From Mankiw's Blog (Then and Now):
From a Obama-Biden campaign position paper:
Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s cap-and-trade system will require all pollution credits to be auctioned. A 100 percent auction ensures that all large corporate polluters pay for every ton of emissions they release, rather than giving these emission rights away for free to coal and oil companies.
From today's newspaper:
Under the House bill, only 15% of the emission permits will be auctioned initially. The rest of the permits will be given away -- 2% to oil refiners, 5% to free-standing "merchant" coal plants, 9% to regulated natural-gas distributors, and so on.
So, Mr President, the bill now being considered in Congress is in direct contradiction to your campaign pledge. Will you now please stand up for principle and issue a veto threat?
The key word in the second excerpt is "initially." If we are hoping that the 15% is a good start, and the percentage of permits auctioned rises over time, why would President Obama veto?
