What, you say? The economy is in a shambles, two of my neighbors have been laid off and my heating bill is half again as much as it was last winter. How can this be a good time to install solar power?
Let’s take it step by step. The losses on Wall Street may impact the economy, but they are not the economy. Almost all the factories, farms, growers, and retailers who started 2008 are still around. More important, the cows, chickens, pigs, wheat and corn fields, cotton fields and forests – the goods that make up the “real” economy – are still growing.
Yes, people are losing jobs in the banking and retail sectors, but these job losses are exacerbated by cutbacks in spending, leading to more losses. I’m not suggesting you buy frivolous items like plastic shoes from China, but if you want to encourage the manufacturing sector, buy American. Buy the one thing that is still truly “made in America”; solar power.
Your heating bill is likely from 25 to 40 percent higher. This is because the utilities lost money over the summer as a result of consumers cutting back on electricity. You can make them see the error of their ways – and the futility of raising prices to cover losses – by installing solar power and generating some, or all, of your electricity needs yourself.
Let’s take a look at other incentives, beginning with The Clean Energy Tax Stimulus Act of 2008 (amended as part of the recent bailout bill, passed Oct. 1, 2008):
Taxpayers can claim a renewable energy credit for 10 years, beginning on the date the qualified facility is placed in service. In order to qualify, facilities must be placed in service by December 31, 2009 (the original date was 2008). The credit is equal to 30 percent of qualifying expenditures, and the former cap of $2,000 for each system was also repealed as part of the bailout package. This 30 percent credit is not a tax deduction, but an actual credit – it comes right off the top of your income. Under current law, taxpayers can also claim a 30 percent business energy credit for purchases of qualified solar energy property. Credits apply to periods after December 31, 2005 and before January 1, 2008. What this represents to you, the average American, is a gift from the very Senate that gave those silly bankers $700 billion. The least you can do is take advantage of it, since it’s probably the only bailout you, the consumer, are likely to see.
If the federal incentive isn’t enough to whet your appetite, check out the database of state incentives. For example, in Minnesota solar installations escape sales tax and qualify for up to $22,500 in incentives (at a rate of $2.25 per watt) through Xcel Energy’s Renewable Development Fund. The incentives are available until the fund is exhausted.
In San Francisco, California, solar installations qualify for up to a $6,000 rebate. That’s cash in hand, so to speak. In Illinois, you can get up to $10,000 in incentives (for a $50,000 system). You can also check out Cooler Planet’s blog on solar power state ratings.
So what are you waiting for? As the economic downturn impacts state budgets and funds are used up, the opportunities to benefit from a solar power system can only grow smaller. To find a qualified installer and purchase your solar system, visit our resource page.
Ronald Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois on 6 February 1911. He began his acting career while studying economics at Eureka College. He broke into show-business when he landed a gig as a sports caster at a radio station in Des Moines, Iowa. Attracted to his distinctive voice, WHO radio signed him as an announcer for Chicago Cubs baseball games, his speciality was creating play-by-play accounts of games that the station received by wire. While travelling with the Cubs in 1937, Reagan went for a screen test with Warner Brothers and was successful, the studio signing him on a seven year contract. Limited mainly to B-movies, he made almost twenty movies in the space of two years. However, in 1939, he was cast in the Bette Davies tearjerker Dark Victory which raised his profile amongst the Hollywood community. It helped him land a starring role in Knute Rockne, All American in the role of George ‘The Gipper’ Gipp, hence the moniker that would stick with him for the rest of his life – The Gipper. During World War II, he served as a non-active captain in the Army Air Corp, producing a number of training films, he was not sent abroad due to being near-sighted. Upon returning to Hollywood in 1947, he commenced a five year term as president of the Screen Actors Guild. It was during this period that Reagan became an active voice in Hollywood politics, speaking out against communist influences in the film industry. Finding it difficult to land further film roles, he went into television in 1954 becoming the host of the series General Electric Theater. Part of his contract involved speaking at General Electric plants, he wrote his own speeches which became more and more political, eventually proving too controversial for the company’s taste and he was fired in 1962.
His entry into politics occurred when he made a televised speech in support of Barry Goldwater’s bid for the Presidential nomination in 1964. In 1966, Reagan beat Pat Brown to become Governor of California, his electoral manifesto had included imposing ten per cent pay cuts, ’to send welfare bums back to work’ and to quell the anti-war and anti-establishment student protests at Berkeley. However, once in office he found that he had to compromise his ideals – taxes actually increased, he had to accept an increase in abortion rights and he increased spending on higher education. He was re-elected to a second term in 1969, he made even further compromises with the Democrats and generally presented the more liberal side of his politics with a view to his seeking the Republican nomination for President in 1976. That bid failed, during his campaign he articulated his fears of Russian re-armament and the fact that America was facing economic obsolescence because of business taxes and regulation and social chaos because of social welfare dependency. During his 1980 Presidential campaign against President Jimmy Carter, these concerns became amplified due to Carter’s about turn on defence and welfare; due to a widespread if not a completely committed tide of conservative sentiment, Reagan prevailed. After little more than a year in the post, Reagan was victim of an assassination attempt by John Hinckley, Jr., a bullet missing Reagan’s heart by one inch, but piercing his left lung, it had the effect of soaring his popularity amongst voters. He introduced widespread tax cuts, increased defence expenditure, cuts in welfare and education budgets, business deregulation and a tightened control over government information. America’s new belligerent rhetoric and heightened demand of it’s priorities unsettled governments across the world.
When this rhetoric was followed by a threatened invasion of Nicaragua and an actual invasion of Grenada, North Atlantic affairs were in disarray. His foreign policies were defined by the tremendous antipathy towards the Soviet Union which he referred to as the ‘evil empire’. Reagan presided over a huge military build-up, spending over 2 trillion dollars on the strengthening of the armed forces. In addition, the Reagan Doctrine offered support to anti-Soviet guerrillas anywhere in the world, which led to America becoming involved in covert operations in Central America, Africa, the Middle East and Afghanistan. Congressional hearings in 1987 revealed that the Reagan administration had being raising funds through arms sales to Iran in order to finance the activities of Contra revolutionaries against the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. Reagan’s polarity plummeted as a result of these findings. It was not until he came to an agreement with Mikhail Gorbachev to reduce short and intermediate range missiles that his popularity was restored. The Reagan administration claimed that the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent ending of the Cold War was a direct result of US military spending and covert operations; this claim is contested by commentators who credit it to the reformism of Gorbachev and long term structural problems in the Russian economy. On the domestic front, Reagan’s predicted revolution in 1980 had failed to materialise – however a combination of conservative dogma, practical action and mastery of the media ensured that he held the public’s affection although the majority of the electorate disagreed with his policies.
The incoming Obama administration should take a good hard look at online gambling and UIGEA.
During Barack Obama’s campaign for the presidency, his major focus was on three major domestic issues: health care, education and tax cuts for the middle class. When asked how these issues would be financed, Obama stated that he would scrutinize the national budget and seize funding for any programs or initiatives that were deemed inefficient or unworkable and suggested he would find new source of revenues that were more realistic. Although the U.S. national budget is a massive and complex structure that has been seriously used and abused for the past eight years, and there are no simple overnight or easy fix solutions to repair the current damage done, here is one of many areas of internal revenue generation President-Elect Obama can look into… The regulation of Online Gambling.
It is not commonly known, but the fact is that online gambling has actually generated over four billion dollars internationally in the past two years alone. Bare in mind that this came with limited U.S. participation since the implementation of UIGEA (otherwise known as The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act). And it is forecasted that the online gaming industry will top fifteen billion dollars by 2012 with or without the participation of the United States. A Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) study revealed that the United States has the potential to collect at least $8.7 billion and up to $17.6 billion in the next 10 years if it would tax and regulate online gambling, including poker. And those figures don’t include potential sports wagers. The $8.7 billion figure did not take into account the 10 states that currently have laws on their books that specifically prohibit online gambling, even though they allow some forms of gambling (Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, South Dakota, and Washington). If all the states would tax and regulate online gambling, $33.9 billion in taxes would be generated in the next 10 years, according to the PWC study.
As a matter of domestic issue, there are still many other aspects of online gambling regulation that would need to be addressed such as monitoring for underage activity, policing black market or “rogue” casinos and support for addiction to name a few. But just as we have done in the past with the prohibition of alcohol (which ironically shares many similarities to the prohibition of online gambling including a national financial crisis at the time) We the people of America wanted the choice of whether or not to drink, the free market suggested a potentially lucrative business for both domestic and imported product and our government saw a huge alcohol tax revenue that unarguably gave new life to an obviously failing economy.
Although there are so many other important agendas our new president will face such as the current situation in the middle east, international relations will be vital for Obama. He must show the world leaders that he is not conducting “business as usual” and will fight to correct the international financial blunders of the Bush administration. For instance; The United States (USA) and the European Union (EU) are currently battling over the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) and possible violations of the World Trade Organization (WTO) The EU is accusing the US of violating terms established by the WTO regarding online gambling companies operating within Europe. This is a perfect opportunity for Obama and his administration to bring a “new deal to the table” (no pun intended). This could potentially accomplish two goals; create a new source of revenue for our failing economy and repair a severed relation with the World Trade Organization.
With the current administration ready to implement the final regulations for the UIGEA just two months before being leaving the White House, this is an issue the new administration should address as soon as possible. The potential long term damage this could cause on the U.S. online gambling market would be devastating. However, with the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act abolished and a new sensible regulation written and implemented (I nominate Barney Frank for this job) we could create our own domestic gaming institutions and offer them on an international market. We already have tax paying gambling operations here in the United States such as Caesars Palace, MGM Mirage, Harrah’s and more. Perhaps they would like to expand the gaming aspect of their business to an international community. This alone would create huge amounts of additional taxes these businesses already pay.
The bottom line is this; UIGEA was a bad idea from the beginning and it needs to be revoked. The Obama administration needs to carefully look at online gambling and its potential as a major generator for future tax revenue. It has been done before with alcohol prohibition and it can be done with gaming prohibition.