The Cap and Tax Fiction

The Cap and Tax Fiction

online.wsj.com

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has put cap-and-trade legislation on a forced march through the House, and the bill may get a full vote as early as Friday. It looks as if the Democrats will have to destroy the discipline of economics to get it done.
Despite House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman's many payoffs to Members, 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 leadership's solution to this problem is to simply claim the bill defies the laws of economics.

(visit the link for the full news article)

If this bill passes you can stick a fork in the American economic recovery. According to the Congressional Budget Office the climate legislation would cost the average household only $175 a year by 2020. This is not true, the cost will be much higher. The CBO report does not factor in the potential decrease in gross domestic product (GDP) that could result from the cap.

The hit to GDP is the real threat in this bill. The whole point of cap and trade is to hike the price of electricity and gas so that Americans will use less. These higher prices will show up not just in electricity bills or at the gas station but in every manufactured good, from food to cars. Consumers will cut back on spending, which in turn will cut back on production, which results in fewer jobs created or higher unemployment. Some companies will instead move their operations overseas, with the same result.

The Heritage Foundation did its analysis of the bill. It broadly compared the economy with and without the carbon tax. Under this more comprehensive scenario, it found 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.

The reality is that cost estimates for climate legislation are as unreliable as the models predicting climate change. What comes out of the computer is a function of what politicians type in. A better indicator might be what other countries are already experiencing. 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.

Americans are already struggling to put food on the table, now is not the time to increase our cost of living. The lower and middle income families are going to be hurt by this bill. This amounts to a tax increase across the board for Americans. If carbon emissions are the causing global warming then why with carbon emissions still increasing around the world is the average temperature not also increasing. The earth has actually cooled in the past decade.
www.freerepublic.com...











online.wsj.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Pelosi and her gang of thugs already know what this will do to the economy. They know it will crush the American people and break there backs. They crave power and they want to be seen as the only way the poor can survive. If they make everyone but there select people poor and dependant on the Gov't for everything then they are gauaranteed to hold the power.

Originally posted by Erasurehead

....

Americans are already struggling to put food on the table, now is not the time to increase our cost of living. The lower and middle income families are going to be hurt by this bill.

.....

The evident position of the ideologues who are fostering and pushing for this legislation (imagine that they demand it be LAW not policy) is that the lower and middle income families don't matter.

What DOES matter is the creation of new revenue streams into which the financial cartels can interpose themselves..., just ask Al.

I've run out of ways to say it's sheer insanity. it is a cruel and excessive tax that will deeply hurt all americans. the double talk on what it will cost people is nonsense, like all figures that come out of the white house. and it will have only a miniscule effect on climate change, if any. since we don't have the means at this point to not use energy, it just means that people will be penalized for using it, which means money for the government to waste by funneling to cronies.

Here's a little something.

The Obama administration has estimated the revenue value of these rights, if purchased from the government by private industry, at between $680 billion and $1.8 trillion over 10 years. Let’s take the midpoint number -- $1.15 trillion. Even in the context of a budget debate that would strain Dr. Evil’s financial imagination --“It’s like saying I want a kajillion bajillion dollars” -- that’s a lot of money.

and where it's going to go:

As the cap-and-trade bill has progressed through committee -- a draft is expected any day now -- more and more pollution rights have been allotted in advance to favored interests, free of charge. The final committee bill will probably give away at least 50 percent of all allotments, maybe even 75 percent. The freebies blow a huge hole in the budget plans of the White House, which has been counting on cap-and-trade payments from industry to help cover the enormous deficits the administration will run in coming years.

This Week

today I heard that the giveaways have arisen to 85%. that's the cost of getting the bill to a vote. so we will be charged an enormous amount of extra taxes, 85% of which will be channeled to special interests.

[edit on 25-6-2009 by earlywatcher]

This bill will do even more to destroy the American way of life, than the "bailout bills" did. As the WSJ article says:

When the Heritage Foundation did its analysis of Waxman-Markey, it broadly compared the economy with and without the carbon tax. Under this more comprehensive scenario, it found 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.

Compare that to the $175 figure given by the CBO for the year 2020, and you'll see the games that are being played here to shove this through. Virtually no one in Congress has read this 1200 page bill. Sound familiar?

Climate change? Uh.. what?

OH, I can only presume you are talking about our solar-system climate change since every other planet is getting hotter - not just our own. I can't believe in America you are actually going to get a carbon tax. Hope it doesn't reach our country. I have faith that it wont since we have a few MPs that are anti-climate change.

Originally posted by ProfEmeritus
This bill will do even more to destroy the American way of life, than the "bailout bills" did. As the WSJ article says:

When the Heritage Foundation did its analysis of Waxman-Markey, it broadly compared the economy with and without the carbon tax. Under this more comprehensive scenario, it found 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.

Compare that to the $175 figure given by the CBO for the year 2020, and you'll see the games that are being played here to shove this through. Virtually no one in Congress has read this 1200 page bill. Sound familiar?

Has the Obama administration posted the 1200 page bill online for the American people to read? Didn't he promise that he would do that during his campaign? I would like to see the garbage that is in this bill. So much for transparency.

First of all, what we have in congress are not real people they are marionettes doing what what every interest is paying them like whores to cater too.

They are mostly corrupted by greed and morons.

In America the small businesses are struggling and going out of business, leaving hundreds of thousand every months without jobs.

Industries that are still in working in the US are mostly foreign owned as by 2002 the last report done that showed at that time that 50% of them were foreign.

Now this industries can move to where they don't have to deal with the crap that our congress is passing.

Leaving more hundreds of thousands without jobs in an economy that already is down the crapper.

If anybody thinks that any politician in our System of government care for any America citizens you are still dreaming.

And this no about Democrats or Republicans this about all of them.

America is falling down the path of destruction and we should thank our own government for that and us for not doing anything about it.

They are pushing for a vote WITHIN HOURS.

They say MAXIMUM a congress vote TODAY at 5PM eastern.

So if you have to call your congressman to STOP THIS TAX, DO IT NOW.

Just like the Patriot Act, they are PUSHING IT before anybody can read it...

They CHANGED THE NAME, it's now HR2998 and 1200, yes 1200 PAGES LONG.

EDIT: Please admins, PUT THIS THREAD EVERYWHERE ON TOP. DO AN ALERT... SOMETHING.

[edit on 26-6-2009 by Vitchilo]

Originally posted by Vitchilo
They are pushing for a vote WITHIN HOURS.

They say MAXIMUM a congress vote TODAY at 5PM eastern.

So if you have to call your congressman to STOP THIS TAX, DO IT NOW.

Just like the Patriot Act, they are PUSHING IT before anybody can read it...

They CHANGED THE NAME, it's now HR2998 and 1200, yes 1200 PAGES LONG.

[edit on 26-6-2009 by Vitchilo]

A vote at 5pm today? I can guarantee that none of them have even read the 1200 page bill. How can they vote on something that they haven't even read? They are just a bunch of drones that do what ever Obama and Pelosi want them to do.

reply to post by Vitchilo


I am calling my congressman and telling him to vote no on HR2998. I doubt he will even get the message before the vote today.

Not sure but looks like they are gonna vote for it in 10 minutes! EDIT: The debate has started. They say the debate will last about 3 hours before a vote...

And it looks like the bill is 1500 PAGES, not 1200 pages long...

What a freaking shame.

EDIT: VOTE SCHEDULED FOR 4PM EASTERN..

[edit on 26-6-2009 by Vitchilo]

this time i don't care if they read it. doesn't even need to be read. all they need to do is vote against it. it is the most blatant betrayal of the american people. makes me wonder if the big tv deal on health care on wed was just to distract from getting this bill passed.

don't any of the yet think passing enormous bills that turns the country inside out is crazy, particularly when it's all such an emergency that no talk, no common sense.

Originally posted by earlywatcher
this time i don't care if they read it. doesn't even need to be read. all they need to do is vote against it. it is the most blatant betrayal of the american people. makes me wonder if the big tv deal on health care on wed was just to distract from getting this bill passed.

don't any of the yet think passing enormous bills that turns the country inside out is crazy, particularly when it's all such an emergency that no talk, no common sense.

The MSM is going to cover Michael Jacksons death all day long. Most Americans won't even know that they are voting on this bill today.

reply to post by Erasurehead


they must have been ecstatic to have such a huge pop figure die. i don't mean that they had anything against him personally, but to be able to seize on it as the biggest thing in the world. i am really amazed at the coverage on the news channels. i wonder how long everything else will be preempted by the handful of details about his death and the mourning. yes it happened when princess diana died, but that was a labor day weekend with no other news to cover. this is just plain crazy.

It's even worse than anything previously... there's something that's in there for the FIRST TIME EVER.

A Placeholder in a bill? A "Fill in the blank"... voting in a bill that has a fill in the blank section... talke about your BLANK CHECKs and BLANK GRANTS of power.

It's basically a blank check to do anything for the ``green economy``... NO LIMITS.

TOTAL TAKE OVER.

reply to post by Vitchilo


how can a bill that is 1200 or 1500 pages long have a place holder? crazy. i don't doubt it, because it's their way of getting whatever they want.

do you think somebody has put a spell on washington, like in harry potter?

of course all those giveways of percentages of the money collected might account for them voting for it even when they know it's crap.

During the brief few days in which the bill was debated in the House Energy Committee, Republicans offered three amendments: one to suspend the program if gas hit $5 a gallon; one to suspend the program if electricity prices rose 10% over 2009; and one to suspend the program if unemployment rates hit 15%. Democrats defeated all of them.

online.wsj.com...

What does this say exactly? That they fully expect gasoline to exceed $5 a gallon, that they expect 15% unemployment, or does it indicate that this is what they're pushing for? Really scary if you ask me. They seem to understand that this bill will push energy prices through the roof and that businesses could topple like dominoes causing mass unemployment. Yet they still have no problem voting for this non-sense.

I want to know..scratch that

I DEMAND TO KNOW why the heck every single one of the Democrat Congressmen phones are out, or off the hook? They've been out since yesterday. IN TWO STATES!!!!

Wisconsin and Nevada.

Out of my state, WI, 7 congressmen. The two phone numbers that actually ring, and answered on the first ring! They are both voting NO. They are Republican, any coincidence? Nevada is a relative's state. No number working in her state.

So, just out of curiosity I dialed Senator Kohl's number. He's also Democrat, but since he's Senate, he's not voting today. His office? Yeah, their phone works and they answered.

I want to know why the only congressmen who have working phones are voting no?? If the others are voting yes, then they need to MAN THE HELL up and put their phones back on line and defend their choice!

Please, I'm calling to all ATS members!!! Click on this link and call your House of Reps. They each have their own phone number. Even if you are voting along with some, I want to see if this is a pattern.

How many rang? If they did answer what was their position to today's vote? How many gave a perpetual busy tone? Like, off the hook?

Something is going on here. We can break this. We don't have much time, minutes maybe. May be too late, but if so...is their line now working?

Click on your state

[edit on 26-6-2009 by SourGrapes]