Jay Reding has an excellent note on the move to ban incandescent lights is so foolish. It's almost the anti-Bastiat. Here in Minnesota we're just trying to tax them to death.

Jay points to this article in The American Thinker which makes a salient point:

Reducing nighttime lightbulb consumption of kwhs will do almost nothing to shave peak demand. Moreover, with non-peak kwhs reduced at night, utilities will now have fewer revenues on which to earn a return on their invested capital. Utilities must build up their physical plant to meet the peaks, and the capital to finance that equipment has to be paid for 24 hours a day. Thus, utilities will have to raise rates on the remainder of the kwhs we use for everything else, from washing machines to hair dryers to computers.

Pricing the poor back to candles and increasing the amount of mercury used in the environment. All in a day's work for your local legislator.

Labels: economics, legislature, Minnesota