Obama’s 3.6 trillion dollar budget, (absurdly titled, “A New Era of Responsibility”) released today, includes a new cap and trade program.
President Barack Obama will propose raising new revenue through a greenhouse gas cap and emissions trading scheme when he unveils his first budget on Thursday, US media reported.The budget he will present assumes an emissions trading system will generate revenue by 2012, the Washington Post reported.
Fifteen billion dollars of the money generated would be directed to clean-energy projects, the Post said, citing sources familiar with the document.
Another 60 billion would go to tax credits for lower- and middle-income working families, and the rest to help families, small businesses and communities deal with higher energy costs, the paper reported.
Sounds great – what could go wrong?
Set up to price pollution out of existence, carbon trading is pricing it back in. Europe’s carbon markets are in collapse.
Yet the hiss of escaping gas is almost inaudible. There’s no big news headline, nothing sensational for TV viewers to watch; no queues outside banks or missing Texan showmen. You can’t see or hear a market for a pollutant tumble. But at stake is what was supposed to be a central lever in the world’s effort to turn back climate change. Intended to price fossil fuels out of the market, the system is instead turning them into the rational economic choice.
Okay, maybe we’re going to do it smarter than Europe did. The new era of responsibility is all about creating jobs, right?
The potential costs to America from cap-and-trade are enormous. The Department of Energy estimates that S. 2191, the Warner-Lieberman cap-and-trade proposal, will increase the cost of coal for power generation by between 161% and 413%. DOE estimates GDP losses (see chart) over the 21-year period they forecast, at between $444 billion and $1.308 trillion, with particular damage to the manufacturing sector. (This gives some hope that organized labor will, in a rare occurrence, oppose Democratic leaders on this issue.) Winegarden estimates that this bill could increase unemployment by 2.7% or about 4 million jobs. In fact, companies are already preparing to avoid increased level and volatility of American energy prices by setting up factories and partnerships in countries which won’t be subject to cap-and-trade restrictions…proving with real-world behavior of producers that no carbon-limiting regulation can succeed if it is not universal.
Well, that’s okay because the Stimulus Package will have created new jobs for these people, right?
The huge economic stimulus package that President Obama signed into law Tuesday will result in “lower wages” for American workers, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
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“The reduction in GDP is therefore estimated to be reflected in lower wages rather than lower employment, as workers will be less productive because capital stock is smaller.”
A previous CBO report said that with interest on the debt, the recovery package will cost $1.1 trillion. The Feb. 11 analysis says, “To the extent that people hold their wealth as government bonds rather than in a form that can be used to finance private investment, the increased debt would tend to reduce the stock of productive private capital.”
That’s okay, Obama’s plan calls for almost one trillion in new taxes. That will certainly decrease the debt, (not to mention, employment).
‘Spread the wealth’ is becoming ‘spread the misery’, amazingly fast, isn’t it?
Hat tip: Gateway Pundit
UPDATE:
Rasmussen asked people if they agreed with Reagan’s assertion: “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”
…a new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey shows that the basic views of the American people have not change: 59% of voters still agree with Reagan’s inaugural address statement. Only 28% disagree, and 14% are not sure.
Okay, dammit.
Republicans? Can you start boldly making the case that Obama is an out of control, spending, Socialist maniac. please? There seems to be a huge disconnect between what Obama is doing, and what people perceive him to be doing. Stop being such nice guys. We need a forceful and articulate spokesman to start making the case that most Americans already agree with.
Nice Deb 
Socialism brings equality by setting the bar to mediocrity, at best. If the best you will be allowed to achieve is the standard at which the least of us have chosen to live (unless you are in the Party, comerade, in which case you are more equal than the rest of us) then there really is no incentive to do more, is there?
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I rarely listen to Michael Savage, because I don’t have the energy to keep up with the hateful tirades, but he has one thing right.
Obama’s economics are “trickle-up poverty”
Unless you’re already in the magic circle of Zero and his thugs in Congress. I hear things are pretty nice there — lots of flying around in private jets and drinking champagne at cocktail parties.
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