CAP & TRADE DESTROYS JOBS and DESTROYS WEALTH

One has to wonder if all this attention being spent on government run health care is a shield to the real threat, otherwise known and Cap & Trade.  The ramifications of this threat are huge and will effect each and every one of us in a time when struggling to keep food on the table is about all we can bear.

The Heritage Foundation has a series of analysises on Cap & Trade, and this report states:


Cap and Trade Destroys Jobs and Destroys Wealth
Waxman-Markey proposes a new national tax of historic proportions
September 24, 2009

When it comes to cap and trade, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu says it’s an economic stimulus. President Obama says it’s a jobs bill. Is it either?

Reporters asked Chu if he though the green movement would generate the townhall pushback the health care debate and he responded, “I don’t think so…maybe I’m optimistic, but there’s very little debate” that a new green energy economy will bring economic prosperity.

George Mason economist Russ Roberts offers his own facetious response to Chu:

“That’s right. It’s a free lunch! There’s no trade-off between cleaner air and economic growth.”

Unfortunately for Americans, as taxpayers and energy consumers, the trade-off is rather large:

• Cumulative gross domestic product (GDP) losses are $9.4 trillion between 2012 and 2035;
• A typical family of four will pay, on average, an additional $829 each year for energy-based utility costs; and
• Gasoline prices will rise by 58 percent ($1.38 more per gallon) and average household electric rates will increase by 90 percent by 2035.
• Net job losses approach 1.9 million in 2012 and could approach 2.5 million by 2035. Manufacturing loses 1.4 million jobs in 2035;

But President Obama said the opposite was true in an endorsement of the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill in June:

“The energy bill that passed the House will finally create a set of incentives that will spark a clean energy transformation in our economy. It will spur the development of low carbon sources of energy – everything from wind, solar, and geothermal power to safer nuclear energy and cleaner coal. It will spur new energy savings, like the efficient windows and other materials that reduce heating costs in the winter and cooling costs in the summer. And most importantly, it will make possible the creation of millions of new jobs. Make no mistake: this is a jobs bill.”

Those “incentives” are subsidies and tax credits complements of the taxpayer. And the jobs President Obama speaks of are in fact real. He gave a few examples in his speech: “In California, 3000 people will be employed to build a new solar plant that will create 1000 permanent jobs. In Michigan, investment in wind turbines and wind technology is expected to create over 2,600 jobs. In Florida, three new solar projects are expected to employ 1400 people.”

There’s that free lunch concept again. The subsidies and government handouts for renewable projects means diverts those workers away from more productive use. Moreover, a cap and trade policy will destroy more jobs than it creates. Because cap and trade is a tax on energy, the cost of producing goods for businesses increases, and consumer demand falls for two reasons; price hikes on goods reduce demand and people have less disposable income due to higher energy prices.

Higher energy prices force businesses to make production cuts and reduce labor. Furthermore, as we see in the current recession, reduced consumer spending only exacerbates this. The overall result is increased unemployment and slow economic growth.

And we’re not the only ones projecting such losses. In fact, at a recent Heritage event on the costs of cap and trade, not one of the 6 speakers representing groups who modeled the bill discussed economic benefits from cap and trade – it was all about the magnitude of the losses


>> Visit Heritage's Rapid Response page for a collection of the latest research and policy resources on cap and trade.

UN-AMERICAN & UNLAWFUL WHITE HOUSE PROJECTS

Our constitution was written with definitive checks and balances, which are being stepped on by this administration. The Founding Fathers knew from their past experiences that power in the hands of a few breeds tyranny. And we are getting closer to that with each passing day.

Phyllis Schlafly of Eagle Forum explains:


Un-American and Unlawful White House Projects
By Phyllis Schlafly, September 4, 2009

The Obama Administration brags that Cash for Clunkers was a success because it revived the suffering auto industry. But who really benefited from this $3 billion program?
The majority of cars bought with taxpayer-paid incentives of $3,500 to $4,500 each were foreign cars. Toyota and Honda were the big winners.

For years, Americans have been pursuing the goal of self-sufficiency in oil, a natural resource essential to our standard of living. But the effort to get our government to revoke its ban on drilling for oil in American waters off of our shores has been consistently checkmated by the liberals and radical environmentalists.

Now we hear that the Obama Administration is letting the U.S. Export-Import Bank lend $2 billion to Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to drill for oil in the ocean near Rio de Janeiro. Why Brazil, and why not "drill, baby, drill" in U.S. waters?

We know there is an abundance of oil and natural gas right off of U.S. shores, and that drilling would produce good-paying jobs without any need for Stimulus handouts. Does the Obama Administration oppose this because it's an issue Sarah Palin can run with?

The Obama Administration doesn't like criticism, so maybe that's why it is pushing Congress to hurry up and pass the so-called Hate Crimes Act (H.R. 1913). Being squeamish about criticism is also why the Obama Administration launched an un-American project on August 4 as part of what the White House called its "rapid response" Health Insurance Reform Reality Check.

The plan was "to collect and maintain information" on people who criticized the Democrats' health care bill. Obama's friends were instructed to report to the White House email address, flag@whitehouse.gov, any information that they considered "fishy," which everybody understood is a code word to build an Obama political enemies list.

That anti-First Amendment totalitarian project was partly withdrawn as a lawsuit was filed against it by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) and the Coalition for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE). They charged that the White House project was to "unlawfully" collect information on protected political speech.

The long list of Obama's czars, accountable to no one except Obama himself, is one of his most worrisome and expensive notions. The czars may be substitutes for the nearly half of Obama Administration's executive-branch positions that remain unfilled.

The czars' salaries are paid by the U.S. taxpayers but they are not confirmed by the Senate, yet they appear to have the authority to override those who are confirmed. Lack of Senate confirmation means we must rely on Glenn Beck to discover that the Green Jobs Czar, Van Jones, is or was a communist and a self-described "rowdy black nationalist."

So far, Obama has appointed 34 czars. Just listing them is enough to scare anyone who believes in constitutional and representative government: Afghanistan Czar, AIDS Czar, Border Czar, Car Czar, Climate Czar, Copyright Czar, Cyberspace Czar, Drug Czar, Economic Czar, Education Czar, Energy Czar, Executive Pay Czar, Faith-Based Czar, Great Lakes Czar, Green Jobs Czar, Guantanamo Closure Czar, Health Reform Czar, Infotech Czar, Intelligence Czar, Iran Czar, Middle East Peace Czar, Non-Proliferation Czar, Persian Gulf/SE Asia Czar, Regulatory Czar, Science Czar, Stimulus Accountability Czar, Sudan Czar, TARP Czar, Terrorism Czar, Urban Czar, War Czar, and WMD and Terrorism Czar.

At least one Obama pal is functioning in a similar capacity without the awesome Russian title of czar. Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, who publicly withdrew from the position of Secretary of Health and Human Services because of non-payment of income taxes, is providing "outside advice" to the President inside the Oval Office and to top White House officials, while continuing as a highly paid policy adviser to hospital and pharmaceutical clients of a law and lobbying firm.

Daschle is not registered as a lobbyist; he identifies himself as a "resource" to government and industry. It looks like Daschle has the best of all worlds, both for influence and remuneration.

The senior Senate Democrat, Robert Byrd of West Virginia (who is third in line for the U.S. presidency after Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi), wrote Obama in February saying that these czar appointments are a power grab by the executive branch and violate both the constitutional system of checks and balances and the constitutional separation of powers. He said they are a clear attempt to evade congressional oversight.

The President is entitled to have his own advisers, but these czars are directly dictating policy, and nobody really knows the extent of their powers. Whatever happened to Obama's campaign promise of transparency?

Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) has introduced the Czar Accountability and Reform Act (H.R. 3226) to cut off the salaries of these czars (estimated at $172,000 plus their staffs of 10+ people). It's unlikely that the Democratic Congress will let this bill see the light of day.


Further reading:

• Obama’s Czars
• Health Care Reform
• Town Hall Meetings

Don't Forget About Renewable Energy Mandates

As Congress gears of for the Fall session, there are several important bills that need attention. Centralizing health care, centralizing energy resources, owning America's largest industries is a road to complete government take over.

Focusing on Cap & Trade, The Heritage Foundation writes:


Don't Forget About Renewable Energy Mandates
Waxman-Markey proposes a new national tax of historic proportions
September 1, 2009

It’s easy to forget that the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill is not just about cap and trade. There are a number of other problematic provisions buried in the 1,427 pages of legislation. Cap and trade should receive the most attention because it’s the most economically devastating part of the bill, but Waxman-Markey also includes a renewable electricity standard that mandates 6 percent of the nation’s electricity come from renewable sources, chiefly wind energy but also others like biomass and solar, by 2012. The mandate increases each year until it reaches 25 percent by 2025. It’s a provision that’s had a difficult time moving through Congress in previous bills.

Wind and solar power are promising ideas. They are renewable and clean, and parts of the U.S. are very rich in solar and wind resources. But right now it costs far too much money to generate energy from these sources. Established energy sources like nuclear, coal, oil, and natural gas are far more efficient. If any renewable energy source is economically competitive (free of government subsidies that create government dependence), it will have its place in the market, but it’s not up to the government to pick winners and losers among energy sources. Doing so could crowd out energy sources we haven’t even discovered yet.

Government subsidies for renewable energy are only necessary because renewables are too expensive to compete in the market otherwise. In effect, the government is forcing costlier energy options on electricity consumers. Since renewables are lavished with substantial tax breaks, a national mandate will mean higher taxes and higher electric bills for Americans.

This isn’t just a game of estimates; we can learn from example. Britain’s renewable energy plan will cost 11 to 17 times more than the economic benefits it will bring. In Spain, electricity bills are 10 times higher because of renewable mandates.

Right here at home, Austin, Texas, electricity providers gave consumers a choice to purchase renewable energy. The problem is people aren’t buying it because it’s too expensive and now utility companies are spreading the costs to all the consumers. Moreover, in West Texas, wind suppliers are actually paying people to take their energy.

Renewable energy and other innovative ideas to create energy have potential, but their fate should be decided by the market—not Members of Congress.