Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on July 5, 2009

David Harsanyi: 'As terrible as this bill is... throw in 'green jobs' or a 'new energy economy' and you are golden. What kind of insensitive monster is going to stand in the way of a windmill?'

Excellent article on the cap-and-trade, “tax Americans to the poor house” bill at Reason magazine:

Let’s Do Something—Anything
The trouble with the new “cap and trade” bill
Reason Magazine
David Harsanyi | July 1, 2009

Facts. Costs. Consequences.

Who cares?

We’re in the middle of pretending to save the planet, baby.

If it’s about helping “the environment,” suspend reason and salvation is yours. As I’m sure you’ve heard a lot of smart and compassionate folks tell you lately, doing something—anything!—is better than doing nothing.

So the House did something. It passed a “cap and trade” bill that would ration energy, destroy productive jobs, levy the largest tax increase in United States history and, for kicks, penalize foreign trade partners who fail to engage in comparable economic suicide.

Now, assuming there are no speed-reading clairvoyants in the House, no one who voted for the 1,200-page bill—plus the 300-page amendment dropped the morning of the vote—possibly could have read it.

And any scum-sucking scoundrel who points out that “doing nothing” already includes spending billions on renewable energies and living under thousands of regulations is, as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman shrewdly noted, a traitor to humankind.

Speaking of doing nothing: Though it has the potential to stagnate the economy, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, according to the Environmental Protection Agency itself, would not create any reductions in emissions by 2020. The piddling impact of the bill is documented across the ideological spectrum.

So after the House passed the bill, I, curious about the particulars, sent a query to Rep. Betsy Markey (D-Colo.), because hers was one of the votes that put the bill over the top. Markey had been on the fence regarding cap and trade, so surely, she gave the bill a thorough once-over before voting. Not surprisingly, I received no reply.

When I later caught Markey swinging at softballs on television, I realized that she probably had been too busy boning up on her talking points to take the time to slog through 1,500 pages of a radical and generational shift in energy policy.

As terrible as this bill is—and America’s only hope is that a more reasonable Senate will kill it—Markey and others have mastered the art of passing environmental legislation. Throw in “green jobs” or a “new energy economy” and you are golden. What kind of insensitive monster is going to stand in the way of a windmill?

If you’re really in a fighting mood, drop a line about “energy independence”—and don’t we love to hear that one? But do not under any circumstances, as Markey did, stray from your script to offer this remarkably ill-informed myth: “We are now beholden,” Markey claimed, “to unstable governments in the Middle East for the majority of our oil.”

That’s scary stuff. And it brings up an important point: Cap and trade schemes do nothing to foster energy independence, though they hold the distinct possibility of making us more “dependent” on foreign oil imports.

Having to pay for expensive carbon credits will be an incentive for many American companies to close their carbon-emitting businesses and move abroad to places less devoted to destroying themselves.

The House’s cap and trade also means that any energy that does not rely on windmills or solar panels—so, nearly all energy—could become cheaper to import rather than refine here.

It is also distressing, but not surprising, to hear a politician assert that trading with foreign nations means we are beholden to them rather than explain how trade makes partners more peaceful, makes us competitive, and makes everyone more prosperous.

But even if you measure trade as Markey does, we do not import the “majority” of our oil from “unstable” “Middle Eastern” countries.

According to the Energy Information Administration, the top sources for U.S. crude oil for many years have been Canada and Mexico—with Saudi Arabia third.

Saudi Arabia is a terrible place ruled by religious fascists (whom no American president ever should hold hands with or bow to), but it is rather stable, considering.

Not that it makes any difference, mind you. Something, after all, needs to be done.

Here’s another “must read”:
National Black Chamber of Commerce: NBCC Study Finds Waxman-Markey Reduces GDP by $350 Billion: New study finds Waxman-Markey could cost 2.5 million U.S. jobs each year through 2030 and reduce earnings

Additional reading on global warming tax bill:
Rasmussen Reports: 56% Don’t Want To Pay More To Fight Global Warming
Dwight Schultz, Big Hollywood: Obama’s EPA Ignores Inconvenient Truths
Greg Gutfeld, Big Hollywood: Daily Gut: God Bless Vaclav Klaus; Shut Up Kids!
JustOneMinute: Paul Krugman Misstates Bruce Bartlett
Climate Skeptic: Warm Weather and Prosperity
Fire Andrea Mitchell!: Dave Reichert – one of the Crap and Traitor 8s in deep sh** in Washington State
American Spectator: Confusion, Not Clarification
Stop The ACLU: How Dare Those Incas Thrive When It Was Warm!
Roy Spencer, Ph.D.: IPCC Admits they Could be Wrong about Humans Causing Global Warming
P.J. Gladnick, NewsBusters: Polar Bear Testimony Suppressed Due to ‘Inconvenient’ Truths
Prison Planet: IPCC Scientists Caught Producing False Data To Push Global Warming
FOX News: Scientists Debate Sun’s Role in Global Warming
YankMcCain.com: Beware of Spontaneous Human Combustion!
Christian Toto, Big Hollywood: Interview: ‘Not Evil Just Wrong’s’ Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney
Roger’s Rules, PajamasMedia: It’s not easy being green
Clinging to G & G: Hoping for Change
Gunservatively!: The Dems Game Plan: Distraction, Distraction, Distraction

Christopher C. Horner, Big Government: First They Came For the “Climate Criminals” and Climate Alert: “We Must Substantiate Planet Warming!”
The West Coast Outpost: Obama voters about to get punk’d
Burt Prelutsky, Big Hollywood: Principles? Leftists Don’t Need No Stinking Principles
The Patriot’s Mind: EPA Suppressed Own Report that Questions Global Warming!
GOP Counter Culture: Global Warming: the new non-smoking section
RedState: Meet Carol Browner, Energy Czar.
The Sundries Shack: At Least You’ll Get A Nice Quill Pen and Inkpot
Scared Monkeys: Unbelievable: Carol Browner, Energy Czar Questioned as to Whether She Read Cap & Trade Bill … Answer, No!
Vets On The Watch: Earth Cooling Not Warming
Lookin’ Fer Learnin’: A glimpse into Democrat sausage making.
The Radio Patriot: Tell Me Again Tapscott – Not Traitors?
Breitbart.com: Calif. Rep. Waxman hospitalized after fainting
The American Pundit: Greenpeace Opposes Cap-and-Trade Bill
Founding Bloggers: Nothing Says Global Warming Like 59 Degrees On July 1st!
Bob Gale, Big Hollywood: The Brevity Act: Time for a 28th Amendment
The Heartland Institute: Global Warming Alarmists Sabotage Wikipedia Entries
John Romano, Big Hollywood: Climate Change Republicans
New York Times: Tierney Lab: U.S. Climate Report Assailed
MasterResource: Climate Impacts of Waxman-Markey (the IPCC-based arithmetic of no gain)
Pronk Palisades: Time To Sound The Alarm: Call Your Representative and Senators–Cap and Trade Bill to be voted in U.S. House on Friday–Kill The Cap and Trade Energy Tax Today!
Hot Air: Cap and trade vote today, complete with AP spin; Update: 300-page, last-minute amendment and WSJ: Cap-and-tax a great deal … if you don’t measure the costs and Hope and change: New WSJ poll shows America souring on Obamanomics?

Categories: Economy, Environment and Earth, Government, Media & Communication, Social and Political Climate
Tags: AGW, anthropogenic global warming, cap and tax, cap and trade, climate change, climate change bill, climate change hoax, climate change tax bill, economic depression, economic free-fall, energy tax bill, global warming, global warming hoax, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, journlism bias, media bias, political, politics, taxation, Waxman-Markey, windmill