We Don’t Need a Climate Tax on the Poor

WSJ | James Inhofe | Jun. 3, 2008

With average gas prices across the country approaching $4 a gallon, it may be hard to believe, but the U.S. Senate is considering legislation this week that will further drive up the cost at the pump.

The Senate is debating a global warming bill that will create the largest expansion of the federal government since FDR’s New Deal, complete with a brand new, unelected bureaucracy. The Lieberman-Warner bill (America’s Climate Security Act) represents the largest tax increase in U.S. history and the biggest pork bill ever contemplated with trillions of dollars in giveaways. Well-heeled lobbyists are already plotting how to divide up the federal largesse. The handouts offered by the sponsors of this bill come straight from the pockets of families and workers in the form of lost jobs, higher gas, power and heating bills, and more expensive consumer goods.

Various analyses show that Lieberman-Warner would result in higher prices at the gas pump, between 41 cents and $1 per gallon by 2030. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says Lieberman-Warner would effectively raise taxes on Americans by more than $1 trillion over the next 10 years. The federal Energy Information Administration says the bill would result in a 9.5% drop in manufacturing output and higher energy costs.

Carbon caps will have an especially harmful impact on low-income Americans and those with fixed incomes. A recent CBO report found: “Most of the cost of meeting a cap on CO2 emissions would be borne by consumers, who would face persistently higher prices for products such as electricity and gasoline. Those price increases would be regressive in that poorer households would bear a larger burden relative to their income than wealthier households.”

The poor already face energy costs as a much higher percentage of their income than wealthier Americans. While most Americans spend about 4% of their monthly budget on heating their homes or other energy needs, the poorest fifth of Americans spend 19%. A 2006 survey of Colorado homeless families with children found that high energy bills were cited as one of the two main reasons they became homeless.

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1 thought on “We Don’t Need a Climate Tax on the Poor”

  1. I have no real scientific data about “global warming”, nor am I a scientist. However, just the idea that there should be a “carbon tax” imposed on the public as a way of solving this “global warming” catastrophe should make anyone extremely skeptical. In other words, when Steven Spielberg, George Soros, Al Gore, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, (etc.) fly around the country on their private jet planes, they simply buy carbon credits, which will undo all of the damage they’ve done to the environment. Poor people can’t afford to pay such a tax, so they have less of an access to using energy. For rich celebrities, the money they pay, for energy credits will not affect their lifestyles. What a scam!!!! This is nothing but a ploy to take the earth’s resources out of the hands of the “little guy” and put them all into the hands of rich, evil, greedy elitists. So, a small group of people will control the earth’s resources.
    This is what the Bolsheviks did to Russia the 1930s. They took control of the nation’s resources. Of course this lead to the most horrible genocide in modern times as the elitist Communist government officials got control of the food supply and wouldn’t allow certain people to eat. Many millions of white, Christians starved to death and thus were exterminated. Of course the New York Times covered this crime up and Franklin Roosevelt helped the tyrannical Communist government with all kinds of financial aid. The same kind of scenario is getting set to take place now with this “global warming” hoax.

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