Capping Our Freedom, Trading Our Liberty

This past Friday - June 26, 2009 - the U.S. House of Representatives passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, more commonly known as the cap-and-trade bill. First introduced last March by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), the bill - if passed into law - would seek to limit carbon emissions from so-called "polluters" by allowing them to emit only so much carbon as they pay for in carbon credits, And the number of available carbon credits would decrease steadily year by year. The overall intent being to limit the amount of carbon emitted into the Earth's atmosphere in an attempt to curb the alleged problem of global warming.

So, what we have here is an effective corporate tax increase that will adversely affect a wide array of industries. A tax increase based on pseudo-science. A tax increase that will be paid for not by the targeted corporations, but by the consumers. For that is how all corporate taxes are ultimately paid - by way of higher prices on the products they produce for commercial sale.

This article from The Wall Street Journal, published back on March 9, 2009, explains it quite well:

The Congressional Budget Office -- Mr. Orszag's [Peter Orzag, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget] former roost -- estimates that the price hikes from a 15% cut in emissions would cost the average household in the bottom-income quintile about 3.3% of its after-tax income every year. That's about $680, not including the costs of reduced employment and output. The three middle quintiles would see their paychecks cut between $880 and $1,500, or 2.9% to 2.7% of income. The rich would pay 1.7%. Cap and trade is the ideal policy for every Beltway analyst who thinks the tax code is too progressive (all five of them).

But wait, there's more! Not only will poor, working-class, and middle-class Americans bear the brunt of this disastrous tax increase, it is mostly Red States that will have to pay up. States the Journal:

But the greatest inequities are geographic and would be imposed on the parts of the U.S. that rely most on manufacturing or fossil fuels -- particularly coal, which generates most power in the Midwest, Southern and Plains states. It's no coincidence that the liberals most invested in cap and trade -- Barbara Boxer, Henry Waxman, Ed Markey -- come from California or the Northeast.

And here's a handy statistical chart from the Journal to drive the point home:


What cap-and-trade is is an effective highway robbery of Red America by Blue America. And you can rest assured that Congressmen Waxman and Markey are fully aware of that fact and do not give a damn. After all, their side prevailed last November, and to the victor go the spoils.

House Republican leader John Boehner's assessment of the bill is accurate, if earthy. Most Republicans, save eight foolish RINOs (Republicans-In-Name-Only), voted against this travesty, as did over forty sensible Democrats. The eight RINOs were Mary Bono Mack (CA), Michael N. Castle (DE), Mark Kirk (IL), Leonard Lance (NJ), Frank LoBiondo (NJ), John McHugh (NY), Dave Reichert (WA), Christopher Smith (NJ). Robert Stacy McCain has found out the likely reason one of those turncoats, John McHugh, voted for the bill: Barack Obama nominated him to be the new Secretary of the Army. Enjoy your thirty pieces of silver, Johnny.

I recall this verse from American Senryu, written by James Day Hodgson, a former U.S. Ambassador to Japan:

Vagaries of life
Lie well beyond man's control -
Not so its living.

Hodgson explains:

Life's experiences are framed by forces that often lie outside our personal control. Yet by bringing our own raison d'être to living our lives, each of us can avoid entrapment of the human spirit by these forces. Forces that bear on life may inhibit. Living it our own way frees.

But statists like Henry Waxman, Ed Markey, Barack Obama, and most members and supporters of the contemporary Democratic Party do not want us to live our lives in our own way. They want us to live our lives their way, while making us pay for the supposed privilege. Well, if they intend to take my money to pay for their fanciful, Utopian scheme, I have a four-word response that echoes across one hundred seventy-four years of Texan history: come and take it.