Saturday, June 27, 2009

Obama/Pelosi ram high-tax "climate" bill thru House; hope for Senate

http://tinyurl.com/pcbgz4
****As usual, O/P overestimate the benefits, underestimate the costs, ignore the negative effect on GDP, driving jobs overseas,and ask for religious adherence.
http://tinyurl.com/nejnhm The Cap and Tax Fiction Democrats off-loading economics to pass climate change bill....Democrats...have to destroy the discipline of economics to get it done...rural and Blue Dog Democrats remain wary of voting for a bill that will impose crushing costs on their home-district businesses and consumers....the CBO estimate is a one-year snapshot of taxes that will extend to infinity. Under a cap-and-trade system, government sets a cap on the total amount of carbon that can be emitted nationally; companies then buy or sell permits to emit CO2. The cap gets cranked down over time to reduce total carbon emissions....CBO's analysis looks solely at the year 2020, before most of the tough restrictions kick in...the price of permits will skyrocket beyond the CBO estimate of $28 per ton of carbon...costs...will be passed to consumers... extraordinary decision to look only at the day-to-day costs of operating a trading program, rather than the wider consequences energy restriction would have on the economy. ..."The resource cost does not indicate the potential decrease in gross domestic product (GDP) that could result from the cap."...higher prices will show up not just in electricity bills or at the gas station but in every manufactured good, from food to cars.... fewer jobs created or higher unemployment...move their operations overseas, with the same result... Heritage Foundation: ...Waxman-Markey would cost the economy $161 billion in 2020, which is $1,870 for a family of four. As the bill's restrictions kick in, that number rises to $6,800 for a family of four by 2035...an average...certain regions and populations will be more severely hit than others -- mfg states more than service states; coal producing states more than states that rely on hydro or natural gas. Low-income Americans, who devote more...income to energy, have more to lose than high-income families....Britain's Taxpayer Alliance estimates the average family there is paying nearly $1,300 a year in green taxes for carbon-cutting programs in effect only a few years ....Members who vote for this climate bill are voting for what is likely to be the biggest tax in American history....
****Dick Morris pointed out that the vote in the House was really NOT as close as it appeared: although the Dem party decided on the bill, individual members were wary about being exposed as endorsing it so they clamored to be on the list that could vote AGAINST it up to a maximum that would still insure its passage. The most vulnerable Reps were accorded surcease of "big-tax" vote.**** Meanwhile, the rest of the world was coming to its senses about the Gorey religion:*** http://tinyurl.com/lhuvel The Climate Change Climate Change The number of skeptics is swelling everywhere. By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL, WSJ 6-27 Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure him on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change legislation ...he's a member of the Australian Senate...(which)is preparing to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again doubt the science of human-caused global warming.Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. ...The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S. In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where Pres. Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of the population believes humans play a role. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy wants...Claude Allegre to lead the country's new ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old cap-and-trade program.
The number of skeptics...is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled...The collapse of the "consensus" has been driven by reality. The inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures have flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon...Dr. Ian Plimer, a well-known Australian geologist...published "Heaven and Earth," a damning critique of the "evidence" underpinning man-made global warming. The book is already in its fifth printing. So compelling is it that Paul Sheehan, a noted Australian columnist -- and ardent global warming believer -- in April humbly pronounced it "an evidence-based attack on conformity and orthodoxy, including my own, and a reminder to respect informed dissent and beware of ideology subverting evidence."...Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, elected like Mr. Obama on promises to combat global warming, ...was forced to delay the implementation of the program until at least 2011, just to get the legislation through Australia's House. The Senate was not so easily swayed...Fielding, a crucial vote on the bill, was so alarmed by the renewed science debate that he made a fact-finding trip to the U.S., attending the Heartland Institute's annual conference for climate skeptics. He also visited with Joseph Aldy, Mr. Obama's special assistant on energy and the environment, where he challenged the Obama team to address his doubts. They apparently didn't....Fielding...would not be voting for the bill...would not risk job losses on "unconvincing green science."...Republicans...turned ever more to the cost arguments against climate legislation....rural and Blue Dog Democrats fret about the economic ramifications. Yet if the rest of the world is any indication, now might be the time for U.S. politicians to re-engage on the science. One thing for sure: They won't be alone. ****But wait...there's more...and worse! Recognizing that jobs WILL be lost, the legislation mandates TARIFFS against countries that don't similarly hobble their industries and increase their costs.Retaliation and higher consumer costs will follow and free trade will go out the window. Even the liberal Christian Sci Mon thinks so:http://tinyurl.com/kradgxA big chill in global-warming bill...main global-warming bill on Capitol Hill calls for the president to slap stiff barriers on imports from other countries that don't reduce their carbon emissions in comparable ways....aimed at helping US industries stay competitive...US could see many of its industries move to other countries with lesser or no curbs on greenhouse gases, a possibility called "carbon leakage" ...President Obama pitches this legislation as a "jobs bill." But it isn't one, really....could trigger a wave of global trade protectionism that would ultimately hurt the US economy – the largest exporter in the world, and one in which 40 percent of jobs are dependent on trade...China and India could walk away from ...talks if they see the US and other industrialized nations threaten to protect domestic markets. Germany and France have warned they will "protect European industry" if other countries do not accept similar climate goals. But poorer countries that are already reluctant to act on climate change will...make little or no effort to save Earth's environment.(At least the ChrisSciMon still believes in THAT religion!)...House provision on potential trade barriers was added...American industries that are dependent on fossil fuels, along with their labor unions, asked for it...As Congress moves closer to a final bill, it needs to keep open America's doors to free trade.

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