Taxing your breathing

Carbon Dioxide is emitted each time we or any animal exhales. It is also emitted by the burning of fossil fuels, volcanoes and geysers. It is used by plants during photosynthesis to make sugar. Thus it is a part of the natural carbon cycle.

The EPA concluded Friday that greenhouse gases linked to climate change "endanger public health and welfare," setting the stage for regulating them under federal clean air laws. Limits on carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases would have widespread economic and social impact, from requiring better fuel efficiency for automobiles to limiting emissions from power plants and industrial sources, changing the way the nation produces energy.

So what actually would this cost us?

Cap and trade which imposes limits on the emission of pollutants would be run by a government agency that would set a cap on the amount of a pollutant a business could emit. An emission permit would give the business a set number of credits it could use. If they go over that number they would have to purchase more credits from the government. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the tax revenues from cap and trade could be as much as $300 billion per year by 2020. If business gets hit with a cap and trade tax, where do you think they will get the money? They will have to raise prices which amounts to everyone getting taxed more which the great one said wouldn't happen. And if the government can get $300 billion per year what's to stop them from wanting $500 billion? A new study by Bryan Buckley and Sergey Mityakov of Clemson University found that that the cap-and-trade approach contained in a bill introduced last summer by Sens. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., and John Warner, R-Va., would, in effect, hit the average American household with a tax hike of $1,100 in 2009 - a hike that would rise to more than $1,400 in 2015.

If this strategy would actually make a difference we could argue about its merits but according to an analysis by the Environmental Protection Agency a 60 percent reduction in carbon-dioxide emissions by 2050 will reduce global temperature by 0.1 to 0.2 degree Centigrade by 2095.

So are we willing to give up $1400 per year to reduce the global temp. by .2 of a degree by 2095? Don't believe the hype, all this is is a grab for more of your money.

With the new health care proposals and push for small cars we will have fewer people breathing and if we could cap volcanoes and find a way to plug cow farts we wouldn't need cap and trade.