Just when you thought you might be able to eat this month and still pay your electric bill –
California’s Socialist Senator Barbara Boxer, the chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and Vermont’s Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders, introduced a carbon tax bill, taxing not only carbon but (cow’s beware) methane. In the House, the top Socialist Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, Henry Waxman, also introduced a carbon tax discussion draft scam and surprise! Obama has indicated he will be quietly preparing to back these proposals. “I want to make sure that a congressman, senator feels as if they’ve got the information and the grassroots network that’s going to support them in that effort.”
For her part, Boxer pointed to dire warnings from climate scientists, telling her committee that the latest evidence shows the Earth will be at least 8 degrees warmer by the end of the century, rising sea levels will flood or swallow coastal cities and devastating floods, droughts, tornadoes and heat waves will become common. Guess she’s been too busy to read the latest updates that show the sea isn’t rising and the earth hasn’t warmed in almost twenty years.
But, then again, this is nothing more than Obama’s “the sky is falling, let’s screw taxpayers” climate change policy not based on anything but his socialist agenda to take from the Democratic version of the rich and keep it for the government.
The Boxer-Sanders bill taxes carbon dioxide at $20 per metric ton, which works out to 17.8 cents a gallon of gasoline. basically doubling the existing federal gas tax. (Which of course begs the question — don’t we already tax carbon enough?) but it gets much worse: Boxer-Sanders automatically raises the tax 5.6 percent per year for 10 years, enough to double the tax to 30 cents. And, of course, the tax would will serve to increase your electric bill and food prices, along with anything else you happened to buy. Industrial energy users would also be hit especially hard.
A study by the National Association of Manufacturers found that a carbon tax similar to Boxer-Sanders would knock an immediate half a percent off of GDP and threaten millions of jobs. But, what’s a few job losses when faced with such devastating weather changes.
Waxman’s discussion draft is potentially much worse. It proposes a range of starting prices and automatic increases up to $35 per metric ton and 8 percent. That would mean about 31 cents a gallon gas tax to start, automatically jumping to 67 cents by year 10 and $1.34 by year 20. Of course electricity generation, manufacturers, and every product grown, shipped, or manufactured would also be hit.
And, despite the widespread economic damage, these proposals could become politically viable by incorporating large scale income redistribution. Even one supposedly conservative advocate of carbon taxes recently suggested 11 percent of the revenue should be used to increase social welfare spending to alleviate the impact of higher energy prices on the poor. We can safely assume the liberals will push for a much larger piece than that, perhaps issuing free gas cards much like existing food stamp cards so hardworking taxpayers can pick up the (fast-rising!) gas tab not just for themselves but for others, too.
Of course, after having to pay all those new carbon taxes, we’ll all be poor and when we all become poor – where are they going to get the money to pay for the welfare spending for the poor? Guess they haven’t thought that far. Of course they could be counting on most of freezing in the winter or dropping dead in the summer for lack of finances to heat or cool our homes – that would put them at the top of the “friend” list for the U.N. population control crowd.
Congressmen Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Joe Barton of Texas introduced a resolution of disapproval making clear that a carbon tax would be economically destructive and should be rejected. Such “Sense of Congress” resolutions are usually just political statements, but given the marshaling of Democratic forces, it could serve as a vital prevention strategy to put the House firmly on the record in opposition now and prevent any risk of a carbon tax emerging as a real possibility. House leadership would be wise to bring the resolution to the floor and put the House on record against this terrible idea as soon as possible.
I doubt this will have any serious chance of passing – its just another Obama slight of hand. Like throwing up all those gun control proposals that have little chance of making it throught the House or Senate, to keep us from noticing that the U.N. Small Arms Treaty is in full swing. God only knows what this new slight of hand is attempting to hide!
