Cap & Tax Update - Something You Can Do - Please Join Us

We are setting up local "tea parties" across the country. These are designed to show the senators our displeasure with the cap and tax legislation. Please go to your Senator's local office on Friday at noon to have your voice heard.


* When: The protest will take place on July 17th at 12:00 noon.
* Where: Simultaneous protests will take place at Senatorial offices around the country Calling all patriots!
The Senate will be voting on "Cap and Trade" and nationalized health care in the coming weeks. We need to try harder than ever before to stop these oppressive policies from being signed into law! Get out there and remind your elected officials that the government works for you and if they stop working for you, then you will “Vote Them Out”! Less Spending. More Freedom. Let’s show our elected officials that we are NOT in support of passing legislation that would result in the largest tax increases in our history. Not only will these policies steal our hard earned money, they will also take away something more precious…our freedom.

Sarah is Stepping Out and Speaking Out

It is a shame that the campaign didn't let her make more speeches on energy last year. Maybe she would not have been type-casted as stupid.

By Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK)There is no shortage of threats to our economy. America's unemployment rate recently hit its highest mark in more than 25 years and is expected to continue climbing. Worries are widespread that even when the economy finally rebounds, the recovery won't bring jobs. Our nation's debt is unsustainable, and the federal government's reach into the private sector is unprecedented.

Unfortunately, many in the national media would rather focus on the personality-driven political gossip of the day than on the gravity of these challenges. So, at risk of disappointing the chattering class, let me make clear what is foremost on my mind and where my focus will be:

I am deeply concerned about President Obama's cap-and-trade energy plan, and I believe it is an enormous threat to our economy. It would undermine our recovery over the short term and would inflict permanent damage.

American prosperity has always been driven by the steady supply of abundant, affordable energy.Particularly in Alaska, we understand the inherent link between energy and prosperity, energy and opportunity, and energy and security. Consequently, many of us in this huge, energy-rich state recognize that the president's cap-and-trade energy tax would adversely affect every aspect of the U.S. economy.

There is no denying that as the world becomes more industrialized, we need to reform our energy policy and become less dependent on foreign energy sources. But the answer doesn't lie in making energy scarcer and more expensive! Those who understand the issue know we can meet our energy needs and environmental challenges without destroying America's economy.

Job losses are so certain under this new cap-and-tax plan that it includes a provision accommodating newly unemployed workers from the resulting dried-up energy sector, to the tune of $4.2 billion over eight years. So much for creating jobs.

In addition to immediately increasing unemployment in the energy sector, even more American jobs will be threatened by the rising cost of doing business under the cap-and-tax plan. For example, the cost of farming will certainly increase, driving down farm incomes while driving up grocery prices. The costs of manufacturing, warehousing and transportation will also increase.

The ironic beauty in this plan? Soon, even the most ardent liberal will understand supply-side economics.

The Americans hit hardest will be those already struggling to make ends meet. As the president eloquently puts it, their electricity bills will "necessarily skyrocket." So much for not raising taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year.

Even Warren Buffett, an ardent Obama supporter, admitted that under the cap-and-tax scheme, "poor people are going to pay a lot more for electricity.

"We must move in a new direction. We are ripe for economic growth and energy independence if we responsibly tap the resources that God created right underfoot on American soil. Just as important, we have more desire and ability to protect the environment than any foreign nation from which we purchase energy today.

In Alaska, we are progressing on the largest private-sector energy project in history. Our 3,000-mile natural gas pipeline will transport hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of our clean natural gas to hungry markets across America. We can safely drill for U.S. oil offshore and in a tiny, 2,000-acre corner of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge if ever given the go-ahead by Washington bureaucrats.

Of course, Alaska is not the sole source of American energy. Many states have abundant coal, whose technology is continuously making it into a cleaner energy source. Westerners literally sit on mountains of oil and gas, and every state can consider the possibility of nuclear energy.

We have an important choice to make. Do we want to control our energy supply and its environmental impact? Or, do we want to outsource it to China, Russia and Saudi Arabia? Make no mistake: President Obama's plan will result in the latter.

For so many reasons, we can't afford to kill responsible domestic energy production or clobber every American consumer with higher prices.Can America produce more of its own energy through strategic investments that protect the environment, revive our economy and secure our nation? Yes, we can. Just not with Barack Obama's energy cap-and-tax plan.


URL: http://tinyurl.com/ludeob

Cap & Tax 8 Update.

Illinois Rep. Mark Kirk (R) will not run for the open seat of Sen. Roland Burris (D) in 2010, a stunning reversal from just 48 hours ago when Kirk signaled to National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn (Texas) that he would make the race.
Kirk’s decision, a blow to Senate Republicans’ chances in Illinois, came in the wake of Burris’ formal retirement this afternoon.
It also followed a meeting of the Illinois Republican congressional delegation on Thursday in which his colleagues refused to back Kirk in a primary against Illinois Republican Party Chairman Andy McKenna due, in large part, to his vote in favor of President Barack Obama’s climate change bill.

See Ya - We don't Need Ya

From Michelle Malkin

Cap & Tax 8 - It is time for you to go

Here is a letter that I will be sending to Chairman Steele. I will be sending to NRCC Chairman Sessions, and to the now infamous Cap & Tax 8. My plan is to hand deliver copies to the Cap & Tax 8. Please join me in sending these letters. They need to know that we are mad as hell and won't take it anymore.


Michael Steele
Republican National Committee, Chairman
301 First Street, SE
Washington, DC 20003

Dear Chairman Steele:

I am very disturbed about the Cap & Tax bill that recently passed in the house. As you are aware, this bill is going to be very damaging to pocketbooks of all Americans. As a donor to the RNC I am on your e-mail list. I did not receive an e-mail from you when this bill was going up for a vote. I feel that your office has fallen down on your responsibilities to keep us aware of what is going on.
This bill is nothing more than yet another tax on Americans that we cannot afford. We are being taxed to death and are quickly becoming servants to the government that is supposed to be working for We the People. The congressmen who voted for this bill have forgotten who they work for. Me.
Above and beyond that transgression what is the most disturbing is the fact that this tax would not have passed without the help of 8 so called republicans:
Chris Smith – NJ has had a consistent record of voting with the democrats since they have taken control of the house.
Dave Reichert – WA has many union affiliations and liberal voting record.
Mary Bono-Mack – CA has more liberal leanings based on her voting record.
Mark Kirk – IL plans on running for a seat in the US Senate.
John McHugh – NY voted yes on stimulus package, a badge of shame.
Frank Lobiondo – NJ who wrongly considers himself part of the Reagan Revolution. President Reagan never would have voted for such a bill.
Leonard Lance – NJ ran on a platform of fiscal responsibility. There is nothing fiscally responsible about this bill.
Mike Castle – DE has a liberal voting record. It is time for him to find another line of work, or join the ranks of Senator Specter.
These 8 are an embarrassment to the values of the Republican Party. They have let down the voters of their districts and have let down the party. By passing this piece of legislation they have also let down Americans across the country. While we all realize that you cannot make anyone vote a certain way, you still have power. As re-election campaigns cost money. The funds that are raised by the national party as well as the RNCC need to be cut off for these people. They are not deserving of them.
I realize that this can turn the seats over to the democrats, but let us not be naïve. They are already voting as such anyway. What republicans across the country are requesting is that you find solid fiscal conservatives to run against these people in the upcoming primaries. We have had enough of republicans that have forgotten what the party stands for. We are looking to you for leadership and to find candidates that stand by fiscally conservative policies and have the backbone to resist the arm-twisting that is going on. We are no longer going to accept republicans that are really just democrat light. Our country is heading into a dangerous direction at lightening speed. Please put the money that people like myself has donated to you to better use than to re-elect congressmen that do not have the fiscal interests of the country at heart.
We are putting you, Chairman Sessions, and the Cap & Tax 8 on notice; we are mobilizing. Social networking sites are abuzz with the disgust we have towards the antipathy the party is showing towards our concerns and values. The tea parties will continue; and make no mistake they are directed at you as much as the democrats. Please advise the house members that they need to forgo the Dove Bars that are being given out in the speaker’s office and concentrate on getting the country’s fiscal house in order.

Regards,

Just a Conservative Girl.


CC: Pete Sessions, Chairman NRCC
Chris Smith
Dave Reichert
Mary Bono-Mack
Mark Kirk
John McHugh
Frank Lobiondo
Leonard Lance
Mike Castle

Cap & Trade Updates

Around 3:30 this morning another 300 pages were added to the bill. Giving the house members no time to read it. Haven't we been down this road before?

ENRON is an original sponsor of this bill. If that doesn't make you against it, I don't know what will.

Greenpeace says that this bill will do nothing to decrease emissions.


Obama's EPA is saying it may actually increase emissions.

The republicans asked to read the additional pages early this afternoon. They were told it wasn't available. What are they hiding?

In Spain, for every job green job that is created, 2.3 jobs are lost.

This bill is expected to reduce manufacturing jobs by 1.5% by the year 2012.

The Governor of Virginia said he wouldn't pass this bill in his state as it would hurt them competitively. The Governor of Virgina is also the DNC Chairman.

As of 4pm, they are 8 votes short.

From talking to other bloggers, the phones are so busy that you can't get through to congress. Keep trying!!!!

Newsvine, a part of MSNBC is 80% against Cap & Trade. As you can imagine, the posters on this site lean left.

Cap & Trade Editorial - Washington Post

It seems like the evidence is mounting that the cap & trade bill will only make the far left happy. This is just one more example of the federal government taking our money, and giving little to no benefit to the average American.


Cap-and-Trade: All Cost, No Benefit

By Martin FeldsteinMonday, June 1, 2009

The Obama administration and congressional Democrats have proposed a major cap-and-trade system aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Scientists agree that CO2 emissions around the world could lead to rising temperatures with serious long-term environmental consequences. But that is not a reason to enact a U.S. cap-and-trade system until there is a global agreement on CO2 reduction. The proposed legislation would have a trivially small effect on global warming while imposing substantial costs on all American households. And to get political support in key states, the legislation would abandon the auctioning of permits in favor of giving permits to selected corporations.

The leading legislative proposal, the Waxman-Markey bill that was recently passed out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, would reduce allowable CO2 emissions to 83 percent of the 2005 level by 2020, then gradually decrease the amount further. Under the cap-and-trade system, the federal government would limit the total volume of CO2 that U.S. companies can emit each year and would issue permits that companies would be required to have for each ton of CO2 emitted. Once issued, these permits would be tradable and could be bought and sold, establishing a market price reflecting the targeted CO2 reduction, with a tougher CO2 standard and fewer available permits leading to higher prices.

Companies would buy permits from each other as long as it is cheaper to do that than to make the technological changes needed to eliminate an equivalent amount of CO2 emissions. Companies would also pass along the cost of the permits in their prices, pushing up the relative price of CO2-intensive goods and services such as gasoline, electricity and a range of industrial products. Consumers would respond by cutting back on consumption of CO2-intensive products in favor of other goods and services. This pass-through of the permit cost in higher consumer prices is the primary way the cap-and-trade system would reduce the production of CO2 in the United States.

The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that the resulting increases in consumer prices needed to achieve a 15 percent CO2 reduction -- slightly less than the Waxman-Markey target -- would raise the cost of living of a typical household by $1,600 a year. Some expert studies estimate that the cost to households could be substantially higher. The future cost to the typical household would rise significantly as the government reduces the total allowable amount of CO2.

Americans should ask themselves whether this annual tax of $1,600-plus per family is justified by the very small resulting decline in global CO2. Since the U.S. share of global CO2 production is now less than 25 percent (and is projected to decline as China and other developing nations grow), a 15 percent fall in U.S. CO2 output would lower global CO2 output by less than 4 percent. Its impact on global warming would be virtually unnoticeable. The U.S. should wait until there is a global agreement on CO2 that includes China and India before committing to costly reductions in the United States.

The CBO estimates that the sale of the permits for a 15 percent CO2 reduction would raise revenue of about $80 billion a year over the next decade. It is remarkable, then, that the Waxman-Markey bill would give away some 85 percent of the permits over the next 20 years to various businesses instead of selling them at auction. The price of the permits and the burden to households would be the same whether the permits are sold or given away. But by giving them away the government would not collect the revenue that could, at least in principle, be used to offset some of the higher cost to households.

The Waxman-Markey bill would give away 30 percent of the permits to local electricity distribution companies with the expectation that their regulators would require those firms to pass the benefit on to their customers. If they do this by not raising prices, there would be less CO2 reduction through lower electricity consumption. The permit price would then have to be higher to achieve more CO2 reduction on all other products. Some electricity consumers would benefit, but the cost to all other American families would be higher.

In my judgment, the proposed cap-and-trade system would be a costly policy that would penalize Americans with little effect on global warming. The proposal to give away most of the permits only makes a bad idea worse. Taxpayers and legislators should keep these things in mind before enacting any cap-and-trade system.

Martin Feldstein, a professor of economics at Harvard University and president emeritus of the nonprofit National Bureau of Economic Research, was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers from 1982 to 1984.

Cap & Trade Update

The 946 page Cap & Trade bill is currently running its course through Congress, and it looks like it will be even more costly than originally thought. One of the benefits that are being touted about this bill is job creation:

“Title IV, Subtitle B, Part 2, Section 426, of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 states: ‘An eligible worker (specifically, workers who lose their jobs as a result of this measure) may receive a climate change adjustment allowance under this subsection for a period of not longer than 156 weeks…80 percent of the monthly premium of any health insurance coverage…up to a maximum payment of $1,500 in relocation allowance…and job search expenses not exceed[ing] $1,500.’”

One can assume that the people writing this bill are not too sure of the job creation; why else would these provisions by written in?

Washington Examiner Editorial - Cap & Trade

Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade scheme will wreck U.S. economy
By: Examiner Editorial-05/18/09 6:05 AM EDT
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Rep. Henry Waxman, D-CA, has teamed with Rep. Edward Markey, D-MA, chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, to produce the latest in a series of “cap-and-trade” bills designed to reduce carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions. Such emissions are produced when carbon-based fuels like petroleum and coal are burned to create energy to run things like electric power plants, automobiles and air conditioning systems. These emissions must be reduced because they are allegedly causing the earth’s atmosphere to heat up, with all sorts of lethal consequences following, not excluding death, destruction and the Final Apocalypse of All Mankind. The problem for such advocates, however, is that earth’s average temperatures have been declining for a decade, and a fast-growing number of climate and other scientists now question the root idea of a global warming crisis. These critics are increasingly banding together with elected officials and other experts in the public policy arena who see cap-and-trade schemes like Waxman-Markey as fatally flawed on two counts.
First, under Waxman-Markey, the government would establish a schedule of emissions reductions – 70 percent by 2030 – and a program of “credits” for businesses that meet the schedule. Those that don’t meet it can buy credits from companies that do, thus satisfying the government’s emission reduction mandate. The problem is that even under the most optimistic scenario, achieving the Waxman-Markey reductions would have only a negligible effect on global temperatures. Europe’s similar cap-and-trade program has been in effect for five years, yet has had no measurable impact on global temperatures. The U.S. effort is likely to fail, too, for the simply reason developing countries, particularly China and India, aren’t going to hobble their expanding economies, which will be dependent upon carbon-based fuels for the foreseeable future. Thus, at best, Waxman-Markey will reduce average global temperatures by much less than one degree.

That reduction highlights the second flaw, which is the excessive cost of achieving virtually no reduction in global temperatures. The conservative Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis used an econometric model of the U.S. economy to measure the projected impact of Waxman-Markey and found that by 2035, it would:

§ Reduce aggregate gross domestic product (GDP) by $7.4 trillion,
§ Destroy 844,000 jobs on average, with peak years seeing unemployment rise by over 1,900,000 jobs,
§ Raise electricity rates 90 percent after adjusting for inflation,
§ Raise inflation-adjusted gasoline prices by 74 percent,
§ Raise residential natural gas prices by 55 percent,
§ Raise an average family's annual energy bill by $1,500, and
§ Increase inflation-adjusted federal debt by 29 percent, or $33,400 additional federal debt per person, again after adjusting for inflation.

That is a prescription for wrecking American prosperity for decades to come.

Cap & Trade Transparency

Congressman Jason Chaffetz (Utah) has put forth legislation in the house to have transparency in all utility taxes passed unto the consumer from Cap & Trade legislation. Since utility companies are just entities of the government, all taxes are passed directly to consumers. This law will require a line item amount of the tax we are paying.
The cap & trade policy that the President is trying to pass is nothing more than a hidden tax that will affect every American. These taxes will affect lower income families more profoundly, as the percentage of income that they pay towards utilities is higher for them than it is for middle and higher income families.
If the American people are going to pay for these taxes than it seems only “fair” that we understand exactly what it is costing us on a monthly basis. Especially since the reality is that consumers will not be able to figure out how much we are actually paying for this tax. The businesses and retailers will be passing this along to consumers through higher rates for goods and services, and where that is not possible they will be saving additional funds to cover the taxes by lowering wages and benefits. This will also affect shareholders with publically traded companies by lower stock values.
The President’s budget has estimated that this tax will cost American taxpayers $646 billion over ten years. Since the release of the budget, the office of the President has admitted that this estimate is too low.
Even if you are apt to believe that this legislation is necessary to combat climate change, you should still feel that all consumers have the right to know how much it is costing them. I urge all people to contact you representative to sign onto this piece of legislation. President Obama promised us transparency; so please take a stand & demand he keep that promise.