Why It Matters

Earlier this week, the Obama Administration announced that it would unilaterally regulate carbon emissions unless Congress adopted a cap and trade scheme. I’ve devoted a lot of space in this report to explaining the tremendous implications of cap and trade, but you could summarize it this way: a cap on our prosperity that trades our liberty for a radical ideology. Tuesday, the White House made clear what that ideology is – Soviet-style socialism.

Responding to the EPA’s announcement that it would begin regulating carbon, a top White House official issued a blunt threat to our elected representatives: “If you [Congress] don’t pass this legislation [cap and trade], then … the EPA is going to have to regulate in this area. And it is not going to be able to regulate on a market-based way, so it’s going to have to regulate in a command-and-control way, which will probably generate even more uncertainty.”

That statement is a declaration of war against working families and America’s free-market economy. The White House is telling Congress to pick its poison – cap and trade or command-and-control. That’s extortion, but that’s the “Chicago way,” isn’t it? And when did White House officials start using phrases like “command-and-control”? I thought command-and-control economies died with the Soviet Union.

This threat gives you some idea of just how devastating cap and trade is for the economy. The White House is unintentionally admitting, “We know cap and trade is bad. But the EPA regulations would be really, really bad.” The administration is playing a game of chicken with the economy in the middle of a severe recession.

There is a way out of this – rein in the bureaucracy and reduce the size and scope of government. Congress can amend the Clean Air Act to strip the EPA of authority over carbon emissions. That would be the most logical thing to do. Sadly, many liberal politicians are ideologically biased against common sense and fundamental economics. (If you needed any more evidence of the radical ideology behind climate change, a leader of the Chinese delegation in Copenhagen just announced that population control “fits right into the picture.”)

So, what’s the alternative? Clint Eastwood’s famous line comes to mind: “Go ahead, make my day.” Pollster Scott Rasmussen found that just 24% of American adults felt the EPA should act unilaterally to regulate carbon emissions. Conservatives ought to call Obama’s bluff: They should fight cap and trade tooth and nail, and dare Obama to destroy the economy with his command-and-control ideology. Ulysses S. Grant said, “I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution.” Perhaps it’s time to test that method.

Liberals just can’t contain themselves. When they start losing a debate, they resort to epithets. Yesterday, Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid went to the Senate floor and denounced opponents of socialized medicine by comparing them to defenders of slavery and opponents of civil rights. Reid said:

“Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all the Republicans can come up with is, ‘slow down, stop everything, let’s start over.’ If you think you’ve heard these same excuses before, you’re right. When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said ‘slow down, it’s too early, things aren’t bad enough.’ …When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal civil rights to everyone regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today.”

[For those who don't understand why Reid is way off on his statement: Republicans today aren't saying "slow down, it's too early, things aren't bad enough." They're saying "start over"!  There's a BIG difference.  Republicans want change in health care too (and they've made propositions for the past X years including this year), but not the change that Liberals are forcing down our throats.]

Media reaction so far has been subdued, and that’s not surprising – there’s a different standard for liberal politicians. You’ll no doubt recall that leftwing pundits lectured the town hall protestors this summer for their incivility for daring to question the wisdom of government-run healthcare. Yet they are silent when liberal leaders display their own incivility and contempt for the American people. Sadly, this is nothing new for Harry Reid. This summer he called the town hall protesters “evil mongers.”

Our liberal elites just can’t imagine why anyone would oppose socialism. What’s not to love about government bureaucrats denying needed surgeries, arthritis medication and cancer treatments?

The healthcare “reform” debate in the Senate may well be in its final stages. Yesterday, President Obama rushed to Capitol Hill to give Senate Democrats a pep talk. The president reminded them of the historic significance of their work and urged them to stick together. According to various reports, he avoided discussing contentious policy issues and attempted to “stay above the fray.”

Friday, Senate Democrat Whip Dick Durbin told reporters that only two issues remain unresolved. Durbin said, “Abortion and [the] public option are really the major obstacles at this point.” One may be dealt with today. Sunday, Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid announced that the Senate will take up abortion funding today. Senators Hatch (R-UT) and Nelson (D-NE) will offer an amendment similar to one that passed the House guaranteeing that no federal money will be used to pay for abortions. Few expect the amendment to pass since only three Democrats are likely to support it.

That said, I found Durbin’s statement very profound. This “reform” plan sets the stage for socialized medicine in America, and liberals are okay with that. It raises taxes by half a trillion dollars, and liberals are okay with that. It cuts Medicare by half a trillion dollars, and liberals are evidently okay with that. For the first time in our history, the federal government is going to mandate that citizens purchase a product or risk going to jail, and liberals are okay with that.

There is no enforcement mechanism to guarantee that illegal aliens would not be subsidized in this plan, and liberals seem to be okay with that. The bill creates a new trillion-dollar entitlement program when we are running record deficits, and liberals are okay with that. It purports to cover tens of millions of individuals without providing one additional nurse or doctor to care for them. The obvious result will be long lines leading to rationed care, and liberals are okay with that too.

Liberal politicians may be oblivious to reality, but the American people are very worried about what government-run healthcare would mean for them. For example, voters in Harry Reid’s home state of Nevada are growing more skeptical of this socialized medicine scheme. Just 39% of Nevada voters support Obama’s takeover of our healthcare system, while 53% oppose it.

What’s interesting about this poll is that Harry Reid is up for reelection next year, and the percentage of voters who say they would reelect him isn’t much higher than those supporting this socialized healthcare scheme. This poll and others suggest that politicians pushing ObamaCare this year may find their careers in critical condition next year.

On Monday, Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid announced a grand compromise on healthcare “reform” legislation. To please the leftwing base of his party, Reid’s bill would include a government-run public option – the first step toward socialized medicine in America. That’s not my opinion, but Barney Franks’. To attract the votes of moderate Democrats, Reid announced that his plan would allow states to opt-out of the public option.

The state legislature would have to vote on legislation to opt-out, and the governor would have to sign the opt-out bill. But here’s the catch: There is no opting-out of the taxes to pay for this new $1 trillion entitlement program. All the taxes and penalties would remain in effect, so citizens of states that opt-out would still end up paying for a program they can’t access. As Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) said, “the big [liberal] states will [opt-in] and the rest of us will end up paying for their excesses.” Remember what happened to the conservative governors who tried to “opt-out” of the stimulus money?

Last night on MSNBC, leftwing radical Ed Schultz was effusive with praise for Harry Reid’s “opt-out” deception. Schultz stated flatly what drives liberal politics: get constituents hooked on government programs and you have a guaranteed voting base. Schultz said of the public option:

“This is a great move by the Democrats. …Once you give it [the public option] to them, they don’t want to give it up. That’s the way it’s gonna be. I think this is a great move by Harry Reid. The public option is a public option. And it is – it is – the first step toward single payer [socialized medicine]. That’s what we progressives want. This is just the road to get there.”

It couldn’t be clearer than that. Liberal politicians and leftwing progressives are taking us down the road toward socialism, toward confiscatory tax rates, even bigger government, greater spending and more debt.

Your freedom is at stake. The standard of living you have enjoyed will be denied to your children and grandchildren if this new trillion-dollar entitlement program passes. And the quality of healthcare that is available today will be destroyed if government gets involved.

In March, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) warned, “President Barack Obama’s budget would produce $9.3 trillion in deficits over the next decade, more than four times the deficits of Republican George W. Bush’s presidency.” That warning is already coming true. While Congress was debating ObamaCare, a new Big Government program expected to cost $1 trillion, the announcement came last week that the United States posted a record annual deficit of $1.4 trillion. To give you some perspective, the previous record deficit, recorded last year, was a “mere” $459 billion.

But, if things don’t change quickly in Washington, one budget analyst warns that it could get a lot worse than the CBO suggests. Brian M. Riedl of the Heritage Foundation says, “The White House figures are based on unrealistic estimates of discretionary spending, interest payments and interest rates.” According to Riedl, a more realistic analysis produces deficits “$4 trillion higher than recent estimates by the Obama administration and the Congressional Budget Office.” And if spending goes unchecked by future Congresses, the budget deficit could reach $2 trillion a year by 2019.

That kind of outrageous spending is unsustainable and will bankrupt America. But it helps to explain why liberal politicians are proposing a massive new energy tax, a value added tax, new surtaxes and excise taxes and more.

Friday evening, when most of you probably were just beginning to relax after a long week, your elected representatives in Washington were hard at work. I’d like to report that they were working hard for the good of the country, but I can’t say that. In fact, I believe very strongly that what the House did is very detrimental to the well-being of our nation.

Just after 7:15pm Friday, the House voted 219-to-212 to pass Barack Obama’s “cap and trade” bill. Cap and trade is another attempt by Big Government to manipulate the free market. Liberal politicians think that they know better than consumers and business owners, and they intend to force you to use products (alternative sources of energy) that are not economically viable. It’s another example of government picking winners and losers.

The losers under this bill are fossil fuels – coal, oil and natural gas. The winners are solar, wind and other alternative fuels, which you will end up subsidizing under this bill. To give you an idea of how inefficient and expensive the alternatives are, consider this analysis from the Manhattan Institute’s Center for Energy Policy and the Environment:

“There’s an unavoidable problem with renewable-energy technologies: From an economic standpoint, they’re big losers. …The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported in early 2008 that the government subsidizes solar energy at $24.34 per megawatt-hour (MWh) and wind power at $23.37 per MWh. Yet even with decades of these massive handouts, as well as numerous state-level mandates for utilities to use green power, wind and solar energy contribute less than 1% of our nation’s electricity.

“Compare the subsidies to renewables with those extended to natural gas (25 cents per MWh in subsidies), coal (44 cents), hydroelectricity (67 cents), and nuclear power ($1.59). These are the energy sources (along with oil, which undergirds transportation) that do the heavy lifting in our energy economy.

“The alternative technologies at the heart of Mr. Obama’s plan, relying on mandates and far greater handouts, will inevitably raise energy prices — and high power prices are job killers.”
Cap and trade has been described by Michigan Democrat John Dingell, who voted for the bill, as “a great big tax.” Billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who opposes cap and trade, called it “a huge tax … and a fairly regressive one.” So, supporters and opponents agree: It is a big tax and likely one of the largest in American history since it will tax energy – the lifeblood of our economy.

For the record, 96% of the votes to pass this “great big,” “huge and regressive” energy tax came from Democrats, while 94% of Republicans voted against it. The debate now shifts to the Senate, where Democrats will have to come up with 60 votes to prevent a likely filibuster.

On the merits alone, the bill is a disaster. For example: America is the Saudi Arabia of coal, from which half of the nation’s electricity is produced. But 96% of House Democrats just voted to tax coal, making it costlier to use. That makes no sense in the middle of a deep recession and with the president is predicting double digit unemployment. But, then again, this is the same logic that would not let us drill for our own oil when gas was $4.00 a gallon.

But far worse was the abuse of power liberals used to ram through one of the largest tax increases in history. Every politician who voted for this bill is guilty of gross malfeasance because not one of them read it. Not only was the bill over 1,200 pages when the debate began, but a 300-page amendment was mysteriously added just hours before the vote. For that reason alone, every member of the House would have been justified in voting no, and more of them should have.

If conservatives had done that while trying to pass the largest tax cut in history, the media would have howled about dictatorial tactics and the demise of democracy. But, so far, the media have been silent on this abuse of power, and that is a scandal of its own.

Obama’s Energy Tax

Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced yesterday that the House of Representatives will be voting on “cap and trade” legislation this week. A recent Rasmussen poll found that only 24% of likely voters correctly understand the term, and I’d be willing to bet that an even smaller share of Congress has read the 1,200 page bill. Representative John Dingell, a Democrat from Michigan, summarized it best when he said, “Nobody in this country realizes that cap and trade is a tax, and it’s a great big one!”

Writing in the Washington Post several weeks ago, Robert Samuelson put it this way: “The centerpiece of Obama’s agenda is a ‘cap and trade’ program. This would be, in effect, a tax on fossil fuels (oil, coal, natural gas). The idea is to raise their prices so that households and businesses would use less or switch to costlier ‘alternative’ energy sources, such as solar. In general, we would spend more on energy and get less of it.”

Spend more and get less. That sounds like Obama’s rationed healthcare proposal too! That concept is antithetical to economic progress and rising standards of living. But it’s generally the outcome of socialism and leftwing thinking.

According to an analysis by the Heritage Foundation, the “cap and trade” bill before the House will result in a “58 percent increase in gas prices, 90 percent for electricity, and 55 percent for natural gas. Cumulative higher energy costs for a household of four from 2012-2035 would reach nearly $20,000.” The Heritage Foundation also predicts more than one million job losses as a direct result of higher energy costs.

Just think about that for a moment. Here we are in the middle of a deep recession, with the president predicting double-digit unemployment, and this White House and the liberal politicians on Capitol Hill are scheming to impose one of the biggest tax increases in history. It will affect every American who turns on a light switch, drives to work or consumes products, since just about every economic activity involves the use of fossil fuels.

Every year, the federal government disperses hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars – your tax dollars – to various projects and programs. In order to ensure that your money is not wasted, each department has an office of independent auditors known as inspectors general or IGs. Last year, Congress passed a law designed to strengthen their independence from political pressure. Then Senator Obama was one of the co-sponsors of that legislation. But now it appears as though President Obama has run afoul of that very law and a scandal is brewing that has yet to be noticed by the “mainstream media.”

In a move denounced by both Republicans and Democrats as a violation of the new protections for IGs, President Obama recently fired Americorps IG Gerald Walpin. Walpin’s work was getting very close to some very big Obama supporters and he recently received a call from the White House telling him he had one hour to resign or be fired. Walpin refused to go and was sacked. The White House responded to the controversy with wild accusations suggesting Mr. Walpin suffered from dementia. Today there is breaking news that Walpin isn’t the only IG to be fired. But there’s another story here too.

When Bush fired eight political appointees it was front page news, and, believe it or not, Congress is still investigating that. But when Obama fires not one, but now three inspectors general, just as the administration is getting ready to spend billions of stimulus dollars even faster, liberal politicians and the media are silent. As one commentator observed, “WHERE ARE THE WATCHDOGS of the establishment media? Oh, that’s right: They are no longer watchdogs but lapdogs, and particularly slobbering ones at that….”

- Excerpt from Gary Bauer’s Daily Report
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