Common Sense Political Thought

. . . except that he hasn’t yet giveth. Right now, it looks like our incoming president is preparing to only to taketh away:

Obama vows quick action to curb warming
In surprise speech, he says U.S. to help lead ‘new era of global cooperation’
msnbc.com staff and news service reports
updated 6:41 p.m. ET, Mon., Nov. 17, 2008

LOS ANGELES - He wasn’t expected to make an appearance, let alone a splash, but President-elect Barack Obama on Tuesday delivered a videotaped message to a climate change summit convened by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, vowing quick action to curb emissions and engage in international talks.

“You can be sure that the United States will once again engage vigorously in these negotiations, and help lead the world toward a new era of global cooperation on climate change,” he told hundreds of scientists, executives, governors and even foreign officials gathered in Los Angeles.

President George W. Bush has refused to formally participate in the U.N.-hosted negotiations, instead sending observers in recent years. He has also refused mandatory curbs on emissions, instead focusing on technological solutions.

But Obama said he felt the United States must adopt mandatory curbs and join the U.N. process. “Few challenges facing America — and the world — are more urgent than combating climate change,” he said.

Much more at the link. But what the next president has said is that the United States must impose new regulations, impose new costs, on pretty much everything it does, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Setting aside the varying claims as to whether carbon dioxide emissions actually cause global warming, we have to realize one thing: the action Barack Obama is promising carries a serious economic cost, a cost which does not improve productivity or increase wealth, but one intended to have some sort of beneficial effect decades down the road.

As we are worrying about an economic downturn, as layoffs increase and more Americans are jobless, Mr Obama’s promises — vague as they are at the moment — mean that precious resources will be expended which do not produce new jobs, which do not enrich our country, which only impose greater costs on the American people in the near-term.

“Climate change and our dependence on foreign oil, if left unaddressed, will continue to weaken our economy and threaten our national security,” he told the two-day summit. “My presidency will mark a new chapter in America’s leadership on climate change that will strengthen our security and create millions of new jobs in the process.”

Obama reiterated his campaign promise of a system to cap and trade greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. “We will establish strong annual targets that set us on a course to reduce emissions to their 1990 levels by 2020 and reduce them an additional 80 percent by 2050,” he said.

Mr Obama knows what such a program would do, because he admitted it’s economic effects last January:

You know, when I was asked earlier about the issue of coal, uh, you know — 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 gases, coal power plants, you know, natural gas, you name it — whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, uh, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers. . . .

So, if somebody wants to build a coal plant, they can — it’s just that it will bankrupt them, because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.

Here it is, in Senator Obama’s own voice:

You’ll find his words “electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket” at about 0:55 into the tape.

There is such a huge disconnect here between the man we elected as our next president, a man who came from working-class roots, and the actual plight of working people in the United States that it is astounding. Working people — and an increasing number of people who are no longer working, who have been laid off — have to do something really radical like pay their electric bills. If the incoming president’s plans impose additional costs upon electric utilities, the people who use electricity — and that means virtually everyone — are going to have to pay those costs.

Nor is it just an additional cost in an individual’s electric bill. The grocery store from which they buy their food will also see increased electricity costs, costs which will be passed on to the consumer. Their employers will see higher electricity costs, which mean that they’ll have to be passed on to their customers or, failing that, increase the costs of doing business, so there is less available for wages and salaries and benefits.

When President George W Bush withdrew the United States from the abysmal Kyoto Accords, he:

cited worries that the costs of the Kyoto Protocol were likely to outweigh any of the uncertain benefits the world might reap. He expressed the concern that reducing emissions output could endanger jobs and hurt domestic revenue.

Prior to President Clinton sending Vice President Gore to Kyoto, Japan, to sign that flawed agreement, the United States Senate said in part, in the Byrd-Hagel Resolution:

(T)he Senate strongly believes that the proposals under negotiation, because of the disparity of treatment between Annex I Parties and Developing Countries and the level of required emission reductions, could result in serious harm to the United States economy, including significant job loss, trade disadvantages, increased energy and consumer costs, or any combination thereof.

The Senate, which would have had to have ratified the Kyoto Accords, voted for the resolution asking President Clinton not to sign it in its then-present form unanimously, 95-0. Vice President Gore went ahead and signed it for us, but President Clinton knew better than to submit it to the Senate for ratification. President Bush should have submitted it for ratification, encouraging rejection, rather than simply withdrawing from it.

Whether Kyoto’s, or any other carbon-reducing protocol, would actually have a beneficial effect is debatable, but even if we concede (for the sake of argument) that such would be beneficial, any such benefit would not be seen for decades to come. However, the costs of implementing such would start immediately.

There is no free lunch! Perhaps Mr Obama, who lives in this fine house in Chicago’s Kenwood section — and who will soon be moving into some rather luxurious government housing — has forgotten what it’s like to have to worry about paying the bills. Perhaps carbon hypocrites like former Vice President Gore, who lives in a 10,000 ft² mansion outside Nashville, and who uses more electricity in a month than an average American family uses in a year (his electric bill averages about $1,200 a month in 2006) don’t have to juggle, and decide to pay the electricity bill next month because they have to pay for heating oil this time around.

But real people do have to worry about things like that. Many of the American people, who gave a majority of their votes to Barack Obama, really do have to consider carefully where to spend their money. It’s all well and good to say, “This will help us down the road, this will be better for our country and the world in the future,” when you don’t have to worry about being able to pay your bills in the present.

Mr Obama, you need to remember your roots, you need to remember what life was like before you got rich; life is still like that for most of us.