Climate Tax on the Poor

That’s how Senator James Inhofe of the Environment and Public Works Committee sees it. A raise in gas prices from $.41 to a dollar by 2030, increased home heating and utility bills the poor are least likely to cope with, and a loss of manufacturing jobs. It’s a trifecta of economic disaster!

With average gas prices across the country approaching $4 a gallon, it may be hard to believe, but the U.S. Senate is considering legislation this week that will further drive up the cost at the pump.

The Senate is debating a global warming bill that will create the largest expansion of the federal government since FDR’s New Deal, complete with a brand new, unelected bureaucracy. The Lieberman-Warner bill (America’s Climate Security Act) represents the largest tax increase in U.S. history and the biggest pork bill ever contemplated with trillions of dollars in giveaways. Well-heeled lobbyists are already plotting how to divide up the federal largesse. The handouts offered by the sponsors of this bill come straight from the pockets of families and workers in the form of lost jobs, higher gas, power and heating bills, and more expensive consumer goods.

What’s the punchline of that old joke? World ends tomorrow- women and minorities hit hardest! Inhofe goes on to say:

...The poor already face energy costs as a much higher percentage of their income than wealthier Americans. While most Americans spend about 4% of their monthly budget on heating their homes or other energy needs, the poorest fifth of Americans spend 19%.

Can you afford to pay more at the pump? Lieberman-Warner doesn’t solve any climatological crisis, but creates an economic crisis, which will result in the need for government to “do more”, a problem which Washington officials would be only to happy to “solve” with more taxes and more bureaucracy.

Cross posted at Say Anything