June 29, 2009 - By True Patriot and
Congressman
Ron
Paul
In my last column, I joked that with public spending out of
control and the piling on of the international bailout bill,
economic collapse seems to be the goal of Congress. It is
getting harder to joke about such a thing however, as the
non-partisan General Accounting Office (GAO) has estimated
that the administration’s health care plan would actually
cost over a trillion dollars. This reality check may have
given us a temporary reprieve on this particular disastrous
policy, however an equally disastrous energy policy reared
its ugly head on Capitol Hill last week.
The Cap and Trade Bill HR 2454 was voted on last Friday. Proponents
claim this bill will help the environment, but what it really
does is put another nail in the economy’s coffin. The
idea is to establish a national level of carbon dioxide emissions,
and sell pollution permits to industry. HR 2454 also gives
federal bureaucrats new power to regulate a wide variety of
household appliances, such as light bulbs and refrigerators,
and further distorts the market by providing more of your tax
money to auto companies.
The administration has pointed to Spain as a shining example
of this type of progressive energy policy. Spain has been massively
diverting capital from the private sector into politically
favored environmental projects for the better part of a decade,
and many in Washington apparently like what they see. However,
under no circumstances should anyone serious about economic
recovery emulate an economy that is now approaching 20 percent
unemployment, where every green job created, eliminated 2.2
real jobs and cost around $800,000 each!
The real inconvenient truth is that the cost of government
regulations, taxes, fees, red tape and bureaucracy is a considerable
expense that has to be considered when companies decide where
to do business and how many people they can afford to hire.
Increasing governmental burden directly causes capital flight
and job losses, as Spain has learned. In this global economy
its easy enough for businesses to relocate to countries that
are more politically friendly to economic growth. If our government
continues to kick the economy while its down, it will be a
long time before it gets back up. In fact, jobs are much more
likely to go overseas, compounding our problems.
And for what? Contrary to claims repeated over and over, there
is no consensus in the scientific community that global warming
is getting worse or that it is manmade. In fact over 30,000
scientists signed a petition recently directly disputing the
claims on which this policy is based. Legitimate environmental
claims should instead be directed towards the public sector.
The government, especially the military, is the most serious
polluter in the country, and is exempt from most EPA regulations.
Meanwhile Washington bureaucrats have classified the very air
we exhale as a pollutant and have gone unchallenged in this
incredible assertion. The logical consequence is that there
will come a time when we will have to buy a government permit
just to emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from our own
lungs!
The events on Capitol Hill last week just demonstrate Washington’s
audacity in manufacturing problems just so they can expand
government power to solve them.
Read more Articles by Ron Paul at http://www.house.gov/paul/legis.shtml
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