Why I’m A Federalist – Here Comes Cap And Trade!

A couple of articles from the WSJ Online here and here…

The market has been developing environmentally sound products, processes and services at an accelerating rate for three decades because 1) there used to be pervasive and massive abuses and the government with the clear support of the electorate forced us to stop, 2 ) people want a cleaner environment, 3 ) it’s good business and 4 ) we as a country (just like Western Europe) can afford it. Our environment is getting cleaner and cleaner and greenhouse gas emissions are declining, or at least increasing at a slower rate. Why don’t we just let the process continue? The private sector has made thousands of cost benefit decisions along the way. Some ideas make sense, others don’t. The ones that do create benefits to the environment and society in general. The ones that don’t either a) go away or b) get government subsidies and distort the normal workings of the market.

This cap and trade thing is the ultimate distortion. It’s about to be rammed down our throats without much debate or analysis about the benefits (arguable) or consequences, both intended and unintended. This may be the worst thing the federal government has imposed on us since the income tax, and I bet if you ask ten people at random what they think of cap and trade, nine will have no idea what you’re talking about and the other one will say something like “Oh I think it’s a good idea because it will stop global warming.”

By the way, would somebody explain to me why global warming is, or more accurately WAS, a bad thing? Let’s just say, for sake of argument, that the earth is warming. Wouldn’t a warmer Earth yield more farmable land to feed the masses? How about less energy usage to produce heat in the winter? And this argument that the U.S. is to blame because with only 5% of the world’s population we produce 25% of the greenhouse gasses. So what? We also produce about 30% of the world’s goods and services!! The countries that pollute the most are either the poorest, like most of Africa, or the fasting growing emerging industrial economies like China, India, Russia and Brazil. Those countries, by the way are exempt from the Kyoto Protocols, which Congress wisely rejected ten years ago but which are being resurrected as we speak.
Does anyone other than the religiously zealous true believers really think any of this will have any impact on the climate? Despite all the conflicting and contradictory evidence, despite the lack of an honest national debate, despite all the analyses that predict enormous financial and social costs, these assholes are going to do it anyway. That’s what liberals do – punish the successful by dragging them down to everyone else’s level by whatever means necessary and no matter what the costs. This is all nothing more than a massive (really massive!!) tax increase on the United States which will result in slower growth, lower living standards, a lack of competitiveness on world markets, and an ever increasing share of the federal government’s ownership of the private sector. It’s also a purely regressive tax, at least initially. EVERYONE will pay for this, a lot, until the liberals get around to subsidizing the costs for the poor (that would be the fifty percent of Americans who pay no income taxes). And how will they pay for that? That’s right.

Finally, now that CO2 has been declared a hazardous substance by the EPA, all you law abiding citizens must consider the logical impact – Stop exhaling all you polluters!!
?I need a drink.??

The Libinator