"Cap and trade bills are nothing short of a government re-engineering of the American economy. And S. 2191, with its aggressive targets to reduce emissions from fossil fuel use, would put the nation on a path of serious economic harm not justified by any benefits.” – Ben Lieberman [1]
Cap and Trade is supposed to be the answer to “climate change” and is supposed to create “green jobs.” Waxman-Markey is the pride and joy of its sponsors and of all the leftist environmentalists, except some few who may not consider it radical enough. Why do we need this type of bill? Answer: Emphatically, we don’t!
How working people, let alone corporations, could support this is truly beyond me. It can easily be understood as another piece of Obama’s fascist plan that represents an even bigger take-over of the private sector than the GM, Chrysler, and bank takeovers. Apparently nothing is off limits to this Administration and Democrat Congress, which can be thought of as a great octopus with tentacles out everywhere, grabbing as much as possible. There is no possibility that this can help the climate, the economy, our energy situation or much of anything else except Obama’s voracious appetite for power.
A few simple facts:
1. As pointed out by the Heritage Foundation, the vaunted Kyoto protocol, if followed, would only reduce earth’s temperature by such a miniscule amount it could not be measured. [1]
2. The signers of Kyoto are substantially above the carbon targets, and are doing worse than before the treaty. [1]
3. The “climate change” issue is a hoax anyway. The climate naturally changes, probably due to the sun, which we can’t affect, and there is nothing effective that can be done. It is extremely doubtful that human activity has any significant effect. The main function of “climate change” is not climate-related, but simply to provide an excuse for greatly increased government power and intervention.
4. Carbon dioxide, regardless of what the Supreme Court (climate experts, right?) says, is not a pollutant and there is absolutely no need to regulate it.
5. The cap and trade policy is nothing other than an amazingly large and complex tax which will require every user of fossil fuel or electricity to pay greatly increased prices, and will cause businesses that use a lot of fossil fuels to be greatly harmed, pushed to the edge of failure, or go under. The smart ones who are able to will relocate overseas. This gives the lie to Obama’s concern about “shipping jobs overseas.” He is going to “ship” entire industries overseas.
6. The phoniness and complexity of “carbon credits” assures massive fraud, waste and abuse. Milton Friedman said, “I say thank God for government waste. If government is doing bad things, it's only the waste that prevents the harm from being greater.” That is true, but not overly comforting when the government is doing VERY bad things again and again with no letup in sight.
I suppose everyone is supposed to be studying how much carbon dioxide will be put into the atmosphere with and without Waxman-Markey. My position is: Who cares? The real question is: How much overbearing activism from the government, over nothing, are we going to be willing to put up with?
The enviro-fascists say, “The debate is over,” to which I reply, There is no real issue to debate. It is a fictitious “problem.” However, massive job losses, back-breaking regulations, unbelievable taxes, great loss of liberty and property rights, budget-busting expense for utilities (and, of course, many other things) are real problems for everyone.
Another drawback to all this is that it would discourage actual helpful things like increasing domestic energy production and nuclear power.
Has Obama’s personal charm actually blinded people to the extent that we’ll accept this kind of government control over everything? Obama is not stupid. HE DOES NOT CARE ABOUT THE ECONOMY except how it might affect his popularity rating, which his teleprompter can help him with. If Obama’s plans, particularly health insurance and cap and trade, take effect, there truly is going to be a financial collapse because the free market will be effectively just about gone. Obama is not stupid, but too many people are misled and grievously ill-informed. The cap and trade proponents make this issue look complicated, but it is really quite simple.
I don’t really want to overdose anyone on videos, but this time it’s going to be a double feature, which I hope you’ll find helpful. First, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) on April 23, 2009, then Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), on May 19, 2009:
Note:
[1] See Ben Lieberman, “Beware of Cap and Trade Climate Bills,” December 6, 2007 at
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/upload/wm_1723.pdf.
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