Oh, About That Energy Tax...

This might have been more helpful before the vote in the House...

So, where are we on the cap-n-tax bill? It looks like the Dems are still pretty short on votes, but there still isn't an actual bill yet. Of course, that didn't stop the House... But, it's going to be very tough for a number of reasons, not the least of which is this bill finally getting the exposure it certainly deserves.

Anyway, that doesn't mean it's time to sit back and relax...that means it's time to go for the jugular. Keep making those calls to your Senators! Here are some more points you can use when you call them. One of the typical talking points of the Left is that it'll only cost $175 per family per year, and wouldn't that small cost be worth it to help save the planet? First of all, the science of 'saving' the planet is a complete load of crap, but so is the $175 number. Heritage explains why the correct number is more like $3,000 per family per year:

“The resource cost does not indicate the potential decrease in gross domestic product (GDP) that could result from the cap. The reduction in GDP would also include indirect general equilibrium effects, such as changes in the labor supply resulting from reductions in real wages and potential reductions in the productivity of capital and labor.”

So, rather than looking at the whole picture of what it will cost, the Dems are looking at just one piece and leaving out the full effects of the bill on the overall economy. Heritage also goes on to explain that the liberal think tank Brookings Institute released an analysis that is very similar to their own. The CBO estimate that the Dems are citing is only half the picture.

All this adds up to support the notion that this is Obama's standard method of operations:

The Charles River Associates, a Harvard based economics consulting firm, estimates a net loss of jobs from the bill of about 2.5 million each year.

Yet Barack Obama calls it a jobs bill. This reflects a by now well-established pattern of deceptive, misdirection rhetoric, raising broadly appealing ideals in promotion of policies that would do just the opposite. For example, Obama is also trying to sell us a new health care entitlement, larger than any of our already grossly overgrown entitlements we can't finance, with the argument that it will actually reduce costs, even while CBO estimates that it will increase Federal spending by $1.6 trillion (woefully underestimated).

Earlier this year, Obama released his budget with great fanfare about how it would supposedly reduce the federal deficit in half in five years. Hidden in the fine print was the awful truth that his budget, now passed by the overwhelmingly Democrat Congress, explodes this year's deficit to a record busting $1.8 trillion, four times bigger than Bush's largest deficit, and seven times bigger than Reagan's largest, which caused so much caterwauling among liberals. The deficit in the last budget passed by a Republican controlled Congress was $162 billion, less than 10% as much.

Here are the stakes:

The rationale for this bill is to counter global warming by sharply reducing greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide. But even if the bill works exactly as envisioned, the most radical environmentalists admit that it will only slow temperature increases by 2050 by a ridiculous 9/100th of one degree Fahrenheit! Even after all the costs of reducing the use of fossil fuels by 83%, that is all that would result.

That is because all humans across the planet produce less than 5% of all carbon dioxide emissions. So slashing U.S. emissions won't have much effect in any event.

And as for the argument that the rest of the world is going to follow in our footsteps...

Even the Europeans never really enforced their own cap and trade regulations, so their carbon dioxide emissions have actually increased more than ours over the last 10 years. Now nations from France to Poland, Japan, the Czech Republic, Australia, New Zealand and others are turning away from cap and trade policies, and souring on the whole notion of global warming. China, now the world's number one carbon dioxide producer, India, Russia, Africa, and South America have shown no interest in the suicidal economics of global warming fantasy.

So, to recap...Obama and the Dems are going to destroy the American economy through massive tax increases and massive job losses, all for an irrelevant effect on the environment due to a hoax that most of the rest of the world has already ditched. But, the Left is so enthralled by this hoax that they're willing to achieve this no matter the cost. They've now resorted to accusing any disagreement with them as 'treason against the planet'.

Great leadership, thanks.

There's my two cents.