The Congress voted to kill the American economy today when it narrowly passed, by a vote of 219-121, the Waxman Markey Cap and Tax bill (HR 2454) that will cost an American family of 4 in 2035 over $6,000 in carbon taxes. It will kill two jobs for every “green” job it says it will create. 2.5 Million jobs will be lost every year for ten years.
It will cost the American economy $161B in 2020, alone, before the heavy duty restrictions and government interference demanded by the Democratic Stalinists. California’s building codes will be enforced on every State and city in the country. You won’t be able to sell your home without paying for an energy audit. Cities will have to redraw all their codes and pay extra for new staff. The costs of homes will make them unaffordable.
The Block Grant Program will affect all CDBG grants. Installation of any solar systems will create new federally mandated code enforcement charges cities must charge. The Dept of Energy will prohibit any homeowners association private covenants. Government to provide money for water saving services the Government demands you buy. It will force companies to ship jobs overseas. The government will dictate to homebuilders where outlets should be to charge electric cars. Energy audits must be paid for before and after any home improvement to make sure you garage remodel increases energy efficiency.
The government will regulate what kind of appliances you can have in your home. More money to Fannie Mae to launch another credit meltdown to meet goals for “energy efficient mortgages,” and enforce new building codes across the country. The government will decide what’s green, not people, to develop its autocratic audits and green building rating system. Federal revision of real estate appraisal standards and practices so they can “properly appraise” your property. Appraisers will get to pay their own way to get their certifications and licensing.
Meddle in oerign ecnomies by limiting imports that don’t meet green regulations. That will cause a trade war.
The 1,200 page bill and 309 page amendment (that dropped at 3:09 a.m. that no one read) will raise a massive government bureaucracy that will include but not be limited to, the:
Federal Regulatory Commission
Agriculture Dept
IRS
Dept of Treasury
FWF
Housing and Urban Development
Fammie Mae
Freddie Mac
Banking Commission
Commodity Futures Trading Commission
National Oceanographic Dept
USDA
Dept Health and Human Services
State Dept
Energy Dept
Labor Dept
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Bureau of Land Management
Dept of Indian Affairs
General Accountability Office
Offsets Integrity Advisory Board
Carbon Oversight Interagency Group to plant trees overseas
Consumer Refund Board
International Reserve
Domestic Offset Providers Commission
National Offset Providers
Clean Vehicle Technical Advisory Board
Carbon Capture Board
EPA
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Ron Paul’s office has confirmed that the House vote was FINAL. The Senate is the last battleground.
Cap and Trade Will Lead to Capital Flight
By Ron Paul
Published 06/29/09
In my last column, I joked that with public spending out of control and the piling on of the international bailout bill, economic collapse seems to be the goal of Congress. It is getting harder to joke about such a thing however, as the non-partisan General Accounting Office (GAO) has estimated that the administration’s health care plan would actually cost over a trillion dollars. This reality check may have given us a temporary reprieve on this particular disastrous policy, however an equally disastrous energy policy reared its ugly head on Capitol Hill last week.
The Cap and Trade Bill HR 2454 was voted on last Friday. Proponents claim this bill will help the environment, but what it really does is put another nail in the economy’s coffin. The idea is to establish a national level of carbon dioxide emissions, and sell pollution permits to industry as the Catholic Church used to sell indulgences to sinners. HR 2454 also gives federal bureaucrats new power to regulate a wide variety of household appliances, such as light bulbs and refrigerators, and further distorts the market by providing more of your tax money to auto companies.
The administration has pointed to Spain as a shining example of this type of progressive energy policy. Spain has been massively diverting capital from the private sector into politically favored environmental projects for the better part of a decade, and many in Washington apparently like what they see. However, under no circumstances should anyone serious about economic recovery emulate an economy that is now approaching 20 percent unemployment, where every green job created, eliminated 2.2 real jobs and cost around $800,000 each!
The real inconvenient truth is that the cost of government regulations, taxes, fees, red tape and bureaucracy is a considerable expense that has to be considered when companies decide where to do business and how many people they can afford to hire. Increasing governmental burden directly causes capital flight and job losses, as Spain has learned. In this global economy its easy enough for businesses to relocate to countries that are more politically friendly to economic growth. If our government continues to kick the economy while its down, it will be a long time before it gets back up. In fact, jobs are much more likely to go overseas, compounding our problems.
And for what? Contrary to claims repeated over and over, there is no consensus in the scientific community that global warming is getting worse or that it is manmade. In fact over 30,000 scientists signed a petition recently directly disputing the claims on which this policy is based. Legitimate environmental claims should instead be directed towards the public sector. The government, especially the military, is the most serious polluter in the country, and is exempt from most EPA regulations. Meanwhile Washington bureaucrats have classified the very air we exhale as a pollutant and have gone unchallenged in this incredible assertion. The logical consequence is that there will come a time when we will have to buy a government permit just to emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from our own lungs!
The events on Capitol Hill last week just demonstrate Washington’s audacity in manufacturing problems just so they can expand government power to solve them.
http://www.infowars.com/cap-and-tr8tors-can-change-vote-by-july-2-deadline/
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090626/ap_on_go_co/us_climate_bill_quotes
33 character limit to headlines, sorry. I make up for it in the title tag. good eye.
The House of Representatives voted today not Congress. Congress has two bodies, the House of Representatives and the Senate only one body voted today.