Green Energy Provisions In The One Big Beautiful Bill Act: Unfortunately, A Mixed Bag

  • On July 4 President Trump signed what everyone is now calling the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” (Doesn’t it cease being a “Bill” when it becomes an “Act”? Not this one, apparently.).

  • The Act is a compendium of dozens of provisions relating to all aspects of the federal budget and taxation. As a result, many summaries that you may read focus on things like income tax rates and deductions, and other such matters directly relevant to individuals. That leaves some other important subjects of the Act getting short shrift, particularly the provisions dealing with various aspects of the ongoing green energy scam. So I will try to hit the highlights on that subject here.

  • I previously had a post on May 24 covering the provisions on this subject in the version of the Bill that had just been passed by the House. That post was highly optimistic that the House’s language, if it could survive wrestling with the Senate, could essentially put an end to almost all of the green energy subsidies. Unfortunately, as you might expect from the swamp of Washington, the final language will likely let some of the scam continue.

  • But let’s start with the positive news. For your reference, in case you want to read the actual provisions of the Act, here is a link to the Table of Contents, with ongoing links to each section.

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Its Defenders Need To Understand That "Capitalism" Is Not An "Ism"

  • Writing in the Wall Street Journal on June 30 (July 1 in the print edition), editorialist Matthew Hennessey advocates that “Capitalism Needs Champions.”

  • Reacting to the victory of avowed socialist Zohran Mamdani in New York City’s mayoral primary, Hennessey says that the electoral result indicates that the defenders of capitalism are doing a poor job, and need to step up their game:

  • Let Zohran Mamdani’s victory in last week’s Democratic mayoral primary in New York serve as your periodic reminder that capitalism is in dire need of able defenders. Socialism has more cheerleaders than it deserves, considering its record of consistent failure. Markets need champions too. This is always true, especially now. . . . [T]he problem isn’t capitalism. The problem is complacency.

  • I don’t disagree. But there’s another problem for defenders of what its enemies call “capitalism.” The problem is that capitalism is not an “ism.”

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Settler-Colonialist Zohran Mamdani Calls For "Seizing The Means Of Production"

  • Last week I invited readers to get a good laugh out of New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s plan to avert impending energy disaster by green-lighting one nuclear power plant that optimistically might solve 5% of the problem when it is ready to operate in the 2050s.

  • Now this week brings an even superior farce: A video clip has emerged of our settler-colonialist Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani calling for “seizing the means of production.”

  • Mamdani’s victory in last week’s Democratic primary has led researchers to dredge up a treasure trove of his old tweets and video clips, each one more ridiculous than the next. An excellent roundup can be found here at Legal Insurrection.

  • Some choice examples include: “VioIence is an artificial construct"; “Under capitalism, housing is a commodity from which landlords & developers extract huge profits while our communities suffer eviction, foreclosure & displacement.”; “We need to dramatically curtail the power & presence of the NYPD.”; and “[A] statue of Columbus remains in Astoria, in defiance of the values of humanity, empathy & justice that we stand for.”

  • But my favorite is a clip from a speech Mamdani gave at a Democratic Socialists of America conference in 2021.

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Zohran Mamdani And The Future Of The Democratic Party

  • OK, I know that all you smug people out there in the hinterlands are now snickering at me behind my back because I’m about to get stuck with one Zohran Mamdani as the Mayor of my city.

  • Probably, you have already read enough about this guy to know just how crazy and ignorant he is. If you haven’t yet studied up, here is a small sample of his stated positions: free transit buses for all, free childcare for all children 6 weeks to 5 years old, city-owned grocery stores, a rent freeze on all regulated apartments, vast expansion of city-owned subsidized housing (building on the success of NYCHA!), “cracking down” on landlords, plus some kind of a mental health intervention corps to intervene with violent criminals in lieu of police, all of this to be paid for by “taxes on big corporations and the wealthiest New Yorkers.” And of course, “globalize the intifada.” This guy founded the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter at Bowdoin College.

  • And don’t get the idea that he doesn’t mean it.

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Good Laugh For Today: New York State Says It Will Build A New Nuclear Power Plant

Good Laugh For Today:  New York State Says It Will Build A New Nuclear Power Plant
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New York/Florida Comparison: The Contrast Becomes Ever More Dramatic

  • Among the larger states, the two that are closest to each other in population and demographics are New York and Florida.

  • According to the latest U.S. Census data (from July 1, 2024), the population of New York was 19,867,248, while the population of Florida was 23,372,215. More recent estimates from a source called World Population Review put New York’s 2025 population at 19,997,100 (an increase of about 130,000 on the year), and Florida’s at 23,839,600 (an increase of about 467,000 over the same year).

  • Yet in terms of the approach to state government — taxing, spending, and government programs overall — there could not be a greater contrast than between these two states. And that contrast only grows stronger every year.

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