AMERICAN ISSUES PROJECT

"I think if you get into the way it was written, it's a huge tax and there's no sense calling it anything else. I mean, it is a tax."

So says Warren Buffett, Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and perhaps even more importantly, one of the President's biggest supporters in the economic realm. No truer words were spoken about the energy bill passed by the House on Friday night.

Despite the significant number of skeptics of the man-made global warming theory, President Obama and his fellow liberals have wholly bought into this theory and made it a cornerstone of their energy policy. In his Saturday address, the President called the bill passed this week "a jobs bill." Their argument is that reducing reliance on foreign oil will trigger investments and spending in new programs which will in turn create jobs. Sounds familiar? Isn't this what the stimulus bill was supposed to do? And, how has that worked out so far?

That logic, that 'investing', code for racking up huge debts, would create jobs and even help bring in private capital from the sidelines has not worked as far as the stimulus is concerned. With unemployment nearing double digits, 30% of voters believe that stimulus is hurting the economy. According to that same Rasmussen poll, only 31% say the stimulus has helped the economy, down 3% from last month. These concerns have caused GOP members to start asking, where are the jobs this administration promised to create? Even worse, a staggering 76% of voters are wise enough to recognize that stimulus money will be wasted, while 46% believe that all new stimulus spending should be blocked altogether.

With liberals pushing energy reform, it's about to get a lot worse for those struggling to make ends meet. On the campaign trail, then-candidate Obama often repeated the promise that no family making under $250,000 a year would face any tax increases. With the House passing the cap and tax bill, the President is just one step away from breaking this promise. The Heritage Foundation has calculated that cap & trade will increase heating bills by 56%, raise gas prices by 58% and raise electricity by as much as 90%. I guess President Obama meant no one in that tax bracket would face a direct tax increase?

In fact, Mr. Buffett is not the only Obama supporter to see the plan for what it really is -- a tax in a time of recession, an economy killer. The left-leaning Brookings Institution concluded that cap and trade will decrease GDP by 2.5% by the year 2050 and that 35-40% of coal-related jobs would be shed by 2025, with the economy taking the biggest hit that  year.

This so-called cap and trade scheme is just another route through which the government can intrude into the private sector and exert control over private business.  The American Institute for Economic Research put it best when they pointed out that if renewable resources "are as advertised - clean, unlimited, and free - it would seem they would take over all by themselves and not require complex and expensive schemes like cap and trade."