Barack Obama’s Commerce Department nominee admits that cap and trade is a hidden tax

  A position that we who oppose cap and trade legislation hold is the fact that it is nothing more than a tax on energy usage, while proponents of cap and trade tell us that it is a way to cap greenhouse gasses and cut down on pollution.

  Cap and trade would punish energy companies and factories which exceed the government imposed limits on these emissions, but in reality these energy companies and the affected factories would simply pass these new costs on to the consumers, so in the end it will be ordinary Americans who will be paying the taxes imposed on these companies.

  But don’t take my word for it, this is what Barack Obama had to say about his cap and trade plan in 2008:

under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket…even regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad, because I’m capping greenhouse gasses, coal power plants, natural gas…you name it…whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, they would have to retro-fit their operations.

That will cost money…they will pass that money on to the consumers.

  He admitted that energy prices would skyrocket, and he admitted that the additional costs of meeting these new standards would be passed on to the consumers but it wouldn’t stop there because all “fines” levied on these companies will also be passed onto the consumers–not just the initial costs of meeting the new regulations.

  But this would not only affect energy prices because all companies which incur these fines would also pass the “fines” onto the consumer regardless of the product which that company manufactures. 

I know that Barack Obama’s word is virtually worthless now and he has a fleeting relationship with the truth so you can’t be blamed if you don’t take the president at his word on this issue, so let’s look at what Barack Obama’s nominee to head the Commerce Department–John Bryson–had to say about this issue just last year.

I think it’s still unlikely there’ll be a carbon tax bill because I think in the end a very high percentage of the members of Congress think it’s kind of the third rail to support a tax, even if it’s a carbon tax

  He admits that proposing a direct carbon tax is not a likely option because the Congress will be unwilling to impose yet another tax on the American people. I find the last part of that statement interesting on its own because he is implying that the carbon tax is a great idea or a moral or justifiable tax that the Congress simply would not dare get behind even if it is for the good of the environment.  The last part of that statement tells us that while a carbon tax is unlikely it is an idea he supports.

  But he has a backup plan to impose this tax on the American people anyway, and that backup plan is none other than a cap and trade policy.

Greenhouse gas legislation, either with a tax or with cap and trade – which is a more complicated way of getting at it but it has the advantage of politically sort of hiding the fact that you have a tax – but that’s what you’re trying to do

  There you have it, he is admitting that cap and trade is a hidden tax equivalent to a carbon tax. This is precisely what cap and trade opponents have been saying all along, and finally we have an admission of this fact by a person who hopes to serve in the Obama regime.

  With the economy still stagnant at best, and with the possibility that we are facing a double dip recession, the last thing that the American people need is yet another tax increase under the guise of cap and trade but that is precisely what the president is pondering and he hopes that the American people will not see what he is up to because he feels as if most people do not understand the concept of indirect taxes, and he will be able to use this concept so that we unwashed masses will not realize he has broken his pledge not to raise taxes on people making under $250,000.

   All the American people need to do is listen to what Barack Obama said in 2008 and make up their own minds about whether or not they can afford this additional tax.