expand social security, and increase spending for tax-funded infrastructure and education. In other words, she revealed her own version of the tax and spend formula of European socialism.

Trump has not mentioned expanding Social Security or Medicaid, but he also doesn’t plan to touch them for cuts either. He does, however, plan to lower taxes for every bracket of individuals and corporations, cut regulations, encourage domestic energy expansion, and, while his plans for infrastructure spending are larger than Hillary’s, he is planning on predominantly private - not taxpayer-funded –investment.

In other words, Trump supports a recipe for vigorous growth in the economy – the very growth essential to fixing our economy. In fact, we simply can’t fix the economy without growth, which creates jobs and prosperity across the board. Obama spent $800 billion in tax dollars on ‘shovel ready’ jobs, yet our infrastructure is far from where it should be. Where did that money go? Now Hillary wants to spend an additional $300 billion of taxpayer money on infrastructure that should have been taken care of under Obama, and that will provide temporary jobs only for the most part.

But Hillary’s plan sure does sound good. In fact, some might ask, what’s wrong with Europe and why wouldn’t we want to model America after it? After all, Europe has lots of “free” stuff, lots of paid holidays, supposed 'fairness' in punishing the wealthy. Why would anyone want to oppose it? Because European socialism doesn’t work, that's why. It is not a sustainable system. Much of it is bankrupt, the population is rapidly declining and aging, and there has been virtually no growth for many, many years. And if America continues on this European-style path, we will be in the same sinking boat.

Hillary mocks Trump’s economic plan, saying it’s a return to old ways of “phantom” trickle-down economics. But what about Hillary’s sure-fire trickle-down economics? Stimulating the private sector does not happen by raising taxes and increasing regulations. Corporations socked with higher taxes never in actuality pay higher taxes; they simply raise the prices on their goods and services that the middle and lower economic consumers have to pay. Higher taxes simply reduce corporate jobs that the middle and working class depend on. Strangling regulations simply make it harder for companies to grow or even to stay in America. 

Hillary’s plan will trickle down alright – directly in the form of higher prices and fewer jobs for the rest of us. That’s hardly a recipe for middle and working class success, and it’s hardly a recipe for overall growth in America. All it would do is make the "ruling class" more powerful, while the division between the "wealthy" and the rest of us gets that much wider.

Nonetheless, Hillary is determined to make us more like Europe, while Trump wants to keep us like the America we were meant to be. Which one sounds better to you?

Focus on what Hillary will do, not on Trump comments

In telling Americans at a press conference this morning with the Prime Minister of Singapore that Donald Trump is "unfit" and "woefully unprepared" to be president, President Barack Obama has made it clear that he intends to carry out the rest of his presidency devoted to one goal: getting Hillary Clinton elected to finish the job he started of dismantling America. (Let's not forget, by the way, that Obama, the community organizer who was truly unfit and unprepared to be president, said the same things about Mitt Romney four years ago).

Yes, Donald Trump says things we all wish he wouldn't say. But the future of our country is so incredibly perilous that we actually need to be less concerned with stupid comments and more concerned with what Hillary Clinton will do to what is left of America.

Obama knows Hillary will carry on with his disastrous economic and foreign policies. He knows she will stack the Supreme Court with anti-American subversives. He knows she will throw open the borders and give aid and comfort to the enemy. He knows she will support disastrous tax, minimum wage and "free" college policies. He knows she will dismiss religious rights and do little to reverse the growing marginalization of US Christians as she herself has announced by saying "religious views need to be changed" to pave the way for things like taxpayer-funded abortion on demand. He knows Hillary is unimaginably corrupt and dishonest, that she collects millions of dollars from foreign companies, that she refuses to name our enemies in the fight against terrorism. No matter. She will carry on Obama's disastrous policies and that is all that matters. 

The thing so many supporters of Hillary don't seem to understand is that America would likely not survive her presidency. Worse, they don't seem to grasp that they will actually not like what comes after America, the once great nation now teetering on the brink of disaster. They don't even seem to know what this disaster would involve. 

As Obama himself noted, “There has to be a point in which you say this is somebody I can’t support for president of United States. There has to be a point in which you say ‘enough.'” 

True. But his warnings should be directed at Hillary. It is time those of us who recognize the value of America and want to preserve her exceptionalism said ‘enough’ to Obama, ‘enough’ to the slanted media,  'enough' to Hillary's lies and corruption, and ‘enough’ to the left’s destruction of America.