When the world was still flat contemporary maps of the great ocean to the west of Europe showed a distant point offshore and noted "Beyond here there be dragons."
That warning well applies to a voyage Congress is about to launch — the infamous cap and trade bill — a peril-laden excursion into a fiscal and regulatory nightmare rife with the fearsome dragons of excess government control and crushing financial burdens on America's families.
It is Ballyhooed as a measure designed to somehow "sequester" co2 — though they haven't quite yet figured out how.
In order to prevent this life-giving gas, upon which the health of plant life depends, from allegedly contributing to an imaginary warming of a planet that is actually cooling, it would in fact impose economy-destroying costs and tyrannical regulatory restrictions on the backs of the American people.
It would take us back to the horse and buggy days and have us shivering in the dark.
Essentially, cap and trade legislation would set a limit, or cap, on carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel use, effectively imposing rationing of coal, oil, and natural gas on the American economy.
Aside from the fact that beyond computer models manipulated to produce the results desired by the anthropologic global warming (AGW) alarmists, there is not a shred of scientific evidence that carbon dioxide does anything but keep plant life and agricultural produce healthy.
Yet in pursuit of their determination to deal with a non-existent threat, the Obama administration, their allies in congress, and the heavy breathing acolytes of Al Gore are bound and determined to shove this disastrous cap and trade measure down our throats.
The annual cost to every American family is estimated to be an additional $3,000.
During the election campaign even Barack Obama admitted it would cause your electric bill alone to "skyrocket" — his word, not mine.
Writing in the Fort Worth Star Telegram on April 11, 2009, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, noted, “[Cap and trade] is being sold as a way to save the planet by taxing ‘emitters,’ but it will kill the economy and decimate your family’s budget.”
He cited an analysis that showed the staggering effects of cap and trade legislation: Job losses between 1.8 and 7 million; Family tax increases between $739 and $6,752; increases in costs of electricity between 44 percent and 129 percent; gas price increases at the pump between .61 cents and $2.53 per gallon; and increases in the price of natural gas of between 108 percent to 146 percent.
House Republican Leader John Boehner warns “The Waxman-Markey bill will raise taxes on every American who drives a car, buys a product manufactured in the United States, or has the audacity to flip on a light switch.
"For proof of cap-and-trade’s folly, look no further than Europe, where the scheme hurt the economy, drove up energy costs, and failed to cut carbon emissions at all."
Added Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., "My fear, my belief, is this is an intentional move to deceive us so we're not allowed to do the cost-benefit analysis. This bill is the largest assault on democracy and freedom on this country that I've ever experienced. "
In an all-out effort to keep cap and trade alive, President Obama met Tuesday morning with Democratic House members of the Energy and Commerce Committee thought to be reluctant on passing the cap and trade bill, urging them to support it.
Clearly the full weight of the Obama White House is behind the bill and they will do everything in their power to jam it through. They must be stopped!
Nancy J. Thorner, in Just another WordPress.Com weblog, writes: "At a time when many Americans are being indoctrinated in a belief system based on a political agenda rather than science, it becomes the responsibility of those who have not drunk the global warming Kool-Aid to question and to confront those who are pushing global warming propaganda.
"Proposed climate change legislation that seeks to limit coal, oil and nuclear as sources of energy must be opposed in mass by the American people, unless they view with fondness the horse and buggy days. Not to do so would mean a victory for global warming alarmists and their agenda."
This a battle we cannot afford to lose.
Here's an immediate crisis those hundreds of thousands of good folks who rallied at the tea parties on April 15 all across America can address.
They need to warn members of the House that a vote for the cap-and-trade bill will be a vote that will cause them to lose their seats in Congress next year. Let them know that can count on that.
Remember, beyond cap and trade legislation there be dragons with very sharp teeth.
Phil Brennan writes for Newsmax.com. He is editor and publisher of Wednesday on the Web (www.pvbr.com) and was Washington columnist (Cato) for National Review magazine in the 1960s. He is a trustee of the Lincoln Heritage Institute and a member of the Association For Intelligence Officers. He can be reached at [email protected].
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.