DON'T FALL FOR CAP AND TAX

FROM:
The Phyllis Schlafly Report


Don't Fall for Cap and Tax

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Barack Obama promised that he won't raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year. He neglected to mention that this tax exemption will go only to those who don't use electricity, gasoline, heating oil, or natural gas.

The truth of the matter is that Obama will raise taxes on practically all middle-class Americans. But that's not all; in addition to new taxes on all those necessities (just think of all the appliances in your home that use electricity), he will drastically reduce our standard of living.

Obama warned during his campaign in Oregon that we can no longer keep our homes set at 72 degrees (warmed in the winter and cooled in the summer), eat whatever foods we want (if, like meat and milk products, they come from cows that have to be fed), and drive SUVs (to accommodate our family and friends). He said we cannot continue to consume 25 percent of the world's resources when we have only 4 percent of the world's population.

But why not? Americans have built a free-enterprise, private-property, rule-of-law, respect-for-contracts, innovation-receptive society that has enabled us to enjoy the highest standard of living in the world. We designed it by adoption of our unique and long-lasting U.S. Constitution, we worked for it and we paid for it, so why can't we enjoy the fruits of our labor?

This increase in our taxes and decrease in our standard of living is being sold under the slogan "cap and trade," which means giving the government the power to put a cap on the amount of carbon emissions (CO2) produced by the production of electricity, gasoline, and heating oil, and forcing businesses to buy permits for the emissions they are allowed. The process should be called "cap and tax": a cap in our standard of living, and a tax (an increase in cost) on our use of products whose manufacture emits CO2.

The Obama administration hopes that increased energy costs will force us to shift away from the use of fossil fuels to various alternatives. To nuclear plants? The left won't tolerate that. To windmills and solar panels to capture wind and sun? They now provide less than 1 percent of our energy, so the gain won't be much even if we double or triple the output. To "clean coal technology"? More likely, cap and trade would just kill the coal industry.

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