17%? Do I hear 20%??

The Job Killers

They are at it again. Just when the nation, particularly those of us on the right are focusing our efforts on defeating Government run health care, our dear Senators Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.) have introduced the Senate version of the Waxman-Markey bill, better known as Cap and Trade. Hat-tip to the Heritage Foundation, this bill ups the ante of the goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions from 17% by the year 2020 to a significantly increased 20%. This bill differs in other ways from the House Cap and Trade bill as well. Instead of naming the special interest groups who will be getting special emissions allowances, this bill makes no rules on how hundreds of billions of dollars will be given away.

John Kerry, a co-sponsor of the bill says that it isn’t a “Cap and Trade” bill, rather that it is a “pollution reduction bill.” Semantics. This is, plain and simple a tax bill on energy, just as hideous or even more so than it’s House counterpart. Peter Orzag, the director of the Office of Management and Budget says, “Under a cap-and-trade program, firms would not ultimately bear most of the costs of the allowances but instead would pass them along to their customers in the form of higher prices.”

The Heritage Foundation says that this bill is very similar in what it proposes to do to the energy industry in America. Therefore the projections applied to the Waxman-Markey bill stand resolute. Their cost estimates show climbing energy prices and under this bill a family household of four would see a nearly $3,000.00 a year jump between 2012 and 2035. Gasoline would also see a dramatic rise, going up by a whopping FIFTY EIGHT PERCENT, or an additional $1.38 a gallon. Also, household electric rates would increase, on average an astounding NINETY PERCENT. The Institute for Energy Research shows that low income households will be hit the hardest, with this rise in energy prices amounting to the same as a 69% increase in federal payroll taxes.

But over and over we have heard from the left and from Obama himself that we need to transform our nation towards a “green economy.” On July 2^nd, 2009 after meeting with energy company CEOs from across the country, Obama said, “And last Friday, the House of Representatives passed an extraordinary piece of legislation that would make renewable energy the profitable kind of energy in America.  It will reduce our dependence on foreign oil.  It will prevent the worst consequences of climate change.  And above all, it holds the promise of millions of new jobs — jobs, by the way, that can’t be outsourced.”

So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, our President promised us millions of new jobs in the green energy industry sector. But if that is true; and we all know that President Obama wouldn’t lie to the American people, then why is there a provision in the Boxer-Kerry bill that provides money for “green energy worker training” and for workers who lose their jobs? The name given this funding is the “Climate Change Worker Adjustment Assistance” program. If a green economy guarantees millions of new jobs, why would they need this provision in the bill? The Heritage Foundation claims, and I must say that I agree with them that this really confirms that cap and trade kills jobs. That is why I refer to it as Tax and Kill, instead of Cap and Trade. The Heritage Foundation goes on to say that their job loss projections from the Waxman-Markey bill will hit nearly 2 million and by 2035 rise as high as 2 ½ million jobs lost. On top of that, they predict manufacturing jobs lost at nearly 1 ½ million; mind you, this is after they took into account green job creation!

We have a Congress and President that are job killers. We have a Congress controlled by the far left wing of the Democratic Party and a President that ran a near centrist campaign, but governs to the far left as well. Whether he does so because he is an ideologue or because he is beholden to the far left base in his party does not matter. The damage caused to our country is still the same.

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