"The blunt truth about the politics of climate change is that no country will want to sacrifice its economy in order to meet this challenge, but all economies know that the only sensible long term way of developing is to do it on a sustainable basis." —Tony Blair "We know that evidence based policy is window dressing, and now, when they want us to believe them on climate science, to justify Stern's paltry 1% of global GDP [over $600 billion]to mitigate a global horror, we doubt." —Dr. Ben Goldacre " A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money." —Senator Everett Dirksen Climate change! As we shiver through another cold winter day, we often wonder: why did they stop calling it "Global warming," again? But climate change is a serious issue. If you squint through the smoggy haze put out by 1200 limos and 140 private jets, you can see the serious faces of politicians trying to decide just how fast they can get away with spending your money. But perhaps you've wondered which money pits we're going to be filling up first. With that in mind, I'd like to present the Taxrascal Climate Change Spending Guide.

If you love soda, or know someone who does—watch out! Your sugary habit might be someone else's business pretty soon (and they might not share your fascination with the fizzy stuff). Here's what you can do to avoid getting a raw deal when new rules come into effect

I don't want to make any promises, but if this tax blog is to be believed, California's treasurer is doing exactly what this site suggested: paying the bills with IOUs! As predicted, these IOUs aren't exactly like that time your brother-in-law promised he'd totally pay back that $20. Dozens of banks accept these IOUs, and people are already trying to buy and sell them online. Sure, it's less convenient than just having cash, but it's also a great way for California to advertise what a disaster area they are. It's one thing to see on the news that they can't figure out how to balance their budget. It's another thing entirely to open up an envelope marked "State Tax Refund," and find out that it's full of what looks like monopoly money. So thanks, Bill Lockyer! Glad you're enjoying the Rascal. While you're here, check out this list of the top tax blogs for more fine folks worth reading.

Your typical leveraged buyout kingpin lives in a swanky Park Avenue apartment, or maybe a hollowed-out volcano in the South Pacific. But that doesn't mean you can't get some good old-fashioned tax dodging and company buying-out, right in the middle of Utah. Husband and wife team Lester and Jeanette Mower liked the idea of trading companies for fun. The weird thing is that the confusing part is the legal part: they would create new businesses, merge them with existing public companies, and sell the stock. That meant a blizzard of paperwork, lots of legal fees, and transactions with dozens of banks and brokers. That's the complicated part. Next comes the simple part: once they sold their shares — they never paid taxes. Oops. The strangest part? their take from the scheme was $30 million. They were dodging the capital gains tax. Which means that, had they not cheated the IRS, they would be forced to make do with a mere... $24 million. So why did they do it? It's exactly hard to have a nice life with $24 million, especially in a low-cost state like Utah. So what's really going on? Two possibilities: They had a legitimate business and a serious gambling problem. Some of the ...

South Carolina governor Mark Sanford got into the headlines (and some hot water) for trying to turn down Federal stimulus payments earlier this month. Now, he's famous for a different reason: in a rambling press statement, he admitted to having an affair with a woman in Argentina. Could this be a serious blow to stimulus opponents? One commentator, Jeff Seemann, thinks so. Seemann claims that Sanford used stimulus money to pay for the affair: The state of South Carolina is granted 2.8 billion dollars in federal stimulus money. After originally rejecting the money, the SC Supremes smack Sanford down and force the state to accept the money. Sanford later announces that he will use several hundred million dollars of the stimulus to pay down the state's budget deficit. Sanford's salary is paid for from the South Carolina budget. Sanford went to Argentina to see his mistress on the dime of the South Carolina taxpayer. Which, if true, means that all money spent by anyone paid by the government counts as stimulus money. In other words, Jeff Seemann is also claiming that President Obama spent the stimulus on cigarettes. This, by the way, is not the first time Seemann has had any run-ins ...

You know what's sane and normal? Having trouble letting go when a loved one dies. You know what's not so sane or normal? Dressing up as a deceased parent for years in order to collect social security benefits and rent subsidies. Irene Prusik passed away in 2003. But Thomas Prusik-Parkin kept on collecting her benefits for years. This had to take some planning: he started by fudging the numbers on her death certificate so she wouldn't be listed as dead. After that, it was just a simple matter of, um: donning a wig, nail polish and dresses to impersonate his dead mom and collect $115,000 in Social Security and rent subsidies. Prusik-Parkin really exemplifies the idea of giving people a "hand up, rather than a handout." He had to work hard to earn the government benefits of two people. In addition to the creepy cross-dressing disguises, he sued himself for selling his house to himself, and filed a fake affadavit from a fake relative to support the claim. All that, and he still got evicted! The New York Daily News has the whole bizarre story. Oh, and one other thing: today, it came out that he kept the casket in his living room. Which you'd ...

Think back to the summer of 2000. The NASDAQ had, well, NASDAQ'd, all of Silicon Valley was nursing a collective hangover, and the rest of the country was getting back to normal. Imagine if, in the midst of all that, someone had gotten a clever policy idea: now that nobody is starting new startups, we could just gather together smart 22-year-olds, give them thousand-dollar office chairs, five thousand-dollar computers, and million-dollar stock options packages, and we could pay for it all with taxpayer money! Okay, that's crazy & but it's less crazy than using tax credits as down payments on a new house (first mentioned on Taxrascal in this real estate crisis, redux, post). At least during the dot-com bubble, people were excited about starting new companies. The real estate bubble involved people excited about other people paying too much for dirt. What's worse is that this has some support, from people who should know better: "It is a very attractive offering, and basically it addresses one of the hurdles that keeps more people from buying a home - getting help with the down payment or paying closing costs," says Bob Meighan, a vice ...

It's an outrage -- handing someone millions of dollars when his employer is nearly bankrupt? It's ridiculous -- larding paychecks with taxpayer dollars? It's unacceptable -- paying out a giant bonus in the face of a huge recession? It's just business. Even though Barney Frank expressed outrage over AIG's recent bonuses, people are (deliberately?) forgetting that AIG is a massive company, with over 100,000 employees in 130 countries. And the team responsible for most of the offices was a remarkably tiny group of remarkably arrogant traders. If AIG's structured products team is collecting these bonuses, it is, indeed, an outrage. But it's much more likely that the bonus recipients aren't the same team at all. AIG has a huge variety of insurance businesses, and it invests the proceeds from its insurance in an incredible array of assets. Even at a time like this, there are numerous AIG employees who are capable of making the company millions of dollars (and this would be a good time for them to have some extra money). But think about those people: how happy would they be to work for AIG? If they got stock options for good work in past years, those options are worthless; if they ...

The Dow is back down to where it was last time we had a charismatic Democratic president making big, budget-busting promises. And this time, there's not an intern in sight to spoil the party. We all know we're in for a giant spending spree: billions for solar-powered underwater basket-weaving communes, all paid for by taxes on people who, y'know, make stuff and do stuff. But is it that big a disaster? Obama spent ten years teaching at the University of Chicago, a center of modern conservative thought. Did a decade of rubbing shoulders with Milton Friedman's disciples rub off on him at all? The answer is yes. In his budget speech last week, he announced several new programs that are near and dear to conservatives. Here's why you should be excited about Obama's new budget: Did you like Ike? Obama's infrastructure plan is finishing what Eisenhower started. Fifty years after Eisenehower spearheaded the new interstate highway systems, we're finally going to stop scrimping on maintainence. Ike wouldn't want to see bridges falling; neither should you. Know what he means when he says 'reform'. The people who voted for Obama didn't vote for spending cuts. But that's just what Obama promised when he talked about ...

Congratulations: you, the taxpayer, now own even more of what used to be America's biggest bank. That's right: the government is once again raising its stake in Citigroup by switching from preferred stock (which pays a high dividend, and is basically like a bond) to common stock (which is closer to just owning part of the business). So, in theory, We The People own 36% of Citibank. And this is considered very big news. But is it? Consider how much the government is already involved in Citi: Most of Citibank's deposits are guaranteed by the FDIC. Which means that when you deposit money at Citibank, you're really lending it to the government, which is lending the money back to Citibank. Citi is mostly doing the paperwork. Citi makes loans with those deposits. Who do they loan to? Mortgages and government bonds make up a huge chunk of the portfolios of many banks, and, once again, those are loans to the government. Government regulations control how much they can borrow, how much they can lend, what they can lend to, where they can lend, what kinds of loans they can resell, and who they can deal with. The government has veto power over everything Citibank does. Citi ...