# Too late! US House may pass largest tax increase in history today



## LongKnife56 (Sep 9, 2008)

It may be too late to do anything as respects the vote in the U.S. House today, but the Senate has not yet voted and the carbon tax bill hopefully will face a tougher fight there. So contact your senators (even fat Ted and John effing).

The Cap and Tax Fiction - WSJ.com

*The Cap and Tax Fiction *

*Democrats off-loading economics to pass climate change bill.*

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has put cap-and-trade legislation on a forced march through the House, and the bill may get a full vote as early as Friday. It looks as if the Democrats will have to destroy the discipline of economics to get it done.
Despite House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman's many payoffs to Members, rural and Blue Dog Democrats remain wary of voting for a bill that will impose crushing costs on their home-district businesses and consumers. The leadership's solution to this problem is to simply claim the bill defies the laws of economics.
Their gambit got a boost this week, when the Congressional Budget Office did an analysis of what has come to be known as the Waxman-Markey bill. According to the CBO, the climate legislation would cost the average household only $175 a year by 2020. Edward Markey, Mr. Waxman's co-author, instantly set to crowing that the cost of upending the entire energy economy would be no more than a postage stamp a day for the average household. Amazing. A closer look at the CBO analysis finds that it contains so many caveats as to render it useless.

For starters, the CBO estimate is a one-year snapshot of taxes that will extend to infinity. Under a cap-and-trade system, government sets a cap on the total amount of carbon that can be emitted nationally; companies then buy or sell permits to emit CO2. The cap gets cranked down over time to reduce total carbon emissions.
To get support for his bill, Mr. Waxman was forced to water down the cap in early years to please rural Democrats, and then severely ratchet it up in later years to please liberal Democrats. The CBO's analysis looks solely at the year 2020, before most of the tough restrictions kick in. As the cap is tightened and companies are stripped of initial opportunities to "offset" their emissions, the price of permits will skyrocket beyond the CBO estimate of $28 per ton of carbon. The corporate costs of buying these expensive permits will be passed to consumers.
The biggest doozy in the CBO analysis was its extraordinary decision to look only at the day-to-day costs of operating a trading program, rather than the wider consequences energy restriction would have on the economy. The CBO acknowledges this in a footnote: "The resource cost does not indicate the potential decrease in gross domestic product (GDP) that could result from the cap."
The hit to GDP is the real threat in this bill. The whole point of cap and trade is to hike the price of electricity and gas so that Americans will use less. These higher prices will show up not just in electricity bills or at the gas station but in every manufactured good, from food to cars. Consumers will cut back on spending, which in turn will cut back on production, which results in fewer jobs created or higher unemployment. Some companies will instead move their operations overseas, with the same result.
When the Heritage Foundation did its analysis of Waxman-Markey, it broadly compared the economy with and without the carbon tax. Under this more comprehensive scenario, it found Waxman-Markey would cost the economy $161 billion in 2020, which is $1,870 for a family of four. As the bill's restrictions kick in, that number rises to $6,800 for a family of four by 2035.
Note also that the CBO analysis is an average for the country as a whole. It doesn't take into account the fact that certain regions and populations will be more severely hit than others -- manufacturing states more than service states; coal producing states more than states that rely on hydro or natural gas. Low-income Americans, who devote more of their disposable income to energy, have more to lose than high-income families.
Even as Democrats have promised that this cap-and-trade legislation won't pinch wallets, behind the scenes they've acknowledged the energy price tsunami that is coming. During the brief few days in which the bill was debated in the House Energy Committee, Republicans offered three amendments: one to suspend the program if gas hit $5 a gallon; one to suspend the program if electricity prices rose 10% over 2009; and one to suspend the program if unemployment rates hit 15%. Democrats defeated all of them.
The reality is that cost estimates for climate legislation are as unreliable as the models predicting climate change. What comes out of the computer is a function of what politicians type in. A better indicator might be what other countries are already experiencing. Britain's Taxpayer Alliance estimates the average family there is paying nearly $1,300 a year in green taxes for carbon-cutting programs in effect only a few years.
Americans should know that those Members who vote for this climate bill are voting for what is likely to be the biggest tax in American history. Even Democrats can't repeal that reality.

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BTW I think it is beginning to be obvious to all rational people that we are not entering a global warming period but if you just want a good website with facts on why we are not and why man has an insignificant effect on weather, here's a good link that has many good links to other websites

Popular Technology -> The Anti "Man-Made" Global Warming Resource


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## mpd61 (Aug 7, 2002)

I hate to say it but anything that keeps them busy and away from gun legislation.


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## Guest (Jun 26, 2009)

Impossible....Obamessiah promised that there would be no new taxes.


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## dcs2244 (Jan 29, 2004)

The "American Experiment" only lasted a little over 200 years...greed and envy killed it. I hope everyone enjoyed their liberty while it lasted.


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## Guest (Jun 26, 2009)

dcs2244 said:


> The "American Experiment" only lasted a little over 200 years...greed and envy killed it. I hope everyone enjoyed their liberty while it lasted.


Maybe I'm giving our founding fathers too much credit, but I think it would take a lot more than four years of an arrogant, self-absorbed liberal asshole in the White House to undo the best form of government the world has ever seen.

We made it through the dark days of Jimmy Carter.....this too, shall pass.


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## LongKnife56 (Sep 9, 2008)

It's early afternoon. Pelosi's still a vote short of the needed 218.

Here's an another article about how they woke up in New Zealand suspended their recently passed cap and trade and how they are waking up in Australia.

Obama's numbers are turning down and hopefully enough will wake up here before too much more harm is done. It should be possible to reverse what's been done so far, but if he gets this carbon tax and nationalizes health care it will be tough.

the good news is that if this goes through only Obama's supporters like Soros and the Holllywood elite and plaintiff lawyers will still be making over $250,000 a year so they are the ones that will have to pay this tax. We'll just ave to suffer the effects in our unheated, unlit huts.

Strassel: The Climate Change Climate Change - WSJ.com

Steve Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure him on the science of man-made global warming. When the administration proved unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change legislation.
If you haven't heard of this politician, it's because he's a member of the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing to kill its own country's carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again doubt the science of human-caused global warming.







Associated Press Steve Fielding

Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.
In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of the population believes humans play a role. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country's new ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old cap-and-trade program.
The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists' open letter.)
The collapse of the "consensus" has been driven by reality. The inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures have flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.
Credit for Australia's own era of renewed enlightenment goes to Dr. Ian Plimer, a well-known Australian geologist. Earlier this year he published "Heaven and Earth," a damning critique of the "evidence" underpinning man-made global warming. The book is already in its fifth printing. So compelling is it that Paul Sheehan, a noted Australian columnist -- and ardent global warming believer -- in April humbly pronounced it "an evidence-based attack on conformity and orthodoxy, including my own, and a reminder to respect informed dissent and beware of ideology subverting evidence." Australian polls have shown a sharp uptick in public skepticism; the press is back to questioning scientific dogma; blogs are having a field day.
The rise in skepticism also came as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, elected like Mr. Obama on promises to combat global warming, was attempting his own emissions-reduction scheme. His administration was forced to delay the implementation of the program until at least 2011, just to get the legislation through Australia's House. The Senate was not so easily swayed.
Mr. Fielding, a crucial vote on the bill, was so alarmed by the renewed science debate that he made a fact-finding trip to the U.S., attending the Heartland Institute's annual conference for climate skeptics. He also visited with Joseph Aldy, Mr. Obama's special assistant on energy and the environment, where he challenged the Obama team to address his doubts. They apparently didn't.
This week Mr. Fielding issued a statement: He would not be voting for the bill. He would not risk job losses on "unconvincing green science." The bill is set to founder as the Australian parliament breaks for the winter.
Republicans in the U.S. have, in recent years, turned ever more to the cost arguments against climate legislation. That's made sense in light of the economic crisis. If Speaker Nancy Pelosi fails to push through her bill, it will be because rural and Blue Dog Democrats fret about the economic ramifications. Yet if the rest of the world is any indication, now might be the time for U.S. politicians to re-engage on the science. One thing for sure: They won't be alone.


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## Garda79 (Jun 19, 2009)

ok simple economics. When you are taking in less revenue you cut back spending. These Democrat pols just dont get it. by raising taxes on the state and federal level they are just going to force people to tighten their wallets. All my buddies that live on the North Shore already go to NH to avoid paying certain mass taxes. You would think that instead of raising from 5 to 6.25 they would try and keep people here rather than make it that much more of a savings to take your business across state lines.


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## edward.lee8 (Oct 17, 2005)

didn't one governor send unmarked cruisers to write down the mass plates in the NH stores?

there is allready some sort of tax action with a tire store. people bought tires in NH and when they sent in thier warranty cards with a mass address Mass wanted a sales tax from the NH store.
Just when you think this place couldn't get any worse.


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## justanotherparatrooper (Aug 27, 2006)

edward.lee8 said:


> didn't one governor send unmarked cruisers to write down the mass plates in the NH stores?
> 
> there is allready some sort of tax action with a tire store. people bought tires in NH and when they sent in thier warranty cards with a mass address Mass wanted a sales tax from the NH store.
> Just when you think this place couldn't get any worse.


 I believe that was KIng that tried that and our governor Thompson threatened to arrest any Ma officers caugt doing that in NH


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## DoD102 (Sep 9, 2004)

Ya ever just feel NUMB???


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## justanotherparatrooper (Aug 27, 2006)

DoD102 said:


> Ya ever just feel NUMB???


 We are at a tipping point....keep your powder dry folks


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## dcs2244 (Jan 29, 2004)

Eight "republicans" went over to the dark side...but 20 "democrats" walked into the light!? :woot:


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## Garda79 (Jun 19, 2009)

I think the solution to people going out of state would be to just level the playing field and stop making it profitable. Trying to prevent people in my opinion is just chasing good money after bad. Hopefully Patrick will get voted out and it wont take the new governor too long to undue the mess he is creating in Mass. What I will never understand is why all the unions backed him. From what I have been hearing the contracts he has been signing havent been that labor friendly.


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## Kilvinsky (Jan 15, 2007)

Delta784 said:


> We made it through the dark days of Jimmy Carter.....this too, shall pass.


Just like a kidney stone, it'll pass, painfully, but it'll pass.


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## LongKnife56 (Sep 9, 2008)

It's too late in the house, but not the Senate. This bill and the looming healthcare one are two that it is very absolutely critical that everyone contact their politicians (even the useless ones like Fat Ted and John effing).


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## Kilvinsky (Jan 15, 2007)

I'm thinking that at this stage in the game, especially with Al FRANKIN (did I spell his name wrong? Do I CARE?) in the Senate, that even buying a real good butt plug won't save anyone. You're going to get it up the poop chute no matter how you look at it.

I heard Rush Limbaugh speaking on this the other day and I got very scared at the long term effects of this damn thing. 

Damn the Democrats, damn them all to hell....maybe not Joe Liberman.

Oh wait, didn't he leave the party? Well, save him anyway Lord, he's got a brain in his head, no matter what party he belongs to.


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## Guest (Jul 1, 2009)

Kilvinsky said:


> Damn the Democrats, damn them all to hell....maybe not Joe Liberman.
> 
> Oh wait, didn't he leave the party?


Yup....he's Independent.


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