Welcome to this Sunday’s Third Degree: Weekly Interrogations on matters public and private that force thinking and response. Today we target: Payments

  • French origins are misty but do words endure: “Taxation is the art of plucking the goose without making it squeal?”
  • Is an apropos variation: “The art of taxation is procuring feathers from a goose with the least amount of hissing?”
  • Given another French dictum (lovely word), that the goals of all governments are obedience and getting money, should we expect return from compliant conduct and our payments?
  • Should economical, even cheap, electricity be part of that return?
  • As George Goebel mused: “With no electricity, will we have to watch TV by candlelight? “
  • Did he offer comment on $75,000 electric cars that are obsolete. with no resale value in 10 years or less? Yes, YGBSM?
  • Putting aside political scandal and possible, prurient, substandard, past tense use of “come”, should payments to Commonwealth Edison, ComEd, and other major electricity providers (in truth, all energy providers) be SCRUTINIZED ? (Love the onomatopoeia}?
  • Does analysis of last month’s ComEd payment make the goose want to poop the driveway before flying off?
  • Why, under Taxes and Fees (adds 30% to the bill), are there 10 distinct and disturbing line items when Supply has one and Delivery three?
  • Are feathers ruffled by: 1) Environmental Cost Recovery 2) Renewable Portfolio 3) Zero Emission Standard 4) Carbon-free Adjustment (the biggie–almost half of the 30%) 5) Energy efficiency 6) Energy Transition Assistance 7) Franchise cost 8) Local Gov compliance 9) State tax, and finally, 10) Municipal Tax?
  • Is there hissing and squealing when, with difficulty, we learn of the more detailed descriptions and the regulatory and legislative impositions that cause them?
  • Who are the benefactors that eat up 30% of the electric goose?
  • Are us gooses pflucked when government, acting as social scientist, climate warrior, market maker and hander-outer-in-chief, passes out subsidizing payments? (Spell check fails again—twice but)?
  • Is our goose not only plucked but cooked by profligate political hacks who smash and grab payments beyond our and our posterity’s interests and capabilities?
  • Socrates reminds: “The unexamined life is not worth living. The actions and answers are yours.