Apologies Forthcoming?
The Lady Logician has jumped all over John Reilly’s admitting that his estimate on how much the Democrats’ Cap and Trade tax increase costs in this post. This information hits at the heart of Democrats’ misinformation campaign:
While $800 is significantly more than Reilly’s original estimate of $215 (not to mention more than Obama’s middle-class tax cut), it turns out that Reilly is still low-balling the cost of cap and trade by using some fuzzy logic. In reality, cap and trade could cost the average household more than $3,900 per year.
The $800 paid annually per household is merely the “cost to the economy [that] involves all those actions people have to take to reduce their use of fossil fuels or find ways to use them without releasing [Green House Gases],” Reilly wrote. “So that might involve spending money on insulating your home, or buying a more expensive hybrid vehicle to drive, or electric utilities substituting gas (or wind, nuclear, or solar) instead of coal in power generation, or industry investing in more efficient motors or production processes, etc. with all of these things ending up reflected in the costs of good and services in the economy.”
In other words, Reilly estimates that “the amount of tax collected” through companies would equal $3,128 per household–and “Those costs do get passed to consumers and income earners…
In other words, Reilly’s estimated cost ignores costs that will be incurred AND it assumes something that isn’t provable, namely that this Demmocratic congress will return the $3,128 in the form of a tax rebate. The Lady Logician also included this important admonition to the post:
The Tax Day Tea Parties were just the beginning. Now is the time for every citizen to make sure that their legislator (state and federal) hears from them regularly - whether they agree with you or not! Make sure that the will of the voters are known in St. Paul, Salt Lake City and Washington DC! Make sure that your cap and trade supporting governors like Pawlenty and Huntsman know that you are NOT PLEASED with their signing on to a scheme that will take more and more of your hard earned tax dollars away from the more important things like private charity and your own family.
There’s no such thing as an acceptable green tax increase. P-E-R-I-O-D. It’s even more repulsive to think that these governors are thinking about it in the current economic climate. Let’s hope We The People can influence these governors’ policies.
Captain Ed is all over this, too:
In order to believe that the Obama-predicted revenues pulled out of the energy industry won’t impact the consumer, either one has to believe that energy producers won’t pass along those costs in price hikes (which is ridiculous), or that the Obama administration envisions a profit-sharing plan in which the money all goes back to the consumers. The latter is equally ridiculous, and demonstrably so. In the first place, Obama has already hiked federal spending $400 billion in the next fiscal year, and even his own OMB predicts trillion-dollar deficits for the next decade after that. Massive rebates might sound great to Republicans, but Democrats will never, ever agree to them. In any case, with these deficits, the money for rebates technically doesn’t exist.
Besides, the money has already been earmarked. Obama himself said he would use the money for massive government expenditures on renewables research. Other Democrats counted on the money to fund health-care reform. No one in the administration or Congress ever envisioned giving the money back to the consumers, directly or even indirectly.
Majority Democrats howled when Republicans told the American people how much President Obama’s and Congressional Democrats’ Cap and Trade program would cost each family. These Democrats, led by Prime Minister Pelosi, called Republicans liars for citing the $3,900 figure. Will they now offer a public apology for calling Republicans liars after having their disastrous tax policies exposed? Anything can happen but I’m not holding my breath waiting for Pelosi’s Democrats to do the right thing.
Pelosi’s Democrats admitting that they demagogued an environmental issue would represent a change in direction. It would also be proof that miracles can happen.
Technorati Tags: Taxes, Cap And Trade, John Reilly, MIT, Speaker Pelosi, President Obama, Tax Increases, Democrats, Jon Huntsman, Tim Pawlenty, Republicans
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog