[inthebox]

Just in case you missed this while the majority of today's news is focused on Clinton and Obama. :cool:



washingtonpost.com - nation, world, technology and Washington area news and headlines

Cap-and-trade WOULD ACT AS A TAX, but it's not described as a tax. It would regulate economic activity, but it's promoted as a "free market" mechanism. Finally, it would trigger a tidal wave of influence-peddling, as lobbyists scrambled to exploit the system for different industries and localities. This would undermine whatever abstract advantages the system has.


The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that a 15 percent cut of emissions would raise average household energy costs by almost $1,300 a year.

How do you feel about that in addition to $4 / galllon gas? :eek:

That's how cap-and-trade would tax most Americans. As "allowances" became scarcer, their price would rise, and the extra cost would be passed along to customers. Meanwhile, government would expand enormously. It could sell the allowances and spend the proceeds; or it could give them away, providing a windfall to recipients. The Senate proposal does both to the tune of about $1 trillion from 2012 to 2018. Beneficiaries would include farmers, Indian tribes, new technology companies, utilities and states. Call this "ENVIRONMENTAL PORK," and it would just be a start. The program's potential to confer subsidies and preferential treatment WOULD STIMULATE A LOBBYING FRENZY. Think of today's farm programs -- and multiply by 10.


A straightforward tax on carbon would favor alternative fuels and conservation just as much as cap-and-trade but without the rigid emission limits. A tax is more visible and understandable. If environmentalists still prefer an allowance system, let's call it by its proper name: cap-and-tax.

Townhall.com::When "Market-Based" Is a Facade::By George Will

A CARBON TAX would be too clear and candid for political comfort. It would clearly be what cap-and-trade DEVIOUSLY is, a tax, but one with a known cost. Therefore, taxpayers would demand a commensurate reduction of other taxes. Cap-and-trade -- government auctioning permits for businesses to continue to do business -- is a huge tax hidden in a bureaucratic labyrinth of opaque permit transactions.


This would be industrial policy, aka socialism, on a grand scale -- government picking winners and losers, all of whom will have powerful incentives to invest in LOBBYISTS TO INFLUENCE GOVERNMENT'S thousands of new wealth-allocating decisions.

This a bipartisan bill. Do you really think congress is looking out for you?

Just another scheme to rob taxpayors and increase the power of politicians, lobbyists, and big business. :(

[tomder55]

Honestly I am still trying to digest the audacity of it all. If I hold my breath am I eligible to sell my exhale to someone else ? Of course businesses buying my exhale will just charge me more for their products so it would be a wash.

[tomder55]

According to a study released by the National Association of Manufacturers earlier this year, Lieberman-Warner would cause 1.8 million job losses, as much as a $210 billion gross domestic product reduction and possibly a 33% increase in electricity prices by 2020.

A study by the Heritage Foundation predicts the following:

The impact on the economy would be horrendous. (GDP) losses of at least $1.7 trillion that could reach $4.8 trillion by 2030 (in inflation-adjusted 2006 dollars).

Single-year GDP losses of at least $155 billion that could exceed $500 billion (in inflation-adjusted 2006 dollars).

Annual job losses that would exceed 500,000 before 2030 and could exceed a million.

The annual cost of emission permits to energy users to cost at least $100 billion by 2020.

The average household will pay $467 more each year for its natural gas and electricity (in inflation-adjusted 2006 dollars). That means that the average household will spend an additional $8,870 to purchase energy over the period 2012 to 2030.

But even better ;a whole new Federal Bureaucracy (or 5) would need to be created to regulate it . Check out this pdf model that the Chamber of Commerce drew up of what it would look like :

http://www.chamberpost.com/files/s.2191_hires.pdf

[BABRAM]

Oh goody! I get to stand on my independent soap box for this one. I don't think either the President or the Congress has been looking out for any of us. That should be fairly obvious. Hell just look at what happened to social security. The fiscal non-responsibilities of both major party's are mortgaging the future. President Bush was unaware two months ago that gas prices would hit 4 dollars this summer and a Congress that's pretending to investigate the reasons for sudden increases.

[Galveston1]

If this passes, wake everyone up! We ain't NEVER seen a train wreck like this before!