Green Law pays Paper companies to increase use of fossil fuels

Thomas Paine once said, "That government is best which governs least." This saying is widely quoted among the Conservative community to justify smaller government. But Conservatives have not done a great job in the last decade to really illustrate why Big Government is a bad idea.

Enter the paper industry and George W Bush. During his administration, a law was passed giving tax credits to companies who made use of alternative energies in place of fossil fuels, or to companies who combined an alternative fuel with a taxable fuel. The paper industry - depressed by the current economy and the use of paper amidst eBooks, internet advertising, and the fall of newspapers - has begun adding diesel fuel to a fossil-fuel-free process in order to claim a tax credit.

Despite the obvious contrivance of the procedure, Wrobleski is unapologetic: "The credit is supposed to encourage the use of green fuel." Sure, I said, but isn't it a bit weird you're now adding diesel fuel to the process in order to take advantage of it? "It is what it is," she said.
Others are less charitable. "You use the toilet every day," said one hedge fund analyst who's been closely following the issue. "Imagine if you could start pouring a little gasoline into the bowl and get fifty cents a gallon every time you flushed."
No one in Congress seems to have anticipated this creative maneuver. This past fall the Joint Committee on Taxation computed the cost of extending the tax credit for three months and projected it would cost a manageable $61 million. It now appears that the extension (which was passed as part of the TARP) could cost as much as $2 billion before the credits expire at the end of this calendar year.

This needs to be reported in every major paper in American. It hardly makes me hopeful that President Obama's complex stimulus plan will accomplish the aims it was designed for. More likely, it will be misused by a number of companies to accomplish their own means at the expense of the tax-payer.