House passes Cap-and-Stifle
In a demonstration of one-party-rule by total jackasses, the largest tax increase and economic monkeywrench in American history was passed by the US House of Representatives today.
The Waxman-Markey Cap-and-Stifle Bill (HR 2454) passed by a vote of 219-212 on nearly straight party lines (Democrats 211 Ayes, 44 Noes, 1 not voting — Republicans 8 Ayes, 168 Noes, 2 not voting). The 1,201-page bill that not one Congressman read had an additional (unread) 309-page amendment slapped on by the Dems and Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The new Enron-style “carbon market” will hamstring American industry and citizenry with onerous energy taxes that will run into the $trillions. The new national energy tax will make it more expensive to heat and light homes and run businesses including farming, ranching, and forestry. The costs of food, clothing, shelter, and transportation will skyrocket. The Enron-style market, based on fiat “carbon derivatives” of no intrinsic value, will collapse like Enron, AIG, Fanny Mae, the Bernard Madoff Investment Securities, and other horrendous scams, bleeding coerced investors dry.
The Waxman-Markey Cap-and-Stifle Bill is based on the enormous Global Warming Hoax and Fraud perpetrated by Al Gore and the UN. Yet even proponents admit that the economy-breaking provisions will not impact global temperatures by a tenth of a degree in a hundred years.
The Waxman-Markey Cap-and-Stifle Bill will not relieve this country of dependence on foreign oil; in fact that dependence will increase because domestic energy production will be curtailed by stifling new taxes and penalties.
At a time of deep economic crisis, the Democrat Party just nailed that coffin shut.
The Wall Street Journal reported [here]
WSJ, June 25, 2009
The Cap and Tax Fiction
Democrats off-loading economics to pass climate change bill.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has put cap-and-trade legislation on a forced march through the House, and the bill may get a full vote as early as Friday. It looks as if the Democrats will have to destroy the discipline of economics to get it done.
Despite House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman’s many payoffs to Members, rural and Blue Dog Democrats remain wary of voting for a bill that will impose crushing costs on their home-district businesses and consumers. The leadership’s solution to this problem is to simply claim the bill defies the laws of economics. …
The hit to GDP [Gross Domestic Product] is the real threat in this bill. The whole point of cap and trade is to hike the price of electricity and gas so that Americans will use less. These higher prices will show up not just in electricity bills or at the gas station but in every manufactured good, from food to cars. Consumers will cut back on spending, which in turn will cut back on production, which results in fewer jobs created or higher unemployment. Some companies will instead move their operations overseas, with the same result. …
Even as Democrats have promised that this cap-and-trade legislation won’t pinch wallets, behind the scenes they’ve acknowledged the energy price tsunami that is coming. …
The reality is that cost estimates for climate legislation are as unreliable as the models predicting climate change. What comes out of the computer is a function of what politicians type in. A better indicator might be what other countries are already experiencing. Britain’s Taxpayer Alliance estimates the average family there is paying nearly $1,300 a year in green taxes for carbon-cutting programs in effect only a few years.
Americans should know that those Members who vote for this climate bill are voting for what is likely to be the biggest tax in American history. Even Democrats can’t repeal that reality.
The Cap-and-Stifle Bill was passed only days after whistleblowers disclosed that the EPA’s (like the IPCC’s) analysis of the impacts of CO2 on “climate change” was totally politicized at the expense of real science [here].
One party rule is the hallmark of dictatorships. This sorry chapter in American history will live in infamy.
Then again, maybe my political analysis is wrong. Maybe it’s not Dems vs. Reps, or Liberals vs. Conservatives. Are those false dichotomies?
Here’s another theory. Maybe it’s the Public Sector vs. the Private Sector. Government vs. the citizenry. Do our elected officials represent us to the government, or represent the government to us?
In the case of the Cap-and-Stifle Bill, who are the winners and who are the losers? Follow the money. The Private Sector pays, the Public Sector reaps.
Is it any different in public forest management? Who wins when forests burn down? It’s not the public; it’s the government employees. We get our forests, watersheds, homes, and livelihoods destroyed: they get double overtime.
Something to think about.
The MegaPulps, the industrial timberland owners who cut to the gunnels and just the hulk is left floating, made billions due to no competition in the lumber market from now defunct gypo mills that relied on public timber. Now it is payback time for the minions of ObamaNation and the EnviroNazi economists. The real outcome of Clap and Trap is that the Timber Barons are going to get paid again for trees growing on their idle land, because those trees that are far from being large enough to mill, even if there were an economy wanting forest products. Carbon credits. Pollution forgiveness. A transfer of wealth from the poor to oligarchs and government, outside of regular taxation.
CRP for timberlands. The coal companies are going to pay the likes of Whorehouser, et al, to keep on burning coal, and you, me, and Joe Sixpack get to pay for it by higher energy bills for the house, the car, the food we eat, the goods we buy. America is being taxed to pay for idle timberland, and by extension, the US Govt will never cut another tree because they can sell carbon credits off the same land.
That is sustainable forestry. Their new source of income is selling permits to pollute based on the volume of carbon their land will sequester. I wonder if they will be valued by site and suitability, or will it be a gut and stuff one-size-fits-all deal. Idle land will get a paycheck from Uncle Sam, extracted from every energy producing/consuming entity, and lumber will be imported without penalty. That is what was just voted through by the Congress.
Reps. Walden and DeFazio evidently see it for what it is: a big pile of money to government, for government, and thence to big landowners, all paid for by the citizenry. Money. All about money. More money that we can imagine. Both rural Oregon House members voted no on the bill. It is an urban will o’ the wisp piece of legislation, which nobody got to see but the framers, and certainly not the loyal opposition. You do have to wonder how and what is included, and when will we get to see it all.
If the Sun God signs it, it will mean he has no excuse if there are hidden costs, buried forgiveness for strayed Democrap politicians, their wives, staff or whoever. A pig in a poke. Evidently that is how we must explain democracy to the world: in the US it is a pig in a poke. Some really strange stuff is included by secret handshake and past midnight bill stuffing done in closed door committee and rules committee actions. Slime ball politics is what we elected. We knew it when we elected those people from Democrap machines in Chicago, Detroit, Boston, etc. We get what we deserve, us Americans.
As the middle class dream fades, more and more people are economically isolated by liberal politics and expanding government. Take for example the Oregon Legislature, fully controlled by Democraps as certainly as Pelosi and Waxman run Congress from California, which recently proposed a bill to prevent initiative-driven tax repeal.
Legislators from the left, the liberals, believe we are cattle to be herded for our own good. We are mindless dolts who can’t think. That might be true, The antidote to sucker legislation is to propose by citizen initiative a bill that would inflict some sort of pain on a public service, and then you smoke the public employees. What fun!!!
So the Timber Barons are going to slide through their idle period while cutover lands grow saplings by getting carbon credit payments, which probably fits the REIT or TIMO business models just fine. Then when there is a rebounding market for lumber, and again no competition from public lands, they will be getting paid in tax credits to make energy from biomass and getting annual paychecks from companies that use “dirty” fuels. Crap and Trap will just be another transfer payment from Joe Sixpack to the oligarchs who now run the economy of the USA, hand in hand with the Government and NGOs, funded by Joe Sixpack and the tax-forgiven trusts of prior billionaires. The perpetual motion machine of wealth never leaving home has been improved by ObamaNation, and the dolts deceived. Long Live the Sun God!! And Long Live Michelle Jackson Pelosi, the Queen of Plastic Surgery!! Lies, deception, feints, side deals, graft, the pure power politics of the Left is our fate, our doom.
by Forrest Grump
I noticed the 300 page midnight addendum had public land biomass in it, with a stack of restrictions right out of the Franklin DellaSalla playbook. A sop to Walden and perhaps DeFazio?
The Monkeywrench Gang…that’s what this is.
Grump — Walden (a Rep) and DeFazio (a Dem) both voted AGAINST Cap-and-Stifle. If there was a sop, it wasn’t soppy enough.
One can speculate on their motivations, but generally speaking, rural areas are going to suffer more than urban areas. That might have had something to do with their votes.
What I doubt is that either has the gumption to admit that global warming is a hoax, or that Cap-and-Stifle will not impact global temperatures one iota. They probably have more technical reasons for voting against it, such as not enough pork for their rural districts.
Some brute honesty would be welcome, although it is not expected.
Is there any info on how much oxygen is produced by ranchers and farmers compared to their use and/or how much so called pollution is caused by cows? Also why don’t these people get an oxygen credit similar to the carbon credit scheme?
Good article here. GoldmanSachs poured millions into promoting this carbon credit scam and locks it into their profits. I can’t quite figure this out - will destruction of carbon credit sources (such as forests) somehow add to drive up the value of the credits?
http://www.scribd.com/doc/16781569/16750352GoldmanSachs
Note: GS execs have also served as CEO’s of The Nature Conservancy. Hank Paulson (past) and Mark Tercek (current).
Giant swindlers.
by bear bait
Suppository legislation, the Pelosi Way. If you feel disenfranchised as a voter and constituent, then you know how DeFazio and Walden feel, because this legislation was done by committee chair instruction, and in the House Rules committee controlled by the Speaker. No input from the hoi poloi of the rank and file was addressed, asked for, or considered. It was regent’s dictates and the votes were just parliamentary window dressing. 99% of the House did not know what the bill contained, as was made perfectly clear when it was announced by the Speaker pro tem that it was available on the Internet and only one hard copy was available for the membership at the time of the vote.
This summer is a great time to talk to members of the House who are not in the Leadership closed shop. There has to be some discontent with being legislative steers, eunuchs in the harem of Leadership. And if there is not much in the way of pro quid pro from Nancy and the Nancy boys, the rank and file will be considering their variances from the Leadership come Fall. There will be a Blue Dog revolution in the House.
There was supposed to be a Democrat majority, not a Leadership majority, to control and direct the House. There is a growing part of the majority who are being treated as minority members, and that love affair with Leadership might wane over summer, cocktails, and campaign fund raisers. After Labor Day, the House might become an interesting place for Palace intrigue. I rather look forward to it. And will do anything I can to help split some kindling off that voter block.
The vote tally is [here]
Oregon Congressmen Greg Walden and Peter DeFazio voted “No”. Earl Blumenauer, David Wu, and Kurt Schrader voted “Aye”.