In a flexing of its federal muscle the European Union (EU) is reported as drawing up plans for its first direct tax with proposals expected to be announced next month that will provide the United States of Europe with its first funding derived from direct taxation.

Although many people are ignorant of the fact the EU has appointed a “commissioner for taxation” who is said to be planning a “minimum rate of tax on carbon” to be imposed across the federal union.

How will the citizens of the EU be taxed?

“We should have a mechanism which would serve to exploit the possibility, in a progressive way, to lead to direct funding of the EU”.

The proposed federal tax will lead directly to rises in petrol and energy bills and indirectly to price increases relating to the production and distribution of goods.

The think-tank Open Europe has calculated, on the basis of the shelved 2005 proposal, that based on a £9 levy on a tonne of CO2, that the cost of the new tax to British businesses and consumers would be at least £3 billion.

And what do the member nations of the EU think about this?  We don’t know about the rest, but France and Sweden are are enthusiastic supporters of an EU carbon tax “as a part of Europe’s fight against climate change.”

I have a feeling that European citizens are becoming less “progressive” than their governments, and are not ready to join the New Green Order.  How do you say Tea Party in Eurospeak?

Source:  The British National Party blog

Yesterday we revealed how the UK’s Climate Challenge Fund spent £9 million in green propaganda. Now the UK TaxPayers’ Alliance has made a video that shows where some of the money was wasted. After watching their video, read their exceptional full report in this PDF–it’s unbelievable.

If you're a UK taxpayer, you paid for this illustration.

The UK government’s Climate Challenge Fund was established in large part to increase pro-warming public opinion. We wanted to find out exactly what their published goals are but their website (www.climatechallenge.gov.uk) seems to be no longer active. We found this quote of its goals on one of the sites it funded: “educate, excite and inspire others so that we can start working together to tackle climate change.” In others words, government propaganda bullshit.

The good news is it failed in its goals; the bad news is that it cost taxpayers £9million between 2006 and 2008. A Whitehall report found that the initiatives were almost entirely directed to those who already believe in climate change, and in addition, the sensationalism put people off.

The Daily Mail reports:

Schemes included a £40,000 DVD in which schoolchildren explained that in ten years everyone will have to wear sunglasses all the time, because the sun will be shining more.

A tent set up in shopping centres and labelled an ‘experiential climate dome’ was subsidised by Whitehall to the tune of nearly £400,000; a computer game cost £47 every time it was played; and a series of ‘challenging pub quizzes’ about climate change cost more than £85,000.

Large grants went to councils, schools and youth groups for ‘ attitude modification’ programmes and to assure the public that man-made global warming is an established scientific fact.

And £200,000 went to Oxford University to ‘take climate change into the community’.

Of course, this information was not freely let out by government officials. It had to be unearthed by the TaxPayers’ Alliance through Freedom of Information requests. Matthew Sinclair, the group’s research director, said:

“The Government has clearly crossed the line from public information to propaganda on climate change.

“Many of the Climate Challenge Fund projects are utterly bonkers and misleading, and come with a huge price tag.

“Despite a fortune having been spent on these projects, the fund has failed even on its own spuripeopleous terms. It is infuriating for taxpayers to see their money squandered on attempts to scare and indoctrinate the public.”

We found one example of a funded project on the internet. It’s a game developed for teachers and students, called Operation Climate Control. Take a look, we think it should have been called Operation Mind Control.

Source: Daily Mail

Harry Esteve, of The Oregonian, posting on OregonLive.com, laments:

When Oregon started handing out jumbo tax subsidies for renewable energy projects two years ago, one of the biggest beneficiaries was also one of the world’s richest corporations — Walmart.

No, the retail giant hasn’t branched to solar panels or wind turbines.

Instead, Walmart took advantage of a provision in Oregon’s Business Energy Tax Credit that allows third parties with no ties to the green power industry to buy the credits at a discount and reduce their state income tax bills.

A PSU economics professor sums it up well, and hos conclusion could be applied to just about every one of these ridiculous programs we’ve seen around the world:

“It’s so convoluted,” says Eric Fruits, an adjunct economics professor at Portland State University who has studied Oregon’s energy incentives. “You’ve got all these dollars swirling around. Everyone is trying to grab them as fast as they can.”

We hold out hope that Fruits and other assorted nuts might apply this thinking to national and international cap-and-trade.

Full story: Oregonlive.com.

We learn the details from WattsUpWithThat.com, where Lord Monckton (he’s kind of like Superman isn’t he? showing up whereever we need him) assisted them in deciphering the meaning of the ruling (English translation of press release here):

In France, if at least 60 Deputies of the House and 60 Senators appeal to the Constitutional Council, it has the power to pronounce on the constitutionality of a proposed law – in the present case, the 2010 national budget of France, which contained enabling provisions (loi deferee) for a carbon levy. The Council found that these enabling provisions were unconstitutional on two grounds: that the exemptions contained within the provisions for a carbon levy vitiated the primary declared purpose of the levy, to combat carbon emissions and hence “global warming”; and that the exemptions would cause the levy to fall disproportionately on gasoline and heating oils and not on other carbon emissions, thereby breaching the principle that taxation should be evenly and fairly borne.

The New York Times now has a piece on the story. Here are some of the highlights:

The [French Constitutional] council ruled late Tuesday that the bill contained too many exemptions for polluters, broke with past practices and threatened to make tax collection unfair.

Members of opposition Socialist party, many of whom said the tax would damage citizens’ purchasing power, said the defeat was personal one for Mr. Sarkozy because he had cultivated an image of aggressively on fighting emissions on the international stage but was unable to put in place workable policies at home.

Members of the French Green party said the defeat would force the government to come forward with a bill that would be more effective in helping to curb France’s contribution to global warming.

A number of Scandinavian countries already have similar taxes, which raise the cost of fuel for motorists and for household heating.

But in its ruling, the French council said the tax was flawed because it would have primarily raised the cost of fuel for vehicles and heating even though there are many other sources of emissions.

Sometimes the French know what they are doing. Hell, they have the highest percentage of energy derived by nuclear power of any country in the world.