1. ObamaCare alternatives?
Oh, I dunno, maybe some of the things the Republicans of the so-called "Party of No" have been proposing but which the Democrats have been ignoring, like:
Interstate insurance competition, medical savings accounts, tax free insurance or credits, tort reform, fee for service, rewarding outcomes, medical malpractice reform, prohibiting coverage denials based on preexisting conditions, guaranteeing portability, electronic prescriptions and medical records, streamlining billing codes and practices, price and quality transparency, pay-for-performance measures, one-stop primary-care “medical homes,” chronic disease management initiatives, tax equity for health insurance purchases, increased incentives for health savings accounts, or creating the ability to purchase insurance or form risk pools across state lines.
Our health care system and health insurance do need reform. Everyone agrees on that, But it's already the best in the world and just needs some tuning up, not a whole new and untested model of car. Especially when the federal government tends not to turn out Ferraris but Edsels, thank you very much.

2. Cap and Trade, Cap and Tax, Crap and Tax - what's the difference?
Once again, class: Everyone wants to ensure our kids grow up in a clean environment. Some just want to bankrupt us while doing it, and some of us would prefer a more logical approach. For the second group, The Heritage Foundation has some figures and charts that provide a helpful look at the immense costs associated with the Waxman-Markey cap-and-tax plan to forcibly cap carbon. According to the new report, “The Economic Consequences of Waxman-Markey: An Analysis of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009," recently released:
a. Cumulative gross domestic product (GDP) losses are $9.4 trillion between 2012 and 2035;
b. Single-year GDP losses reach $400 billion by 2025 and will ultimately exceed $700 billion;
c. Net job losses approach 1.9 million in 2012 and could approach 2.5 million by 2035. Manufacturing loses would be 1.4 million jobs in 2035;
d. The annual cost of emissions permits to energy users will be at least $100 billion by 2012 and could exceed $390 billion by 2035;
e. A typical family of four will pay, on average, an additional $829 each year for energy-based utility costs; and
f. Gasoline prices will rise by 58 percent ($1.38 more per gallon) and average household electric rates will increase by 90 percent.
So, Waxman-Markey's Crap and Tax Plan does sound like a PLAN, but not a very GOOD plan.

 

 

 

 

Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and President Obama’s Energy Secretary, recently told a conference of Nobel laureates in London: “If you look at all the buildings and if you make the roofs white and if you make the pavement more of a concrete type of color rather than a black type of color and if you do that uniformally [sic], that would be the equivalent of ... reducing the carbon emissions due to all the cars in the world by 11 years – just taking them off the road for 11 years."

Uhhhh, what? And just how much would it cost to paint all our residential and commercial and industrial rooftops white and redo about half of all our roads? What a lame-brained idea and an even dumber thing to say out loud in public! I guess it's a good thing that Chu's Nobel in physics had nothing to do with climatology. Instead he was one of three scientists who received a joint award for developing methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light.

Now, his being a physicist presumably means he's intelligent, but it may also be that he's like a couple of people with whom I went to college -- smart as a whip but no common sense. You know, the type who can discuss almost anything about anything but can't remember to tie his own shoelaces. Yeah, that guy. We've all known at least one.

Oh, and before you get too impressed by Chu having a Nobel, so does Al "the Goracle" Gore, who never struck me as even being all that super-intelligent about anything. In fact, a lot of people have been awarded the Nobel in a lot of different fields, a lot of them for highly specialized stuff. On the other hand, for example, Yassar Arafat also won a Nobel, and for peace, no less. He shared it in 1994 with Israeli leaders Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres after their secret meetings in Norway resulted in a peace agreement between Israel and Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

But Arafat was a life-long terrorist. And Chu, Nobel prize winner or not, certainly could use a healthy dose of good old common sense -- and maybe double-check that he tied his shoelaces. But, what worries me most is that this is who Obama chose to oversee our country's energy policy?

So, we've got Democrat Representative Henry Waxman and the Democrat Congress trying their best to hurry up and pass the draconian, minimally effective (for global climate change) but maximally damaging and costly (for American businesses and consumers) Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade scheme that Obama wants sooner rather than later -- and no common sense Chu is in charge of our energy policy? Great. Just great. Oh well, just something else to worry about, folks.

But, forget all that for a minute. By now, you've probably at least heard of the Waxman-Markey bill, or the "American Clean Energy and Security Act," also known as H.R. 2454. But did you know that, if enacted, H.R. 2454 would be the biggest government takeover of the economy since WWII, which is the last time energy, food and other basic commodities were rationed? It would also be the biggest tax increase in history and would cause a huge transfer of wealth from individual consumers to Big Business and Big Government.

It also is, at best, all based on possibly false, or at least highly questionable, "science" about man-made global warming -- but, oh, sorry, I didn't mean global warming -- I meant global climate change, as it has more recently and euphemistically been renamed -- which is supposedly "settled science." I guess "settled science" is supposed to be something like indisputable facts. But if that's the case, then why do over 33,000 other "scientists" worldwide, many of them internationally renowned, contest that man-made global climate change even exists, or that, if it does, that it's merely an insignificant contributor to what Planet Earth does normally, naturally and cyclically over time? Call me one of those crazy "deniers" about global warming alarmism, but if you couple that with the fact that studies have been done confirming that WRONG and INFLATED temperature readings were used in the computer models which advanced the man-made global warming/climate change argument in the first place, then I guess the old axiom about computers, and therefore computer models, is all-of-a-sudden wrong and that GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) no longer applies. Besides, some other "scientists" even argue that increased amounts of CO2 are good for plant life, you know, trees and shrubs and stuff like that. So, if "scientists" are confused among themselves, no wonder little ole me doesn't understand all there probably is to know. I'm just askin' - just sayin' here.

But, did you know that the Democrat Congress is working feverishly to pass Waxman-Markey, so they can hurry up and please their fearless leader, President Obama, by having it ready for him to sign into law before Congress recesses in August, as he requested?

[Hmmm, why does all legislation nowadays seem to have to be done in such an all-fired hurry? Have you noticed that with the Obama administration and this Democrat controlled Congress, or is it just me? Whatever happened to deliberation and debate, much less, as was the case with the so-called "stimulus plan," even reading what you're voting for? And why the rush to judgment about climate change itself when it obviously is NOT "settled science" but also the rush about what we must hurry up to do about it? Why, one might think -- especially a cynical person like me -- they were all trying to sneak something past the American voters, might one not?]

Waxman-Markey's stated purpose is to contain global warming by reducing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. This would be accomplished by a cap-and-trade scheme which would severely limit the amount of energy from the three carbon-dioxide producing fuels -- coal, oil and natural gas -- which Americans would be allowed to use.

That may sound okay, especially to those who still believe in global warming. And "believe" is the correct word, because for those who tout it, it is a near religion. "Don't confuse me with facts (or challenge mine). I know what I believe."

However, another one of those little inconvenient truths is that, currently, over 80 percent of U.S. energy comes from these three "bad" fuels, simply because they are the least expensive fuels available, as well as, practically, the most readily abundant here at home. Waxman-Markey would require cutting emissions by 17 percent below a 2005 baseline by 2020, 42 percent by 2030 and 83 percent by 2050.

That may all sound reasonable because it's "spaced out" over years, sort of like your mortgage or car payments, but it is, in fact, draconian. Why? Because, to meet those standards (which are significant enough in and of themselves), coal, oil and natural gas producers would have to substantially retool their facilities and at great costs. And if this bill becomes law and since retooling often takes a long time, they will begin doing that sooner rather than later.

And, typical of businesses everywhere, those producers may initially pay those costs but they will then pass them on to consumers in the form of higher rates and prices. So, the costs of meeting the standards becomes a tax on everyone, and pretty quickly, too.

It's hard to tell exactly how far energy prices might rise under Waxman-Markey, but even some energy committee Democrats think it may require more than doubling electric rates and sending gasoline to somewhere above five dollars a gallon. And a Heritage Foundation study says it could increase your family's energy costs about $1,500 to $3,000 a year.

Evidently, even President Obama agrees. When he was Candidate Obama, he told the San Francisco Chronicle on January 17, 2008, "Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity prices would necessarily skyrocket." Skyrocket? That means go up really high, really fast, right? Well, there you have it, folks, in the man's own words, the same man who made a mantra out of "words matter." And I think, in this case at least, those are words we actually can believe in -- yes, we can. 

That same week, former president Bill Clinton was in Spain talking about green jobs. And what did he say? As reported in the Spanish press:

"Former U.S. President turned ecologist Bill Clinton is aware of the impact on employment by the development on renewable energy. Even though he is, as a former dweller of the White House, one of the most visible supporters in that industry, the U.S. Democrat recognized yesterday that clean energies 'have cost many jobs' in Spain. Though without citing it directly, Clinton was acknowledging yesterday during his conference in Madrid that the study about the impact of public support on renewable energies, released by Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, has very valid conclusions. That report, which has received enormous coverage in U.S. media and been used against Barack Obama's energy policy, argues that every job in renewable energies created in Spain in the year 2000 has cost 571,138 Euros and has been the cause of the loss of 2.2 jobs elsewhere in the economy. Bill Clinton recognized yesterday that 'this commitment to clean energy has cost many jobs' while at the same time calling for Spain to intensify investment in this industry to be able to turn high costs into new jobs."

So, wait a minute now. Let me see if I've got all this straight:
a. The "science" underlying claims of man-made global climate change is still questionable at best and at least arguably false.
b. The cap-and-trade scheme in Waxman-Markey, although dramatically and rather quickly impacting our production means and overall economy, will actually only reduce global warming from greenhouse gases by a minuscule amount overall.
c. Countries like China and India are building fossil fuel plants as fast as they can bring them on line, with little to no concern for "clean technology," and even if man-made greenhouse gases are "bad," any reductions we make will be obviated by their increased and steadily increasing emissions.
d. Obama himself has said his cap-and-trade policy would cause electricity prices to skyrocket.
e.. Committee Democrats have estimated Waxman-Markey would more than double electric rates and send gasoline to above five dollars a gallon.
f. A Heritage Foundation study says it could increase your family's energy costs from about $1,500 to $3,000 a year.
g. And Clinton admits that Spain's experiment with "going green" has cost not only a lot of money (one U.S. dollar equals 0.7617 Euros, so 571,138 Euros equals $435,035.81 per green job created) but it's also cost a lot of regular jobs, yet he still advocates doing more of the same and to even intensify investment in the green jobs industry "to turn high costs into new jobs."

SO, TELL ME AGAIN WHY WE'RE IN SUCH A HAIR-ON-FIRE-HURRY TO ENACT THIS LEGISLATION?!

[My goodness, but it does sound a lot like Team Obama's "plan" to spend us out of the recession, doesn't it? But, of course, in typical liberal fashion, if you just "know you're right" and "trying to do the right thing" but it just hasn't worked so far (after all, it's "good intentions" that count, not "actual results," right?), then just "throw more money at it," and eventually it will all get better. And that seems a lot like a quote most often attributed to Albert Einstein but which I think harks back even further to a Roman philosopher in early AD, or maybe late BC, that doing the same thing over and over again, while expecting a different result, is a definition of insanity.]

Oh, and don't forget Spain's own Universidad Rey Juan Carlos' study which statistically documents that for every expensive green job created, 2.2 other jobs (read: regular, existing) were lost to the economy. Well, that's like taking one step forward and two steps backward, so far as the overall economy goes, isn't it?

And even that is exacerbated when you consider that many so-called "green jobs" are not sustainable but are green business/facility "start up" jobs which go away once that business/facility is up and running. In other words, it takes more "green jobbers" to build a green facility than it does to run it.

So, the Green Agenda, or, as I call it, the Going Green Gosh-awful Gamble, really seems to consist of the probability of a dramatic rise in overall unemployment, coupled with the biggest tax increase in world history, all because of, at most, the possibility of man-made, rather than natural, earthly cyclic, global climate change. And, even if Waxman-Markey is fully implemented, greenhouse gas "reductions" will be of a minuscule percentage of overall global greenhouse gases, while China, India and others continue building fossil fuel plants apace with little regard to "clean technology."

Gee, that's just swell, as they used to say back in the '40s or '50s: (a) Retard and restrict our normal production means before we have alternative energy sources on line, (b) cripple the American economy while still in a recession and (c) further burden the American taxpayer/consumer. Sound good to you? Yeah, let me hurry up and vote for that, too. "No, I don't need to think about it, much less read it. Obama says, so just gimme it and tell me where to sign."

Or do you think, just maybe, that YOU might want to contact YOUR Representative or Senator about all this BEFORE it becomes just ANOTHER DONE DEAL? Just a thought. But if they don't HEAR from you, how do they know what YOU want them to do, or NOT DO, as the case may be? Think about it.

 

May 18, 2009

Representative Gerald Connolly
Independence Avenue and 1st Street, SE
Washington, DC 20515-4611

Dear Representative Connolly,