As we all know the Bush budget is out.
Along with cutting many programs, funneling more money to Warren Tare, his budget also calls for Northwest power customers to donate to the national debt....
This from the
The World (The
ONLY newspaper covering the Southern Oregon Coast!)
The Bush administration called Monday for the Bonneville Power Administration to reverse its longtime policy of using surplus revenue to lower electricity rates for Northwest consumers and instead use the money to pay down the federal debt.
They said the change could raise electricity rates by as much as 10 percent.
The reason our rates are low is because of the dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers. These create a huge amount of electricity. But in the not so distant past, we had some of the biggest salmon runs in the world. Today we spend millions a year to pump hatchery fish into of our rivers, and we still barely have enough fish to fight over.
The dams have all but destroyed our most valuable resource.
Now, through some tricky accounting, Bushco wants to raise our rates to make payments on the National Debt:
Under the administration's proposed budget for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, any surplus revenue above $500 million would go to pay down federal debt, rather than lower power prices for BPA customers.
OH GOODIE!
As expected this will be framed as "sound business":
The administration called the proposal "consistent with sound business practices".
Well sure it is, just like the subsidies to the largest Corporations and throwing money at Warren.......where the only oversight is people watching money being deposited in bottom-less pockets.
It is sound business; take money away from the folks at the bottom and give it to the Government instead, they are sooooooooo much better at spending money than we are.
And of course no Bush proposal could ever be complete without some double talk:
Alex Conant, a spokesman for the White House budget office, said the plan would let the BPA make capital investments to improve service and reliability while making future rate hikes less likely.
Ah yes, the old "raise prices now so they are less likely to go up in the future" argument.
And improve service! Wow, no mention of investing in other sources of energy or keeping the doors at NREL open or....
So let's recap:
The first 500 million in revenue will go...well, we don't know where.
After that, the money will flow to the Fed Government.
Anyone see anything wrong with this?
The more BPA charges for electricity, the more money flows to Government coffers. How high will our rates go? Is there a limit?
How big and overreaching will our Government get? Is there a limit?
And a final quote from Wyden:
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., called the plan "government loan-sharking" and compared it to a mortgage lender requiring higher payments from those who earn above a certain income.
And even a quote from Oregon Senator Gorden Smith:
Ha Ha fooled you, you actually believed that Sen. Smith would stick up for people in the Northwest?
"Free market" indeed.