Posted by
Average Voter on Wednesday, June 04, 2008 10:14:56 PM
Here is another great article on the climate change bill being debated in the senate right now, this one from the
Wall Street Journal.
As he explains, we might need to get used to it because, as we know, both presidential candidates are proponents of man-made global warming and want this legislation passed.
This paragraph here should about scare the you-know-what out of you:
But carbon auctions raise another problem when it comes to Washington. Revenues from the auctions are likely to be fish bait to industries that might qualify for some of them. Sen. Joe Lieberman estimates that the market value of all permits under his bill would be about $7 trillion by 2050. That sum would go into what he calls a Climate Change Credit Corporation, which, operating outside the budget process, would invest in various plans for developing alternative energy. You can bet that lobbyists for ethanol, nuclear and "clean" coal are already salivating at the prospect of a similar fund emerging from a bill championed by a President McCain or President Obama.
Our government creates some kind of climate change credit union who has a budget of trillions of dollars, and can pick and chose who gets the money. How long before the government had to look into possible corruption charges in this credit corporation.
But since we will be living with one of these two presidential nominees that support this kind of legislation, he creates a way of reducing the possibility corruption.
That's why it's important that all revenues from carbon auctions be cycled back to citizens. And rather than launch another endless debate over how and to whom – a payroll tax cut for people earning under the median wage, or a cut in capital gains? – it would be well to agree to the simplest possible formula: Every adult citizen should receive an equal share. If the carbon auction yields $150 billion in the first year, for example, each of America's 150 million adult citizens should receive a Treasury check that year of $1,000.
Now that is a government working for the people...at least in a overly large and complex way. Obviously it would be better that we found a free market solution that did not have the government messing with public money. But they know better than us, and we will, if not with this bill, than with another, give them control over yet another 'problem' that needs to be dealt with.