Obama: The Cost Of Climate Change Legislation Will Be Paid By The Polluters
Which sounds nice, until you realize that we’re all polluters (using Obama and the environmental left’s rather broad definition of the term):
At a time of great fiscal challenges, this legislation is paid for by the polluters who currently emit the dangerous carbon emissions that contaminate the water we drink and pollute the air we breathe. It also provides assistance to businesses and communities as they make the gradual transition to clean energy technologies.
Obama’s cap and trade policy will be paid for by all of us. According to the Tax Foundation, cap and trade will cost the average American household roughly 2% of that households income. An MIT study put the cost of cap and trade for the average household at about $4,000/year.
And that’s just direct impact costs. That doesn’t calculate loss of revenue through declining economic activity brought about by this new tax and its compliance costs.
Obama speaks of the cost of suppressing “dangerous carbon emissions” (like the, uh, air you exhale when you breathe) being paid for by the polluters. Let’s remember that the coal industry (which Obama said would probably be bankrupted by cap and trade) provides 51% of the electricity for our national power grid. It is the cheapest for of electricity on the market today. Every time you plug in a television or a laptop or a refrigerator, you’re becoming one of the polluters who are going to pay the price for Obama’s carbon tax
The delivery trucks that bring books and gadgets you ordered on the internet emit carbon. The truck that delivers food to your local organic grocery store emits carbon. The bus you ride to work in the morning emits carbon. The factory that made the bike you ride to your yoga class emits carbon.
Obama’s flowery words are calculated to make it seem like this carbon tax isn’t really going to be a burden to most Americans at all. That’s because, much like with his health care reform policies, Obama wants to put his policies in place before anyone realizes how much they’ll cost.
