Obama’s War on the Economy

That’s way too big a topic for one post, obviously. So let’s just focus on one front in Obama’s war: the carbon cap and trade plan that will penalize all American companies and consumers and reduce everyone’s standard of living. The George C. Marshall Institute has done a thorough review of analyses, from various sources, of the consequences of carbon tax proposals. The conclusions are sobering:

Our calculations suggest that consumption under the constraints posed by Lieberman-Warner’s cap-and-trade regime is equivalent to a constant (in percentage terms) consumption decrease of around 0.8%-1% each year, starting today and continuing to 2050. At first glance, a consumption decrease of one percent may appear trivial. However, as the 1% per year decreases compound, the welfare losses are substantial in the aggregate. …

We find that a mitigation path consistent with Lieberman-Warner’s provisions is equivalent to a permanent tax increase for the average American household. This increase is projected to amount to an additional $1100 in taxes in 2008. Moreover, this cap-and-trade “tax” increases over time in real terms from about $1400 to $2000 during 2015-2030 and approximately $2000 to $3000 in 2030-2050. The de facto tax increase becomes quite significant when one considers the average American household spends about $2500 on food annually….

Cap-and-trade will burden households with higher gasoline prices. Table 8 shows the percent difference between the baseline gasoline price and the cap-and-trade adjusted price. All models and scenarios demonstrate that Lieberman-Warner will increase the price of gasoline above the reference scenario price but with large amounts of variation. The CRA predicts that gas prices rise 145% above the reference scenario in 2015. …

The assumptions driving the price of carbon allowances also affect employment. A higher predicted carbon allowance price gives producers a tighter margin and they are forced to shed jobs to maintain profit levels. The estimates of job losses range from hundreds of thousands to millions.

Emphasis added. The harmful consequences of the Democrats’ cap and trade legislation are especially tragic in view of the fact that it will have no perceptible impact on the world’s climate. Here are a few facts about the “pollutant” carbon dioxide–the only “pollutant,” to my knowledge, that is necessary to human, animal and plant life:

First, do you know that carbon dioxide (CO2) in our atmosphere is
Þ only slightly more than 1/3rd of 1/10th of 1 percent?
Þ just recovering from the lowest level in the history of the earth?
Þ the source of carbon for all life forms, on land or in the sea?
Þ only slightly above the suffocation level for green plants?
Þ a fraction of the level for which evolution designed plants?
Þ so low as to cause some people breathing problems?
Þ increased by 130 times and more when administered to sick patients?
Þ considered, thanks to Al Gore, a pollutant by the U.S. Supreme Court?

Over the last 350 million years CO2 has varied by 10 fold, approximately 250 ppm to 2,500 ppm with an average level of 1,500 ppm. This average level happens to be the optimum level for plants, it seems by evolutionary design, and is the reason that this level of CO2 is used in greenhouses Since plants and animals evolved together it’s likely that humans also evolved to function best at some higher level. However, at 380 ppm we are not far from the lower end of that 10 fold range.

Bernie Madoff perpetrated a fraud that reportedly cost investors $50 billion. But the damage done by that fraud was trivial compared to the anthropogenic global warming fraud that Al Gore, James Hansen and others have perpetrated.

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