Democrats Bust A Cap In Prosperity’s As~

Friday, Congressional Democrats, with the help of eight “Republican” stooges sold out the United States economy, middle America, and the nation’s poor in the name of not-fixing a non-problem. Here is what you need to know about the euphemistically titled American Clean Energy and Security Act (aka cap and trade).

Why did they do this?

Short answer: they don’t like you. Longer answer: Environmental theologians, like Al Gore the Prophet, believe that carbon dioxide, a heat-trapping "greenhouse" gas, is the primary cause of global warming.

They note that carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of oil, coal, and natural gas constitute about 80% of all man-made greenhouse gasses in the United States. Moreover, they note that man-made carbon emissions have increased worldwide more than 70 percent since 1970, and are now 40-45% higher than they were at the start of the Industrial Revolution. And they want this stopped. The Democrat’s cap and trade system, supposedly, will cut those emission, which will reduce the amount of greenhouse gas in the air, and will therefore prevent global warming.

So will it work?

Many people think it will. Indeed, a full 63% of Americans believe that human activity is the greatest source of carbon-dioxide emissions. But then, a 2006 survey found that 70% of Americans couldn’t find Iraq on the map, despite that whole war thing, and 33% couldn’t find Louisiana, despite that whole Katrina thing.

Perhaps we should ignore uninformed opinion and instead look at some facts? And here is one: human-caused carbon emissions come to a grand total of 3.27% of all carbon emissions. That’s right, 3.27%. The rest are caused by the decay of “biomass” (i.e. dead trees, leaves, etc.) or are released through volcanic activity. Thus, cap and trade will only affect a maximum of 3.27% of the problem.

Can reducing that 3.27% solve this problem? No. Ask yourself, if you are ten feet under water, with an additional foot of water being added every minute by a waterfall and an additional inch of water being added by your friend with a bucket, do you really think you can solve the problem by asking your friend to switch to a smaller bucket?

(For our congressional readers, we have a crayon-ready picture version of this last paragraph available upon request.)

But wait. . . there’s more!

They’re not even trying to fix the full 3.27%. No, indeed. Why? Because the Kyoto treaty, which is what Obama is trying to implement through this cap and trade scam, excluded developing countries (i.e. real polluters) from having to cut back their own emissions. Thus, China and India don’t need to make any cuts at all. Guess which country is the world’s biggest polluter? If you said China, then you’re too smart to be a Congressman. China accounts for 28% of the world’s pollution, and is growing rapidly.

So now we’re not even talking about fixing the 3.27%, we’re talking about fixing some portion of about twenty percent of that 3.27%.

Think of it this way: your neighbors’ cars belch out black smoke all day, but we’re going to “fix” the air quality problem in your neighborhood by making you drive your new Prius 10% slower.

Ok, what’s this going to cost?

The Democrats have been pimping a cost figure produced by the Congressional Budget Office that found that this legislation will cost the average household only $175 a year by 2020. Or as Ed Markey (D-Twilight Zone) claims, this will “cost less than a postage stamp a day.” Of course, that’s a lie.

The CBO study looked only at the cost of operating a trading program, it did not examine “the potential decrease in gross domestic product that could result from the cap.”

In other words, it only counted what the government will spend administering the program, it did not count how the program will affect the rest of us. This is like me claiming that I can reduce your grocery bill to $120 a year if you pay me $10 a month to buy groceries for you with your credit card. See the problem? If not, send me your credit card.

So what will it really cost? The Heritage Foundation estimates that this law would

• cost the economy $9.4 trillion in lost GDP by 2035,
• destroy an average 1.2 million jobs per year,
• increase electricity rates by 90%,
• increase gasoline prices by 58%,
• increase natural gas prices by 55%, and
• will result in an overall cost to the average family of four of $6,800 per year (more than half of what they currently spend on health care).

And if you don’t want to believe the Heritage Foundation, consider that the prior version of this bill, the Lieberman-Warner bill, died after it was determined that bill would

• cost the average family $6,752 per year,
• increase the costs of gasoline 144%,
• increase the price of electricity 129%, and
• eliminate 4 million jobs.

Moreover, the Lieberman bill had significantly lower goals than the current bill (reducing emissions by only 70% instead of 83%). Thus, the Heritage Foundation’s report likely understates the costs.

Won’t this hurt the poor the most?

Sure. These costs will have their greatest impact on food and energy. Thus, the harm from this bill will be highly regressive in nature, meaning that the poor will suffer the most. Also, the poorest parts of the country will be hit hardest by the job loses because those states rely on coal, farming and manufacturing more than the enlightened states. And here I thought the Democrats were the party of the poor?

As an aside, when your liberal friends start complaining about the cost of gas or electricity, tell them that the Republicans offered three amendments to suspend the program if gas hits $5 a gallon, if electricity rates increased by more than 10% in 2009, or if unemployment exceeds 15%. The Democrats defeated each of these, because they care about the poor. . . unlike those job-saving, gas-cheapening Republicans.

But do you know what’s even better?

This bill won’t even work to reduce green house emissions! At least, that’s what Greenpeace says.

The Waxman-Markey bill sets emission reduction targets far lower than science demands, then undermines even those targets with massive offsets.

An offset is like an indulgence. You can sin all you want, you just need to pay over a little something special to the pope and all will be forgiven. Remember your friend with the bucket? If you allowed offsets, he could keep adding water, but he would need to pay some politically connected third-party a rental fee on the bucket. That will solve the problem.

Greenpeace continues. . .

Greenpeace has expressed tremendous concern about the role of offsets in this legislation. Unless strictly controlled, the abuse of offsets could prevent real emission reductions for more than a decade. The decision to move authority over offsets from EPA to the Department of Agriculture further reduces the likelihood that such controls will be maintained and increases the likelihood they will undermine real reductions.

Department of Agriculture? Seriously? The same people who keep the nonsensical ethanol program running because it helps huge industrial farms (science be damned) and who kept the food pyramid upside down for 30 years to please lobbyists? Nice choice. Was the Bureau of Corruption unavailable? How do I get one of these jobs. . . I like suitcases full of cash.

(For our Congressional readers, that’s called sarcasm. . . sarcasm . . . oh look it up, I’m not going to explain it to you.)

So who do we thank for this?

The vote was 219-212. To get the bill through, the Democrats relied on the support of eight useful idiots, as Stalin would have called them. Not only did they not read the bill (300 of the 1200 pages were added, unread, at the last minute), but these eight idiots allowed eight Democrats in vulnerable districts to vote no, to protect their re-election chance. Here are their names:

Chris Smith -- NJ
Dave Riechert, WA
John M. McHugh - NY
Frank A. Lobiondo - NJ
Leonard Lance, NJ
Mark Steven Kirk, Il
Mike Castle, Del
Mary Bono Mack, CA

If you see these “Republicans,” spit on them. . . unless you’re really tall, then replace the p with an h.