In their book Abundance, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson argue the Democrats lose elections to obvious MAGA-type fascist idiots because we make government so damn complicated it becomes ineffective. In other words, voters want the things Democrats say we’re for, but once we’re in power we don’t deliver those things—not in a reasonable time, not in a reasonably effective way.
My current experience is an example.
My wife and I own a house built in 1963. In Georgia (USA). Our HVAC system is old, inefficient, decrepit, and has needed expensive repair to keep it running even inefficiently. We’re in the process of evaluating proposals to replace it, possibly with a heat pump. We’re running into the following:
(1) The basic federal tax credit, which might reimburse us up to 30% of the cost of the system, expires at the end of this year—thanks to the Democrats passing a time-limited program that they hoped to make permanent but couldn’t because they didn’t win the 2024 elections. (They put the 10-year deficit-impact figure ahead of actual democracy.) This basic federal tax credIt requires a home energy audit before and after to verify the heat pump HVAC (or insulation, or induction range, or whatever) delivers actual energy savings sufficient to meet some technical requirement. There are 7 approved energy auditors in the state of Georgia—which has a current population of about 11.3 million people, so all the approved auditors are backed up. And the nearest auditor is based an hour from my house. And you don’t know if your install met the technical savings requirement—required for the tax credit—until after the post-install audit is done. You also have to be income eligible. Do they mean gross income, adjusted gross income, or taxable income? I’m a lawyer, and I can’t figure out which applies.
(2) There’s also a flat $2000 heat pump rebate, or $600 rebate on a high efficiency conventional HVAC system. Or maybe those are the maximums, and the actual amount depends on your income. (Gross, AGI, or taxable?) The people who sell the systems say, “consult your tax advisor.”
(3) There’s also a state rebate, which I believe uses a limited pot of federal money, so you can only get it till the money runs out. Actually two state programs, HER and HEAR. How close is the money to running out? There’s no real answer I can find, but there’s probably a lot of money left because the good news for Georgia homeowners—which is the bad news politically and global warming-wise—is that so far only 709 households (from a population of 11.3 million people) have benefited from the program(s). Does this expire at the end of 2025? The person at the HVAC company thinks not, but she’s not sure. And she knows nothing about either federal program. But there’s a 29-page (I am not making that up) PDF Applicant User Guide (downloadable from the FAQ page) I can consult, which may or may not answer that question.
(4) AC efficiency ratings are quoted by various companies in terms of SEER and SEER2. Which apparently are similar, but not the same. Why are products allowed to be sold using different ratings systems?
All these rebates started in early 2025—after, please note, the November 2024 elections. And Georgia was well ahead of many states. To implement a federal law Biden signed in August 2022.
If we wanted to win Congress and the White House in those November 2024 elections, we should’ve had tens of millions of homeowners cashing rebate checks signed by Joseph R. Biden, Jr. for months or years ahead of November 2024. And mind you, before Biden signed the IRA, the EPA had its Energy Star ratings program, and the IRS had (almost) every American’s annual income.
If we wanted to reduce global warming—same.
Why the 2+ year delay?
Why do I now need a 29-page user guide to figure out—incompletely—one of three rebate programs?
Why does the main rebate program require me to get on the waiting list of one of 7 auditors serving 11.3 million people? And to go through a lot of rigamarole?
I just want to know how much a given HVAC system is going to cost me. I can’t figure that out.
This is an object lesson in How Not to Govern. It’s not effective in achieving its policy goal (reducing global warming), and it’s not effective in achieving its political goal (winning elections).
I’m not saying the Abundance agenda is perfect. But what we’re doing now is not working. For democracy to work, people must get the change they vote for—in a reasonable time, with reasonable effort, reasonably transparently. Abundance is a useful proposal to move us toward those goals.
If you get a copy of Abundance, be aware the paperback version includes footnote numbers in the text, but omits the footnotes themselves. So if you want to read the footnotes, get the hardback.
