What’s so bad about bringing laughter into the world?
TOM BURGUM
Contributing Columnist
burgum@LBKnews.com
I don’t know if anyone has noticed but things are getting a bit crazy in the United States. Our government is now busy propounding programs designed to save the United States from global warming, foreign oil, fossil fuels, bad health care, a bad economy, unemployment and Islamic terrorism, or as it’s now called, “man caused disasters.“
A desire to fight global warming has led to a drastic plan to cap emissions of carbon dioxide. The program is called cap-and-trade although it is really just the carbon tax plan of 1993 given new life through a new name. In Congress it is known as the Waxman-Markey bill, the purpose of which is to put a cost on carbon dioxide by imposing a ceiling, or cap, on green house gas emissions and then setting up a market for regulated industries to buy and sell allowances to pollute under that cap. The plan covers every known source of carbon dioxide (C02) except demanding Republicans stop breathing.
The cruel fact is that carbon trading will not reduce our dependence on carbon based fuels; it will simply make it much more expensive. About 80 percent of America’s energy comes from fossil fuels that produce most of the CO2 which is the main greenhouse gas.
Passage of Waxman-Markey will probably do little to control emissions but it will result in enhanced (Washington speak for “lots more”) tax revenue. It will most certainly drive more manufacturers overseas, drive down employment in the industrial Midwest, increase the cost of goods and services to anyone who drives a car, buys groceries, uses electricity, or purchases manufactured goods made in the United States.
Mr Obama contends our new energy policy will create “five million green energy jobs.” As John Wayne used to say, “not likely.”
Columnist Tony Blankley reported that the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, one of Spain’s leading universities did a critical analysis of Spain’s experience in the creating green jobs business. This is important because Spain is considered one of the best examples to follow in the renewable energy effort. According to Blankley, the study found that, “. . . treating the data optimistically − for every renewable-energy job that the government finances, ‘Spain’s experience . . . reveals with high confidence, by two different methods, that the U.S. should expect a loss of at least 2.2 jobs on average, or about nine jobs lost for every four created.” Thus, if we actually succeed in creating five million new green energy jobs, we might expect to lose as high as 11 million other jobs. At least that has been Spain’s experience.
The refusal of two major sources of CO2, China and India, to hobble their industries to fight global warming remains a serious problem for the Obama administration. The administration may or may not have asked Speaker Nancy Pelosi to visit China but, given her political problems at home, someone thought it a good idea for her to visit the Chinese leaders with a message of global warming alarm.
The Chinese response to her suggestion they slow economic growth through stringent emission controls was to tell her they had no intention of doing anything of the sort. They did suggest that America, among others, contribute about one percent of their gross domestic product to aid poorer countries in fighting the global warming devil. They also thought we should go even further than Mr. Obama’s goal of reducing carbon emissions by 80 percent in the next 40 years.
Ms Pelosi learned that China does not want our environmental regulations or economic policies. What Beijing really wants, according to the Wall Street Journal, “. . . is for developed nations to hobble their own economies with a cap-and tax regime that would send jobs and billions of dollars a year in transfer payments to China the way Kyoto has. So the Chinese economy would be more efficient, while the West would be less competitive.”
When Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi armed only with a charming naiveté, recommends the Chinese adopt our questionable environmental policies, they must be asking themselves, “If that ding-bat is the third most important person in the American government, what the hell are we thinking, loaning them over $800 billion?”
Now G.M. means “Government Motors,” not General Motors. The plan here seems to require G.M. to make smaller, less profitable cars while cutting back on their profitable trucks and SUVs. Mr. Obama, who asserts he is not running the company, has promised Ron Gettelfinger, president of the United Auto Workers, that G.M. will not import the profitable, small, fuel efficient vehicles they manufacture in other countries. So, the recipe for G.M. is to do more of what didn’t work, do less of what did work, and let the U.A.W. dictate labor policy.
It’s just a guess but I think many people have a Ford in their future.
There is a danger in all this. The administration maximizes the dangers of global warming, and then minimizes the costs of dealing with it. Cap-and-trade is presented to the American public as cost neutral when no one believes that to be true. Truth is we are engaged in major government intervention in our economy without either knowing what we are doing or being willing to admit that, at best, all proposals are based on very shaky foundations of knowledge.
Secretary of the Treasury, Tim Geithner, was speaking in China last Monday and Reuters reported the Chinese audience laughed when he assured them America’s economy was sound. Admittedly, it’s a little embarrassing to learn our economy is so mismanaged it invites ridicule.
But, on the other hand, what can be so bad about bringing laughter into the world?
