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May 19, 2007

Cap and Trade Schemes Put the Screws to the Poor

Okay, okay. Carbon dioxide has suddenly become a deadly pollutant. If we don't do something about it, we're all doomed. But what exactly are we supposed to do? Many libs advocate CO2 "cap and trade" schemes. The Congressional Budget Office recently issued a report confirming that "cap and trade" costs are passed along to energy consumers, depressing the economy and disproportionately affecting the poor.

Senator James Inhofe comments:

Far from being good for the economy, as advocates say, CO2 allocation schemes will disproportionately burden the poor, raise taxes, increase government spending, raise gas prices, raise home energy costs and decrease wages. It is hard to imagine the CBO issuing a more devastating indictment of proposed C02 cap-and-trade schemes. The CBO report should be viewed as a stern warning to our elected leaders to avoid symbolic solutions to an alleged climate "crisis" that places the financial burden on America's poor and working class.

Today's report confirms what Europe, Canada and many other nations have come to realize about C02 cap-and-trade schemes: The entire carbon debate has been skewed toward the least effective and most economically damaging of the various approaches.

Today's CBO report is the most recent analysis to show the folly of schemes like the Kyoto Protocol. Kyoto, if implemented, would result in the largest tax increase in the history of the U.S., costing an estimated $300 billion a year — 10 times the cost of the Clinton-Gore tax increase of 1993. And even Kyoto proponents concede that it would have virtually no impact on the climate.

The Left loves the poor, all right — so much that it wants to make them even more poor. Just think, if we were all sufficiently indigent, we could live in harmony with nature, like they do in quaint Third World countries:

On a tip from Kevin.

Posted by Van Helsing at May 19, 2007 9:37 AM