Tag: taxes

UK Pays Wind Farms $1.3 Billion To Shut Down When It’s Windy

Bloomberg reports UK Is Paying £1 Billion to Waste a Record Amount of Wind Power

Burgeoning capacity and blustery weather should have driven huge growth in output in 2024. But the grid can’t cope, forcing the operator to pay wind farms to turn off, a cost ultimately borne by consumers. It’s a situation that puts at risk plans to decarbonize the network by 2030 and makes it harder to cut bills.

Crucial to the net zero grid target is a massive build-out of renewable power, particularly from wind. Britain has boosted its offshore fleet by 50% in the past five years and is set to double it in the next five, Bloomberg data show.

But the grid hasn’t expanded at the same pace. As a result, the operator is increasingly paying wind farms, particularly those in Scotland, not to run. So far this year, the UK has spent more than £1 billion ($1.3 billion) in “congestion costs” to turn off plants that can’t deliver electricity because of grid constraints, and switch on others.

Last month for example, when Storm Bert swept across the UK, some of its newest and biggest wind parks were still. Scotland’s £3 billion Seagreen project, owned by SSE Plc and TotalEnergies SE, was shut off. SSE’s Viking development on the Shetland Islands was also closed.

Wind vs Gas

UK generators usually sell output in advance on the wholesale market. But those transactions don’t take into account the physical limitations of balancing supply and demand in real time. To keep the lights on, the operator steps in, paying some plants to turn off and others that are closer to demand centers to fire up.

Often, this means shutting off a far-flung wind farm and starting up a gas-fed plant that’s closer to a city.

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“This Is Nuts”: NYC Pays Pakistani-Owned Roosevelt Hotel $220 Million To House Illegal Aliens 

Americans should be outraged by New York City’s $220 million sweetheart deal with Pakistan to lease the prestigious Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown Manhattan as a luxury shelter for illegal aliens. The most alarming issue is that NYC paid a foreign government to help house the migrants.

X user John LeFevre resurfaced a 2023 news story, first published by The Economic Times, regarding Pakistan’s decision to lease the iconic Roosevelt Hotel to the local government, sympathetic to globalist policies, such as open borders. 

For some context, Pakistan has owned the Roosevelt Hotel since 1979. State-owned Pakistan International Airlines acquired the trophy property through its investment arm, PIA Investments Limited. 

According to the 2023 report, the lease agreement spans three years, during which NYC stuffed thousands of illegal aliens into the 1,250-room hotel like cattle—funded entirely by taxpayers. This arrangement has sparked outrage about how NYC paid a foreign gov’t to help support the invasion of the third world into a first-world city.

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Fuel Minister Liz Kendall, who axed £300 payment to pensioners, lives in £4million Notting Hill home with her banker partner – and their heating bill is paid by YOU

The Cabinet Minister who axed pensioners’ winter fuel payments has her own £350-a-month energy bills paid by the taxpayer – while she lives in a £4 million London mansion.

Liz Kendall has been branded a hypocrite for removing the payment for ten million pensioners while bills at her second home are being met from the public purse. 

The Work and Pensions Secretary’s main base is a four-bedroom property in Notting Hill, West London, which she shares with her partner, an Old Etonian investment banker. But she is allowed to claim costs for the second property she rents in her Leicester West constituency.

The most recent documents held by the Commons show she claimed a total of £3,810 in energy costs between April 2023 and July this year, with the largest monthly bills totalling £352. 

Ms Kendall’s decision to axe the annual winter fuel payment of between £100 and £300 for all but the poorest pensioners will force 100,000 people into poverty by 2027 according to her own department’s forecasts.

Last night, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage told The Mail on Sunday: ‘The hypocrisy of the Labour Government knows no bounds. I will not be claiming a penny in expenses for my heating.’

And Tory MP David Simmonds said: ‘This revelation will be a kick in the teeth for the 10 million pensioners facing choosing between heating and eating this Christmas because of Labour and Liz Kendall’s political choice to cut the winter fuel payment.

‘While Liz Kendall is living a life of luxury the country is facing real life consequences of Labour’s ill-thought-out decisions. In four short months this Labour Government have made it clear they do not have the British people’s best interests at heart.’

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New Chair Of Connecticut Dems Was “Hesitant” To Talk About Past As Illegal Immigrant When He Ran For Danbury Mayor In 2021

Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont has tapped Danbury Mayor Roberto Alves to be the next chairman of the Democrat State Central Committee.

“As the mayor of a major city, he speaks with the residents of our state on a daily basis and is intimately familiar with their concerns and needs – working to keep our focus on making Connecticut more affordable,” said Lamont who believes Alves “represents the kind of leader needed” for the CT Dems.

“Roberto Alves exemplifies the very best of our state’s values, immigrating to Connecticut as a child, graduating from Danbury High School, and going on to work as a technical sales engineer at Cartus,” said Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz.

According to the CTMirror, Alves came to the U.S. in 1989 as a 5-year-old from Brazil with his parents who overstayed their tourist visa.

When Trump took office in 2016, Alves reportedly “sped up his plan to earn” citizenship, and officially became a citizen on May 18, 2017.

“I wanted to fight locally for people who had the same struggles that my parents did and I did,” Alves told the NewsTimes in 2019.

Alves subsequently ran for Danbury Mayor in 2021, and didn’t hide his previous illegal status, but he didn’t highlight it, either.

“I’m hesitant to use it politically, and I don’t talk about it politically, because people are conservative, and it [rubs] on some people the wrong way,” said Alves in 2021.

It should rub people the wrong way, considering illegal immigration has been estimated to cost Connecticut residents around $1.28 billion.

And let’s not forget that folks like CT AG William Tong have been appearing all around the state, promising to protect illegals from the incoming Trump Administration’s “mass deportation” plans.

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Some Questions to Ask on Thanksgiving

What if the government’s true goal is to perpetuate its own power? What if the real levers of governmental power are pulled by agents, diplomats, bureaucrats, donors, central bankers and arms manufacturers? What if they have power no matter who is elected president or which political party controls either house of Congress?

What if the frequent public displays of adversity between Republicans and Democrats are just a facade? What if both major political parties agree on the fundamental issues of our day?

What if the leadership of both political parties believes that our rights are not natural to our humanity but instead are gifts from the government? What if those leaders believe the government that gives gifts to the people can take those gifts away?

What if the leadership of both parties gives only lip service to Thomas Jefferson’s assertions in the Declaration of Independence that all persons “are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” and that when the government assaults our natural rights, we can “alter or abolish” it?

What if the leadership of both parties quietly dismisses those ideas as Jefferson’s outdated musings? What if Jefferson’s words are core American values that all in government have sworn to uphold?

What if the leadership of both political parties believes that the constitutional requirement of due process somehow permits mothers to hire doctors to kill babies in their wombs, out of fear or convenience? What if the leadership of both political parties believes that the president may lawfully kill any foreigner out of fear, because due process is an inconvenience?

What if the last four presidents — two from each political party — have used high-tech drones to kill innocent people in foreign lands with which America was not at war and claimed that they did so legally, relying not on a declaration of war from Congress but on erroneous and secret legal arguments that claim American presidents can kill with impunity?

What if the Constitution requires a congressional declaration of war or due process whenever the government wants anyone’s life, liberty or property, whether convenient or not, and whether the person is American or not? What if due process means a fair jury trial, not a secretly ordered killing?

What if most members of Congress from both political parties believe in perpetual war and perpetual debt? What if the political class believes that war is the health of the state? What if the leadership of that class wants war so as to induce the loyalty of its base, open the pocketbooks of the taxpayers, gain the compliance of the voters and enrich its benefactors? What if the government has been paying for war by increasing its debt?

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Illegal migrant crime cost $166.5 billion, three times the price of deportation

The cost of crime from 662,000 criminal illegal migrants sought for deportation has been pegged at three times the much-hyped price of President-elect Donald Trump’s “mass deportation” plan.

In an analysis from the Crime Prevention Research Center, the costs of crime from the top targets of ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations was set at $166.5 billion. That number is based on the cost to victims, a price list developed by the National Institute of Justice.

Crime Prevention Research Center President John R. Lott Jr., who did the analysis for Real Clear Investigations, said the cost was based on just one of the crimes “each of the 662,566 ‘non-detained’ noncitizen offenders on ICE’s list” has been previously accused of.

“Murders account for almost $153.8 billion of the $166.5 billion in estimated criminal victimization costs. Another $6 billion involves sexual assaults/offenses, and an additional $5.2 billion comes from sexual assaults and sexual offenses,” he wrote.

“Half of the crimes these non-detained individuals commit don’t have cost estimates. These crimes include kidnapping, embezzlement, extortion, smuggling, traffic offenses, and weapon offenses,” he added.

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Global First: Denmark Starts Taxing Farm Animals’ Burps, Farts And Poop

Denmark, known for its inventive restaurants and elegant design studios, is about to become known for something more basic: the world’s first belch and manure tax.

That’s because there are five times as many pigs and cows in Denmark as there are people. Nearly two-thirds of its land is taken up by farming. And agriculture is becoming its largest share of climate pollution, putting lawmakers under intense public pressure to reduce it.

So now, Denmark’s unlikely coalition government, made up of three parties from across the political spectrum, has agreed to tax the planet-heating methane emissions that all those animals expel through their poop, farts and burps. The measure, under negotiation for years, was passed by the Danish Parliament this month, making it the only such climate levy on livestock in the world.

“I think it’s good,” said Rasmus Angelsnes, 31, who was shopping for dinner in Copenhagen one recent afternoon. “It’s kind of a nudge to make different choices, maybe more climate-friendly choices.”

Never mind that his shopping cart contained thick slices of pork belly, which he planned to cook that rainy evening with potatoes and parsley. “Comfort food,” he said sheepishly.

The tax is part of a larger package designed to clean up the country’s agricultural pollution and eventually restore some farmland to its natural form, like peat lands, which are exceptionally good at locking away planet-heating gases underground but were drained decades ago to grow crops.

Denmark’s quest is also part of a reckoning for many agricultural powerhouses, including the United States, as they face calls to clean up pollution from farms, while balancing the needs of politically powerful agricultural lobbies.

Globally, the food system accounts for a fourth of greenhouses gases, and reducing those emissions requires making tough choices on diets, jobs and industries. At the same time, farmers are vulnerable to the hazards of climate change, with punishing heat, droughts and floods exacerbated by the burning of fossil fuels. That makes food a particularly vexing climate problem to take on.

No wonder that efforts to reduce agriculture’s climate emissions have faced stiff resistance, from Brussels to Delhi to Wellington, where the New Zealand government proposed a burp tax in 2022 only to have a later government scrap it.

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Biden Asks Congress To Authorize $24BN More To Spend On Ukraine

The Biden administration has asked Congress to approve $24 billion in additional spending on Ukraine as it’s working to ramp up the proxy war as much as possible during President Biden’s final weeks in office.

POLITICO Pro obtained a request from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget that asked Congress to include additional Ukraine spending in a continuing resolution that’s expected to be voted on next month. Two congressional aides said Congress received the proposal on Monday.

The request asks for $8 billion for the Ukraine Security Assistance initiative, a form of military aid that allows the US to purchase weapons for Ukraine, and $16 billion to replace US military equipment that’s been sent to Ukraine.

The money to replenish US weapons would allow the Biden administration to use the remaining Presidential Drawdown Authority for Ukraine, which allows the US to ship weapons directly from US military stockpiles. The administration is looking to rush arms shipments to Ukraine throughout the rest of the transition period.

If Congress agrees to the request, it would bring total US spending on the proxy war, according to publicly available data, to about $210 billion.

Earlier this year, President Biden signed a foreign military aid bill into law that included $61 billion for Ukraine. Before that, the US spent at least $125 billion on the conflict.

US officials have told The Washington Post that the Biden administration is trying to put Ukraine in the best position possible before President-elect Donald Trump might push for an end to the war.

US officials acknowledged that within a few months, Ukraine could be pushed into negotiations and could end up ceding territory. “Biden’s reversal of his previous policies on mines and missiles was intended in part to give Ukraine the strongest possible hand as it enters those potential talks,” The Washington Post wrote.

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The $267 Million Price Tag on Censorship Efforts Under Biden

A lot has been said about how the outgoing US administration’s focus on censorship (“combating misinformation“); it negatively affected online speech and now a number of federal spending documents examined by a non-profit show the price of that effort – or at least a part of it.

A new report prepared by OpenTheBooks details the grants the Biden-Harris administration started giving out as it took over in early 2021, and this doesn’t include the taxpayer money spent internally, by various departments and agencies.

The grants figure comes to $267 million – a massive increase (44 times more) compared to the $6.7 million that Trump’s first administration set aside for the same purpose.

The grants went toward researching what the outgoing White House chose to consider misinformation, which in many cases resulted in third parties – organization, academia, etc., – promoting and/or censoring speech, opponents of the practice say, effectively (and unconstitutionally) – as government proxies.

Covid was one of the major topics covered by this type of “research” and here, the report notes, the approach was both to offer monetary incentives, and to pressure companies operating social networks in order to promote government narratives, but also shut down not only criticism, but even skepticism.

To make matters worse – many of these issues whose official explanation was treated as gospel, resulting in people getting deplatformed and demonetized if they questioned these interpretations, shortly after turned out to be anything but “misinformation” – such as the origin of the virus, the efficacy of mask-wearing, social distancing, the safety of vaccines, etc.

But, $127 million of US taxpayers’ money in total was used to enforce those narratives, through pro-vaccine advocacy, studies meant to stop “misinformation” on the internet, and the like.

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Kathy Hochul forces New Yorkers to pay $9 to drive through midtown Manhattan—claims it’s a cost savings because she wanted to charge $15

Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) announced this week that New Yorkers will soon face a $9 congestion charge for driving into Manhattan’s Congestion Relief Zone, CBC News reported. Hochul originally canned the program as the presidential election loomed. Her first proposal was for people to pay a $15 and is now claiming that $9 “will save daily commuters” money.

“State law requires that congestion pricing simultaneously raise money for the MTA [Metropolitan Transportation Authority] and drive down traffic congestion. These are important priorities. But I believe that no New Yorker should have to pay a penny more than absolutely necessary to achieve these goals, and $15 was too much,” Hochul said. “I am proud to announce we have found a path to fund the MTA, reduce congestion and keep millions of dollars in the pockets of our commuters.”

“This lower toll will save daily commuters nearly $1,500 annually,” she said, though that “savings” is actually just a lesser increase. “And that kind of money makes a big difference for our families,” Hochul continued, adding that the really good news is that people who own vehicles, belong to the Low-Income Discount Plan and make less than $50,000 a year will be eligible for a 50 percent discount – but only after paying 10 tolls first. Hochul said the rate will be lower during the night when fewer people are driving into the city.

The governor said “the most critical” part of the massive tax is that it will guarantee $15 billion in MTA funding, which she said was the whole purpose of the tax to begin with. “We’re still getting the $15 billion to fund the MTA, and drivers are paying $6 less,” she said. She said that $15 billion will pay for an improved subway signal system, expansion of the Second Ave. subway line and buy electric buses.

President-elect Donald Trump told The New York Post on Thursday that he is against Hochul’s congestion pricing plan calling it the “most regressive tax known to womankind.”

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