Your money is important to us…
Can anybody explain to me, please, why I pay tiered rates for PG&E to deliver power to me? Let me be clear, here. I do not refer to power production. Charging tiered rates for power production makes perfect sense to me (though the tiers could be a little more realistic, if you ask me). The company I buy power from should, in my humble opinion, charge tiered rates, the idea being that the more one uses, the more one should pay. But I don’t buy power from PG&E. I buy it from another provider, who uses PG&E wires to deliver the power. So why does PG&E get to charge tiered rates for delivery?

It’s not like it puts an extra burden on the already otherwise charged lines. It’s not like it’s taking anything from anybody else and the power I buy from another provider is NOT what makes PG&E’s equipment so dangerous and unreliable. Those were corporate choices. (For those who may not know, in the name of profits, the private company PG&E has allowed their infrastructure to deteriorate so much they now have to turn the power off when the wind blows.) PG&E has a section on their website that says this:

“The State of California requires investor-owned utilities like PG&E to charge all residential customers on a tiered rate structure. With tiers, electricity is charged at a progressively increasing rate based on a household’s electricity usage. That is to say, the higher the tier, the more the customer will pay for a kilowatt-hour of electricity. A customer can find their baseline quantity on page 1 of your monthly PG&E energy statement.

As a CCA customer, this tiered rate structure remains in place for your delivery (non-generation) charges and is included in the Conservation Incentive Adjustment section of PG&E delivery charges.“

Alright, so they tell us they’re going to do it but they don’t explain why. A CCA customer is a community choice aggregation customer. Some municipalities have become SO concerned about PG&E’s horrifying business practices, they started managing their own power companies. These are the CCA’s.

Really, it just looks like more corruption from the Public Utilities Commission. PG&E IS going to get their “vig.” If they can’t gouge us on the price of power itself, then they’ll just have to gouge us on the delivery. It sort of feels like PG&E is allowed to slap me on the wrist every month because I chose a better power company. I don’t understand why the state of California lets them get away with it. I mean, it’s not like PG&E is using all of that beautiful lucre to maintain their grid…

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I suspect that, from this point forward, it’s showtime!
I don’t think I’m the only one who has noticed that when Republicans have the Congressional majority, they get to do whatever they want. Conversely, when Democrats have the Congressional majority, the Republicans still get to do whatever they want. I DO feel like I must be part of a minority who has taken the next step in understanding that neither party is working for the people any more – if they ever did.

I hear a LOT of plans, hopes, mights, and maybes. But the Dems ALWAYS find a way to lose. ALWAYS. Okay, almost always. When they take power, the Dems are allowed one thing. One. After that, it’s no, no, no. Obama got the Affordable Care Act then, eight years of nothing. The fair-and-square winner of the 2020 Presidential election, President Biden, got to do a “stimulus” (actually disaster relief). Now he claims he has big plans, things he wants to do. But the Republicans won’t let him. They get to rely on the fraudulent filibuster to keep anything from happening. There was talk for awhile of eliminating the filibuster but the Democrats won’t let that happen, either. By the way, the choice between fraudulent filibuster and no filibuster at all is a false choice. There’s the third, and proper, option, returning to the talking filibuster. I never even hear anybody talking about that option, though. It’s always all or nothing.

But that, too, is a choice that prevents the Dems from making any progress. After awhile, it’s all too depressingly clear. It CAN’T be an accident that the Democrats CAN do the things they want to do but the Democrats manage to put enough obstacles in their own way to ensure they’ll never get anything done. (Unless it benefits the wealthy, of course. BOTH parties can get those things done in a heartbeat…)

The House of Representatives passed a thing called the ‘For the People Act.’ It established some Federal guidelines for elections. It is necessary because Republicans across the land are trying to rig elections to guarantee Republican wins. Sure, it’s outright cheating but Republicans know they can’t win on honest ideas so they have no choice but to cheat. Fortunately for them, they’re more than willing. Not surprisingly, when the For the People Act reached the Senate, it died and it died because of Democrats. Next up? Biden’s infrastructure proposal. Well, not Biden’s proposal. The Republicans have already said no to that. It would do FAR too much good for Americans and Republicans WILL NOT have that! So now the talking heads are all breathlessly intoning about how the Dems will get what’s left of Biden’s plan through. Oh, there’s this possibility and that chance and if they can only get this guy to do that thing well, then, maybe they’ll…

Whatever. It’s boring. The ‘For the People Act’ failed because the Democrats allowed it to fail. Biden’s infrastructure plan will fail because the Democrats will allow it to fail. All they need to do is “fail” until the mid-terms. Then the Republicans will take control of Congress again and they can provide cover for why the rich just keep getting richer and everyone else has no choice but to suffer.

I’ll tell you this: I’ve learned not to put much (any) stock in the noise about what might happen. Actions speak louder than words. If they ever actually DO anything, I’ll be very interested. But at this point, I’m pretty sure the two major parties have little to no interest in doing anything for the vast majority of Americans…