The Cost Of Cap And Trade

Cap and trade is what has caused gas prices that are several times higher in Europe than here in the U.S. It is also the same energy policy that Obama wants to implement here. He is also quite willing to implement it over the objections of the GOP and the American people, even if he has to grossly abuse legislative process to do it.

Behold, the Great Uniter!

Anyway, let's look a bit more at cap and trade. Specifically, how does it affect real people on a daily basis. The Heritage Foundation:

Any honest economist will tell you that a carbon cap and trade scheme, if it works perfectly, functions the same as an energy tax. The Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill currently under consideration in Congress is no different. In 2007, MIT did a study on the costs of cap and trade and found that cap and trade proposals that would reduce carbon emission by 50% to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050 would cost the American household $800 a year in economic losses and $3,100 a year in taxes collected by the federal government. That’s a total $3,900 cost for the average American household! How does this cost compare to other household expenses?


My calculator says that $3,900 is equal to about $325 per month. Does that sound like something you can just slide into your budget? Here we are, in the middle of a severe recession, with unemployment continuing to rise and the markets shaky on their best days...and Obama is planning to gouge every man, woman, and child in the nation.

The key thing to realize here is that it's not simply the tax increases on the 'rich'...it's the cumulative effect of the tax increases on everything that everyone buys every day. Food will be more expensive. Clothing will be more expensive. Supplies will be more expensive. Anything you buy for your house will be more expensive. By increasing the cost of energy, Obama's plan will also increase the cost of everything that must be transported from one place to another because it takes energy (i.e. gas, etc.) to do it. Just because you earn less than $250,000 a year doesn't change the fact that you buy groceries just like the 'rich' does.

But that's just the first step. Where will we end up? We don't need to guess...we just need to look at our neighbors across the ocean who are already using this same cap and trade system. Heritage has some numbers on how it works in the U.K.:

Earlier today we noted that a recent MIT study showed that cap and trade energy tax proposals would cost the average American household $3,900 per year. Fortunately for us, the enviro-left has not yet succeeded in leveling their energy tax on the American people. The British are not so lucky. The British Parliament passed their Climate Change Act last year, despite the fact that the government’s Impact Assessment did not accurately reflect what was in the legislation.

Well the British government recently released the corrected Impact Assessment and guess what? Cap and trade will cost British families heavily The Daily Mail reports:

Laws aimed at tackling global warming could cost every family in Britain a staggering £20,000 - double the original forecast.

Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband admitted the bill for introducing legislation to cut greenhouse gases had soared from £205billion to £404billion between now and 2050.

Taking into account the exchange rate, the equivalent dollar number in the U.S. is a whopping $30,000!!! I don't know about you, but I'm really not excited about the prospect of paying an additional $30K in taxes each year for anything, let alone to combat the myth of global warming!

Call your Senators, call your Rep, call the White House. Obama and the Democrats have all the votes they need to push this through. The only thing that can stop them (if anything can) is sustained and voluminous outrage from the American people, and the real threat of sending massive numbers of Democrats home in 2010.

Start. Dialing.

There's my two cents.