Biggest Tax Increase in History Up for Vote This Friday!

Yesterday, proponents of Cap and Trade cut a last-minute deal with powerful American agriculturists that makes passage of the Waxman-Markley Cap and Trade bill (H. R. 2454) much more likely. Phil Kerpen, Policy Director of Americans for Prosperity described this horrific new tax burden at The Fox Forum:

Obama’s proposed Kyoto-style cap-and-trade plan would be the biggest tax increase in American history. It would hit every American who fills a gas tank, pays an electric bill, or buys anything that has to be grown, shipped, or manufactured.

Cap-and-trade is a way to impose a massive energy tax and pretend it’s not a tax. It puts a cap on overall greenhouse gas emissions, and establishes a market for companies to buy and sell the permits. In Obama’s version, the permits would all be auctioned off and the hundreds of billions of dollars would be used to fund higher government spending.

The hardest hit will be those least able to pay: lower income families, who spend a disproportionate share of their income on energy.

The so-called cap-and-trade energy tax would, according to the president himself, force energy prices to go way up. In an unguarded moment, speaking to The San Francisco Chronicle last year, Obama said: “Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket… they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers.”

The economic impact of imposing these huge new costs on energy consumers would be devastating. Even using the Obama administration’s own numbers, it would amount to a tax hike of $645.7 billion over the first 8 years, over $80 billion per year.

But as the cap becomes more and more strict over time, those costs would skyrocket into the trillions of dollars.

Prepare to be scared out of your socks if you read the entire article by Phil Kerpen, Policy Director of Americans for Prosperity.

Only a mighty response from the American public to Congress can stop this bill.

Call, fax, write.

Contact your Representative here.

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