Graph of the day: Americans buying more fuel- efficient cars, polluting less

New cars bought in the fall of 2012 are using about 15 percent less fuel per mile than cars purchased in 2007. But they’re also logging slightly fewer miles overall — a sign that Americans aren’t just negating the fuel savings by driving more. Add it all up, and there’s been a 20 percent drop in greenhouse-gas emissions from new vehicles in the past five years.

How much of a difference does this make in the grand scheme of things? Brand-new vehicles, after all, are only a small portion of the overall U.S. fleet. Yet in a recent paper, Sivak and Brandon Schoettle estimated that recent efficiency upgrades have already reduced carbon-dioxide emissions from all U.S. light-duty vehicles by about 2.9 percent.

Combine that with the fact that Americans have been driving fewer miles overall, and that’s a small but real improvement as far as oil use and climate change are concerned.

amprog:

2.5 million: Number of people employed by the U.S. auto industry today, up from 2.3 million in August 2009.

U.S. unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, was 7.9% for the month of September, unchanged from 7.9% measured in mid-September but down slightly from 8.1% for the month of August. Gallup’s seasonally adjusted September unemployment rate was 8.1%, unchanged from August.

(via U.S. Unadjusted Unemployment Rate at 7.9% in September)

govtoversight:

Defense CEOs vs. Workers

tpmmedia:

Check out today’s Crosstabs with Kyle Leighton for more on this stark comparison between campaign supporters.

think-progress:

The Republican tax plan raises taxes on 10 times as many people as the Democratic proposal. 

Part of our on-going series called Republican math.

amprog:

It’s pretty easy to see who loses under the Republican Senate tax plan: More than 20 million families would lose tax credits under Sen. McConnell’s tax plan, compared to the 2.1 million high-income households that would lose some of their George W. Bush-era tax cuts under the Senate Democratic plan.

(source: Center for American Progress)

govtoversight:

The Dodd-Frank reforms turned 2 this week. Check out what they have been up to.

joost5:

barackobama:

Government spending under President Obama has increased at the slowest rate since Dwight Eisenhower was in the Oval Office more than 50 years ago. Mmm, facts. 

Another GOP talking point bites the dust.

ilyagerner:

sexartandpolitics:

“The main bloc of people who don’t pay income or payroll taxes are elderly people. Old people tend not to work, and many old people don’t have much in the way of investment income either. But it’s not like they’re freeloading, they’re just people who paid taxes in the past when they were working.” (via Taxes: Who Pays?)

The data’s from 2008, for whatever reason… but I haven’t heard this seemingly obvious point made before.

Yep. Yglesias has been harping on this point for a while, with good reason.

underthemountainbunker:

mamaatheist:

Every American should be outraged by this.

…

Image comes from the cover of “Liberation” magazine…

kateoplis:

Tax Revenue as a Percentage of the GDP in the Developed World

Ignorance Index III: The Revenue Problem | OurFuture.org

“Here’s a graph showing federal revenues as a percentage of GDP. Clearly Washington has a revenue problem.”

Now, in actual fact, the 1990 budget deal — along with the 1993 deficit reduction program passed under Bill Clinton with exclusively Democratic support — was literally the only successful example of shrinking government in the last three decades. Note the sharp, anomalous decline in spending beginning in 1990