Posted by Jim Lindgren:
Smug Alert: House May Pass Cap-and-Trade, the 21st Century Version of
Smoot-Hawley.
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_06_21-2009_06_27.shtml#1245995607
Powerline has a [1]depressing post (tip to [2]Instapundit) suggesting
that Pelosi may have obtained the votes to pass cap-and-trade by
making concessions to farm state congressman. It seems that they are
willing to support the bill if the government is willing to continue
its anti-environmental policy of promoting ethanol.
Before the last few years, scholars used to say that we couldn't get a
depression today because policymakers wouldn't make mistakes as bad as
the ones they made in the 1930s. Though we've made some great moves in
the last year -- increasing the money supply and guaranteeing money
markets funds -- we're also repeating many of the same mistakes as
Hoover and FDR.
The cap-and-trade bill, if passed by the Senate and actually
implemented over the next few decades, would do more damage to the
country than any economic legislation passed in at least 100 years. It
would eventually send most American manufacturing jobs overseas,
reduce American competitiveness, and make Americans much poorer than
they would have been without it.
The cap-and-trade bill will have little, if any, positive effect on
the environment -- in part because the countries that would take jobs
from US industries tend to be bigger polluters. By making the US --
and the world -- poorer, it would probably reduce the world's ability
to develop technologies that might solve its environmental problems in
the future.
If this bill were very likely to pass the Senate and if the
restrictions were to be phased in quicker in the early years of the
program than the bill provides, then a double-dip recession would be a
near certainty. But because the Senate may reject such an
anti-business bill altogether and because in future years the
strictures of the law may well be postponed just when they might bite
businesses, it is hard to predict what might happen to the economy in
the short run.
Nonetheless, if the House and Senate were both to pass cap-and-trade,
the chance of a double-dip recession, which was a remote possibility
just last week, would be converted into a substantial possibility,
though probably still less likely than not.
What cap-and-trade accomplishes besides causing businesses to make
decisions that would otherwise be inefficient is that it makes its
proponents feel morally superior.
This phenomenon was explored in the classic South Park episode,
[3]Smug Alert.
Here is Matt and Trey's official commentary to this episode:
[EMBED]
Unfortunately, the price of "smug" is likely to be staggering.
References
Visible links
1. http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/06/023896.php
2. http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/80837/
3. http://www.southparkstudios.com/guide/1002/
Hidden links:
4. file://localhost/files/jim-1002.south_park.jpg
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