Cap and Trade Tax Could Cost 2 Million Jobs

By Bob Ellis on August 14th, 2009

j0400417A new study confirms how asinine is the cap and trade global warming tax which was passed by the House and has gone to the Senate for consideration.

The Hill reports:

The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the American Council for Capital Formation (ACCF) released a study Wednesday that found under a high-cost scenario the House global warming bill could reduce economic growth by 2.4 percent and cost 2 million jobs by 2030.

That is a huge number of jobs, and this isn’t the only study which predicts the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs a year.  We couldn’t afford such losses even in prime economic health, and we certainly can’t now or for the foreseeable future.

The article points out that environmental extremists claim some jobs could be replaced by “climate-friendly sources of power,” yet this holds little water. You can’t just wave a wand and pop new and climate-friendly power sources into existence; no major innovations of this nature are anywhere on the horizon…and people need jobs NOW, not just on the horizon. Solar power has been around for decades…and has amounted to little. Wind power is highly expensive to put in place and is unreliable when the wind will not cooperate. And while we could certainly use more nuclear power plants, environmental extremists balk over those, too.

The U.S. House already passed this hostile act against the American people. It now sits in the Senate…where hopefully for the sake of the American people it may die (if the people make sure their senators know they will not tolerate this act of aggression against them).

The cap and trade bill is contained with incredible amounts of junk including indecipherable passages, shower Nazis, calling for environmental inspections and retrofitting before you can sell your home, and a host of other unpleasant garbage.

It will damage our nation’s already-strained refining capacity, cost thousands of jobs, threaten much-needed power plant development, and raise our electric bills more than 40%.

Even the government admits that at best it might only lower global temperatures 9/100ths of one degree over the next 40 years.  This measure is transparently more about wealth redistribution than about fighting some imaginary global warming problem.

This handicapping measure is all the more ludicrous when you consider that the theory of anthropogenic global warming is based on some very sloppy and shallow “science.” All the most reliable evidence points to natural and cyclic causes of global climate change.

No, this cap and trade tax is such a bad idea, so devastating to American prosperity, it would be more apt to call it the Throat Cutting Tax.

Note: Reader comments are reviewed before publishing, and only salient comments that add to the topic will be published. Profanity is absolutely not allowed and will be summarily deleted. Spam, copied statements and other material not comprised of the reader’s own opinion will also be deleted.

Powered By Wordpress Tabs Slides
  • Digg
  • Yahoo Buzz
  • Reddit
  • Yahoo Bookmarks
  • Delicious
  • StumbleUpon
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Windows Live Favorites
  • Technorati Favorites
  • NewsVine
  • Share/Bookmark

Categories: Commentary
Tags: , , ,

  • Mike
    Mr. Ellis, I am curious where you get your information from. You make a number of absurd claims in this article. First, claim that clean energy jobs won’t replace fossil-fuel jobs, leading to job loss, because “you can’t just wave a wand.” Logically, we cannot eliminate any old jobs until the new are in place. We cannot simply take coal-fired power plants offline and wait for a solution. The solution must already be in place (i.e. we will have clean energy job growth) before we start loosing fossil-fuel jobs. You’re right, people need jobs now and this bill will provide them. Clean energy jobs are already growing in South Dakota. At a rate of 93.4% between 1998 and 2007 in fact (the rest of the economy grew 4.9% in the same time span). The clean energy bill will ensure this growth continues.

    You call global warming “sloppy and shallow science” and claim there is “more reliable” evidence arguing against it. I question your definition of sloppy and shallow. Very few articles have ever been published in legitimate peer-reviewed science journals arguing against global warming. Go pick up a copy of any respected journal and read the articles. Getting science from biased websites is “shallow and sloppy,” reading the most respected scientific journals is not.
  • There are plenty of links to this information contained right in this article, for those with eyes to see and ears to hear. I guarantee you that if you take a close, objective look at the information--how fantastically theoretical the idea of anthropogenic global warming is, and how compelling the evidence for natural and cyclic climate change is--you'll be angry that these hucksters have lied so brazenly to you.
  • Mike
    You have only links to media outlets, not scientific articles. One does discuss the May article in Geophysical Research Letters, but other than that I'm not sure where you're coming from. Truly, basing your argument one single recent article that has not had time to be closely examined is "shallow and sloppy," so I would presume you have some other source. Calling the world's best scientists "hucksters" is utterly absurd. For sure, scientists are not always correct, but they are at least attempting for objectivity in their studies. Once again I submit that the overwhelmingly overwhelming majority of peer-reviewed journal articles agree that climate change is man-induced (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/...)
  • (Sigh) I tried. And I did say it was obvious "for those with eyes to see."
  • Steven Riley
    I have read many opinions by many people and have seen inteliigent responses on this forum. I myself have re-examined some of my initial comments and changed my mind after reading your responses. And learned some things. But one thing I have noticed is that you Bob never are in error or admit there may be other possible answers to a problem if it doesn't go along with what you believe. Not once in hundreds of responses have you ever even hinted that even one small item you believe to be true, may in fact be in error.
    That ranges from politics to science to history to religion

    I know of no man who can make that claim. This is not a personal attack but an objective observance. Check back on the hundreds of statements you have made and see if not just once you have admiited the slightest of mistakes. You won't find it. Doesn't that strike you as odd ?The comment that I expect to hear next would be something like 'I have made many mistakes in the past'. Doesn't that mean that you would at least make one or be wrong once on this forum here and now?
  • I admit I'm not wrong often, and I'm sorry if that's a problem for you. I do make mistakes from time to time, but I try very hard to know what I'm talking about.

    If you examined (a) the entirety of what goes on in public discourse, (b) what I talk about here, and (c) what I DON'T talk about here, you'll notice there are a lot of things I DON'T discuss. Things I'm not very sure of, I continue to investigate or knock around in my own head until I AM certain what is right.

    Some folks don't bother to research, investigate, mediate and/or ponder facts and issues, and just shoot off their mouth (or keyboard) not knowing what they're talking about. There are plenty of things I don't know, but I keep my mouth shut about them until I do.

    I hope that helps.
blog comments powered by Disqus
« »