By fitsnews – September 30, 2009
Boy oh boy, do Democratic Senators Barbara Boxer and “Botox Man” John Kerry ever have a deal for you …
For an extra few thousand dollars a year (assuming you’re not among the millions of additional Americans headed for the unemployment line), you can help Washington politicians score points on the environmental issue with a massive tax hike disguised as an emissions reduction plan – one which (oh by the way) does nothing to actually reduce emissions.
Documents obtained from the U.S. Treasury Department show the potential annual cost of the so-called “Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act” (a.k.a. “cap and tax”) reaching as high as $300 billion, meaning an American family of four could be paying as much as $4,000 more a year in extra energy costs.
That’s a far cry from what President Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats have been selling the American people via a proposal formerly known as “cap and trade.”
A recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis claimed “cap and trade” would only cost the average family $175 more a year, but the Wall Street Journal called that estimate “a one-year snapshot of taxes that will extend to infinity.”
Additionally – and here’s the kicker – the CBO analysis assessed only the day-to-day costs of the program, not the ripple effects of energy restriction on the broader economy. And that’s not just us speculating, either … in a barely-noticed footnote on its summer report, the CBO admits that its figure “does not indicate the potential decrease in gross domestic product (GDP) that could result from the cap.”
Well, well, well …
The recently-uncovered Treasury documents do, though.
They reveal that the tax hike “may result in loss of domestic and international market shares for U.S. companies, and relocation of U.S. firms abroad, representing both a political problem and an environmental problem.” The documents also single out how “energy-intensive sectors, such as the steel, aluminum, paper, chemicals, and cement industries, where imports are ready substitutes and lower carbon technologies are not widely available, are clearly vulnerable.”
Nonetheless, Boxer and “Botox” are shilling hard for this ridiculousness.
“We know clean energy is the ticket to strong, sustainable economic growth,” Boxer said before a crowd of about three dozen people in Washington, D.C.
Wait, three dozen people? That’s it?
Pathetic – and a sure sign that people aren’t buying this legislation’s misleading premise/ phraseology.
Speaking of which, Boxer and “Botox’s” legislation also drops any references to the controversial “cap and trade” labelology, preferring instead to call it “Pollution Reduction and Investment.”
A tax hike by any other name, right?
