The CFR Wants You To Pay More For Gasoline

Your humble observer, at Asylum Watch, recently read an article by the Institute for Energy Research (IER). The link to this article was one of several at theCL Report: Mugged By Reality, an excellent service provided by the Classic Liberal Blog.  The IER article is a review of a recently completed study by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) titled Using Oil Taxes to Improve Fiscal Reform.

Although Asylum Watch is where yours truly expresses his opinions on current events the insanity going on in this world we have to live in, I do not normally form those opinions without first doing my own due diligence. In other words, I don’t normally rely on the due diligence of a third party. So, when I read the opening paragraph oo the IER article, I immediately went to the link provided so that I could read for myself what the CFR study and then form my own opinions.

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) recently released a study by Daniel Ahn and Michael Levi showing how a new tax on oil—which would ultimately raise pump prices by $1.20/gallon—might benefit Americans. The two main reasons were: (a) right now oil is too expensive, so taxing it would help, and (b) The revenue from a new oil tax would allow the government to spend more money, thus making the economy stronger. If the reader has not yet fallen out of his or her chair, in the rest of this blog post I’ll show that I’m not making this up.

However, the link was not to the study; but to an overview of the study with the option to down load it.

I decided to take a pass. If your one-eyed observer had the good fortune to live long enough to read the CFR study, it would no longer be a current event. It would be ancient history. Therefore, today I will rely on the work of the good people at the Institute for Energy Research.

The CFR study is saying that if the government slapped a $50/barrel tax on oil, which works out to $1.20 per gallon of gasoline, and if it then used all of the revenue to increase government spending, then this would help the economy over an 8-year-period.

One might ask, almost in jest, “Well if a new oil tax of 1.5% of GDP is a good idea, why not make it bigger?”

Fortunately, the CFR study does just that. In the next section, they “demonstrate” that doubling the oil tax to 3% of GDP—i.e. $100/barrel of crude, or $2.40/gallon—and using all of the revenue to fuel government spending, would make the economy grow even faster, and create more jobs, than the Variation 1 from above.

{…}

The irony is that there is nothing special about oil in the CFR study’s analysis. They don’t make an argument about climate change or other negative externalities, even though that was the context of the discussion. The actual mechanics of the underlying economic model are not spelled out, but it appears that the “results” are simply due to the alleged benefits of maintaining government spending. It is not clear why the same “results” couldn’t be generated by a 1.5% of GDP tax on coal, milk, or Slim Jims. It seems the crucial thing in the CFR study is that government spending be maintained, in order to keep the economy humming.

So, the CFR thinks you should pay an additional tax on gasoline of up to $2.40 a gallon in order that your federal government can have more money to spend. Insane, right? Our government would never entertain such a crazy idea, would they? You had better hope the Democrats do not win control of the House in 2014 because  policy proposal have a habit of becoming government policy. There are an inordinate number of people in our government who have ties to the Council on Foreign Relations. Let us remind ourselves who is behind the CFR and then we ca understand the motivation behind their latest policy proposal.

The CFR has its own blog and if you click on the “About page” we learn:

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher.

And

The David Rockefeller Studies Program—CFR’s think tank—is composed of more than eighty full-time and adjunct fellows who cover the major regions and significant issues shaping today’s international agenda.

Nonpartisan? Really? I guess by “nonpartisan” they mean Republicans are welcome as long as they support big government. And, David Rockefeller is anything but nonpartisan. David Rockefeller is a self-proclaimed citizen of the world and has no allegiance to the United States where his family made its fortune, Besides the CFR, it was David Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski who founded the Trilateral Commission, which funds another influential left-wing think tank, the Brookings Institution. And, it was also David Rockefeller, along with Maurice Strong at the Club of Rome, who came up with the ideas for the UN’s Agenda 21 and Global Warming/Climate Change as tools to bring about a new world order.

Asylum Watch believes that Agenda 21 and Climate Change are what is behind the proposal of the CFR to raise taxes on oil to support government spending. By pushing gasoline prices over $6.00 a gallon, the people living in the suburbs will want to move back to the cities to be closer to their work and so they can walk to work or ride a bicycle. Agenda 21 is all about stacking and packing you in high density  population centers and reducing your carbon footprint to a minimum. Then your elites can control and take care of you for your own good. They have the right administration in place. Al they need now is control of the House of Representatives and they will put their plan in action.

Well, now you know what I’m thinking. What re your thoughts?