Posted on 04/20/2009 3:19:34 PM PDT by pleikumud
Waxman-Markey. Higher energy prices. Lost jobs. Strained household income. Minimal environmental benefits. Lose-lose.
Congressmen Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) recently introduced well-intended legislation meant to curb greenhouse gases, but the legislation will carry a high price tag, including slowed economic growth and reduced U.S. employment and gross domestic product. The payoff for a steep economic cost: very little, in environmental terms.
While it is understandable that elected leaders wish to address climate, there is little doubt the bills cap-and-trade scheme would end up costing consumers and employers. A joint analysis from the American Council for Capital Formation and the National Association of Manufacturers examined a similar proposal introduced in the previous Congress, which set targets to reduce greenhouse gases to 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and to 70 percent below by 2050. The damage includes a rise of 101 to 129 percent for residential electricity and industrial natural gas price increases up to 244 percent.
The bottom line for working Americans is that they get a double whammy of higher prices at home and fewer will have jobs to pay those higher costs. The ACCF/NAM study found that reductions in total U.S. employment could reach as much as 1.8 million jobs by 2020 and 4.1 million by 2030. This toxic economic cocktail could decrease GDP by up to 2.7 percent by 2030, a truly staggering figure.
(Excerpt) Read more at rollcall.com ...
An excerpt from the March 2009 issue of The American Spectator: "All scientists agree that if man-made global warming is real, it would leave a fingerprint in the form of temperatures increasing with altitude in the tropical troposphere portion of the atmosphere up to a hotspot about 10 kilometers above the surface, reflecting the pattern of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Warming due to solar variations or other natural causes would not leave such a fingerprint pattern. Recently, higher-quality temperature data from balloons and satellites ... enables us to settle the man-made global warming debate definitively. The data from weather balloons shows the opposite pattern: no increasing warming with altitude, but rather a slight cooling with no hotspot. The satellite data shows the same result: no increasing temperature with altitude, no hotspot, no fingerprint, maybe again a slight cooling with altitude. Game over. QED. The global warming empire is rattling around but has not and cannot come up with an effective response. The data is the data. The science is the science. Man-made global warming is a hoax developed to serve powerful special interests." (This was written by Peter Ferrara.)
Obama may not know these things, or he may be choosing to ignore the facts in order to create a huge new bureaucracy of socialist government control over our lives. Cap & trade would cause a huge decrease in GDP along with a huge increase in energy costs for Americans, and massive unemployment - probably higher than 15%. This will weaken our national defense capability versus our enemies, threatening capitalism and freedom.
Everyone should write to his or her Congressmoron. Remind them of the facts and the damage that would be caused by "cap & trade".
We need to keep repeating
Its really:
Cap and TAX
Cap and TAX
Cap and TAX
Its NOT
Cap and trade
typical liberal wordplay, like the employee free choice act
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
It's as good now as it was 233 years ago!!
Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) recently introduced well-intended legislation...
There is absolutely NOTHING well-intended about this legislation.
I’m just glad that the economy is in such good shape that we can afford to take the double-hit of higher energy prices and millions of lost jobs.
I’m just glad it’s Congress that’s in charge of the banks now — I mean no one knows how to balance a budget and show a profit like Henry Waxman.
It's irrelevant what he knows, just as it is irrelevant as to whether global warming is real. It is simply too good a crisis to waste. We will move to socialism because that's what Obama and his fellow radicals want. The people will be told these steps are necessary because of global warming.
I vote both . . . He definitely wants more bureaucracy and control. As to whether he understands the arguments against AGW, I seriously doubt he has the interest or capacity to understand. While he's a smooth talker and reads the teleprompter well, I don't think he's especially intelligent, especially with regard to science.
I fear for the Republic. 2010 can’t come soon enough.
We have to see that there really is Change in 2010. Conservative change.
Cap & Trade is not about helping the environment, it’s about growing the government. Congress is desperate to get it in place as soon as possible, because a majority of Americans is beginning to figure out that they are being had.
That ameliorates it for me.
Climate Change: ICCF's Margo Thorning examines the economic effects of cutting CO2 emissionsI think the second agreement, the voluntary discussion that the U.S. has agreed to enter, is actually more realistic. If you look at the data the European Union is nowhere near going to meet its 2010 targets. So they're agreeing to talk about post 2012 targets is almost meaningless because they're not even on track to meet their 8 percent reduction of the E.U.-15 in 2010. They're not going to be able to meet their targets according to the European Environmental Agency. So talking of future targets is simply, in my view, not a very fruitful exercise... the European Environmental Agency just released new data that shows that they will not, in 2010, meet their target. The E.U.-15 will be approximately 4 percent above 1990 levels, not 8 percent below 1990 levels. And the governments don't have the political will to impose energy taxes high enough, across all sectors of the economy, to force energy use down. It would be economic suicide. The E.U. is already struggling with a very low growth of 1 percent or less a year. They really cannot afford to curb the energy use in order to hit their Kyoto target... We found, using a broad macroeconomic analysis, that the gross domestic product of four major E.U. countries would be significantly reduced. In the case of the U.K., by 2010, if they actually imposed taxes high enough to hit their targets about 1 percent reduction in GDP. For country like Spain, that's way above its Kyoto targets, the GDP effect would be over 3 percent lost GDP in 2010 and over 600,000 fewer jobs. So the economic consequences of actually trying to hit the targets are quite significant... Energy prices have to rise and of course energy and economic growth go hand in hand. And if you force energy use down in the short term you're going to force down economic growth. So energy prices rise, industry becomes less competitive. People have less money to spend. The economy slows and jobs go offshore. There's leakage of jobs in industries outside the countries that we studied.
OnPoint, 12/13/2005
Environmental and Energy Policy TV
You sound defeatist. We can’t just sit and watch while Obama and Congress enact Cap & Tax. Let your Congressmorons know that you know the facts. Tell them Cap & Tax is wrong.
Man, that’s one fugly POS.
Just because the DemonCraps Minions don’t understand cap and trade doesn’t mean that “Intelligent” people (Republicans) don’t know exactly what it is.
How stupid does Mr Dingle (ling) think his people are? Obviously - Pretty stupid.
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