Wall Street Journal on Cap and Tax Fiction

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article on the foolish assessment of costs of the Waxman-Markey carbon cap and trade bill passed by the House of Representatives. The Congressional Budget Office put out an estimate of cost saying the law would cost the average household only $175 per year. But,

To get support for his bill, Mr. Waxman was forced to water down the cap in early years to please rural Democrats, and then severely ratchet it up in later years to please liberal Democrats. The CBO's analysis looks solely at the year 2020, before most of the tough restrictions kick in. As the cap is tightened and companies are stripped of initial opportunities to "offset" their emissions, the price of permits will skyrocket beyond the CBO estimate of $28 per ton of carbon. The corporate costs of buying these expensive permits will be passed to consumers.

The CBO analysis did not consider the year to year decrease in GDP that this bill will cause and admits that in a footnote. What will the real results be?

• The Heritage Foundation considered the complete effect on the GDP and calculated that it would cost $161 billion in 2020 or $1,870 for a family of four. But, as the more stringent restrictions are applied, it will cost a family of four $6,800 by 2035.
• Manufacturing states will be hurt more than service states.
• Coal-producing states will be hurt more than those using more natural gas, hydroelectric power, or nuclear power.
• Low income families use more of their income for energy needs than higher income families, so they will be hurt more.

In Great Britain, carbon-reduction programs are already costing the average family $1,300 per year and they make less than American families do. But the Democrat Party has promised the cap and trade energy tax will not hurt American families. How firmly they believe this is to be discovered in their response to Republican amendments which proposed the program if

• gasoline reached a cost of $5 per gallon.
• electricity prices exceeded a cost more than 10% greater than in 2009.
• unemployment rates hit 15%.

Wow!!!! So, this bill is a good thing according to Democrats even if gasoline costs $5 per gallon or unemployment is 15% or more. What universe do these people come from? Apparently, they believe it is quite possible that unemployment will reach 15% and if it does, they would still rather reduce harmless CO2 emissions than allow people who want desperately to work to do so! Personally, I hate it with a passion when gasoline hits $3 a gallon, let alone $5 a gallon. Even $3 per gallon gasoline puts a very painful dent in my ability to pay my bills, which are highly inflated due to educating daughters in colleges controlled by these same out-of-this-world Democrat elitists.