US House Passes Cap and Trade Legislation

  Cross posted on Grizzly Groundswell

  Today the House of Representatives passed the Climate Change bill by a vote of 219-212. Forty Democrats voted against the bill but eight Republicans broke ranks and voted for this disaster.

  This is what I was afraid of. We needed the Blue Dog Democrats to hold firm and it looks like they did, but we also needed Republicans to hold firm and they failed to do so. They have let us down. I have not yet found the roll call vote to see  which Republicans sold us down the river but once we find out who they were we must make sure that we vote them out of office.

  If Republicans held true on this bill as they did on the stimulus bill this legislation would have been defeated. Is it any wonder why conservative voters have had enough of the Republicans in the government?

  The president has called this bill “historic legislation” and he is correct. It isn’t often that the congress votes in favor of the largest tax increase in the history of the world but today that is exactly what they did. Even President Obama and other Democrats have admitted that this legislation means higher energy costs for ALL Americans. Add another $1 trillion plus to the budget that has already bankrupted the country.

  Evidently the House did not learn from the disaster that was the stimulus bill for, just like the stimulus bill, nobody read this bill before they voted on it. As a matter of fact Nancy Pelosi had the only copy of the legislation and members who wanted to read it were told they would have to leave the chamber to do so.

  Now it is on to the senate where the rumors are that this bill faces tough opposition. I hope that is true but I don’t buy it, this bill is on the fast track to the president’s desk before the American people can find out what is actually in it. And with the likes of the usual suspect; Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, and John McCain, it looks to me like the Democrats will have the votes.

 Climate change legislation is basically a done deal now and we are all facing a major tax increase that is in direct contrast to Obama’s promise that 95% of Americans will receive a tax break while he is president and we have eight Republicans to thank for it.

  We can only hope that over the July 4th recess enough Americans voice their disapproval to their senators to sway the Senate to kill this bill. We did it on the immigration reform bill two years ago and we have to try to do it again.

Update: The eight Republicans were, Chris Smith (NJ), David Reichert (WA), Frank Lobiondo (NJ), Mark Steven Kirk (IL), Bono-Mack (CA), Castle (DE), Leo Nance (NJ), John McHugh (NY).