The Republican National Committee has sent candles to lawmakers on Capitol Hill and released a web video claiming climate legislation will “tax our lights out.” Notes attached to the candles protest the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454), claiming that the bill’s cap on global warming pollution will make it impossible for Americans to use electricity:
If Democrats pass ‘Cap and Tax,’ this is all the energy American families and businesses will be able to afford. Don’t tax our lights out!
Watch the video:
In reality, the Congressional Budget Office found last Friday “that the net annual economy-wide cost of the cap-and-trade program in 2020 would be $22 billion — or about $175 per household” — less than the cost of a postage stamp a day. The CBO analysis, done at the request of Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI), found that the 23 million Americans “in the lowest income quintile — would see an average net benefit of about $40 in 2020.”
Update:
Paul Krugman comments:
The point is that we need to be clear about who are the realists and who are the fantasists here. The realists are actually the climate activists, who understand that if you give people in a market economy the right incentives they will make big changes in their energy use and environmental impact. The fantasists are the burn-baby-burn crowd who hate the idea of using government for good, and therefore insist that doing the right thing is economically impossible.