Obama's CRAP and Trade Program - Carbon Neutral? Definitely not Job Neutral...

from Democrat = Socialist
March 17, 2009

Thomas J. Pyle makes a very good attempt to reason with the unreasonable, climate cultist or as I like to call them, idiots.

Still, a growing number of economists — left, right, and middle — agree that a straight carbon tax makes more sense than cap and trade. Their fundamental contention is that it’s more transparent, more understandable, and subject to less political manipulation than a purposefully opaque, intentionally unwieldy cap-and-trade regime. All good points. And irrelevant ones.

Why? Because the carbon tax is being sold as a means to reduce the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide, and thus to slow the pace and intensity of our world’s changing climate. But America’s share of the world’s total CO2 emissions is getting smaller and smaller by the year, as developing nations’ share continues to grow. The trend lines are so pronounced that if the U.S. were to halt its use of hydrocarbons today, the increase in carbon emissions from the rest of the world would replace our emissions in fewer than eight years. If we adopted a more modest approach - ban all cars, for instance - the rest of the world would replace our transportation emissions in less than two years.

And since Congress is powerless to levy a carbon tax on other countries, a unilateral, preemptive strike on carbon would only erode our ability to compete economically, without doing anything meaningful thing to change the composition of our air or the quality of our environment.

China and India will be happy to meet us half-way on at least one crucial consideration: they’re more than willing to take the jobs America hemorrhages if we go it alone on carbon taxation. Government accountants can call the plan “budget neutral,” but the labor department’s monthly unemployment reports will have the final say on whether it is “job neutral.”

Are the American people willing — or able — to set aside trillions of dollars to support a plan that cannot work without global participation? The very least we should expect from our elected leaders is a grown-up discussion about what it will all cost, what we’ll get in return, and whether or not we can afford it right now. Or ever.

Do us all a favor, and forward this to that silly hippie in your life or that kid you’ve got in college currently at the trough of liberal indoctrination.
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