President
Obama played the role of concerned economic leader over the weekend after the
House on Friday narrowly passed a bill designed to curtail global warming. He questioned language that
would use trade penalties as a stick to punish countries that don't accept
limits on emissions.
"At
a time when the economy worldwide is still deep in recession and we've seen a
significant drop in global trade," Obama told
reporters at the White House, "I think we have to be very careful about
sending any protectionist signals out there."
You
might be tempted to think, "Good for Obama!" A trade war is indeed
the last thing the U.S. economy needs right now when unemployment is high and
likely headed upward and when the president's economic policies have some
people worried about inflation.
But
Obama still adamantly refuses to open his eyes and see the bigger economic
picture that will unfold if a "cap and trade" system to limit
pollution is imposed. Yes, a trade war would cripple the economy, but so would
any energy plan under which, as Obama as acknowledged of his own proposal in
January 2008, "electricity rates would necessarily
skyrocket."
Obama
calls his plan "a
jobs bill," but the taxing reality of cap and trade is so obvious by
now that even Obama's
allies aren't denying it. "It's a huge tax and there's no sense calling it
anything else," said Warren Buffett, Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway.
"I mean, it is a tax."
House
Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, recapped the economic impact of a
cap-and-trade plan his weekly radio address Friday. "By imposing a tax on
every American who drives a car or flips on a light switch, this plan will
drive up the prices for food, gasoline and electricity." He added that the
proposal "would ship millions of jobs to competitors, like China and
India."
Remember Boehner's words the next time Obama
strikes a pose as a president who cares about the economic impact of his energy
policy. He doesn't. He's just a poseur.