I, _______________, pledge to the taxpayers of the state of _________ and to the American People that I will oppose any legislation relating to climate change/cap and tax that includes a net increase in state or local government revenue.

WE HAVE THE MOST IDIOTS SERVING IN WASHINGTON THAN EVER BEFORE IN HISTORY. WE THE PEOPLE AND LOBBIST PUT THEM IN OFFICE. WE HAVE TED KENNDY, WHO HAS SPENT A LIFE TIME IN WASHINGTON, BIDEN, A LIFE TIME, CHARLES RANGLE, SPECTER, WE HAVE MORE THAT MUST GO HOME. WE NEED LEADERS IN WASHINGTON. ONES THAT ARE FOR AMERICA.

I’AM TIRED OF KEEPING THE REST OF THE WORLD UP. LET’S ELECT AMERICAN PATRIOTS. LET’S ELECT ONES THAT HAVE NOT BEEN IN GOVERNMENT ALL THEIR LIVES. CHECK THE MONEY TRAIL BEFORE WE VOTE.

They don’t even have the honesty to propose it in a revenue-neutral way. They could, for instance, use the revenues from it to reduce the corporate income tax. (Choose your own, as long as it is a permanent reduction in a marginal tax rate or a regressive tax, like FICA) Instead, all of the revenue will flow into a treasury that will be free to use it, for example, to bail out mismanaged “too-large-to-fail” banks, which were run into the ground by politically-connected idiots.

In my opinion, an honestly-presented Pigovian (Google it, or see Greg Mankiw’s blog) tax might be acceptable, after a suitable period of honest debate about its consequences, both economic and environmental, if imposed in a revenue-neutral manner.

In the meantime, the EU, having seen cap and trade fail, will move away from it in order to stem the tide of employment that is being shifted to countries without the huge economic load imposed by this fraud. Germany is going to be the home of thirty new coal-fired power plants in the next six years, by the way, so the enlightened europeans aren’t quite putting their euros where their mouths have been.

In the end, what does cap and trade accomplish? It increases carbon emissions, because it shifts production to economies that are less efficient than ours. It reduces employment and economic growth, because of the economic load that it imposes on the private sector. It fails to affect, at all, the climate, in any positive way. It creates a whole new inefficient (remember guys, it’s the government!) bureaucracy to suck money out of the private sector. Because it reduces economic growth, it imperils, over the long term, any opportunities to deal with climate change, should it occur and should its effects be as negative as some foresee.

It’s time for a note about Al Gore:
Recently, he went to work for Kleiner Perkins, the huge venture capital firm on Sand Hill Road, as a “fixer”. KP, having run short of opportunities in the tech sector, has made huge bets in “alternative energy” companies. They didn’t get rich by being stupid, and they realize that the survival of the companies in which they have invested relies on continued favor and infusions of taxpayer cash from a friendly Congress. They can see which way the wind is blowing, and the odds are that they’re going to get even richer, with the help of dupes like Congressman Larsen. The rest of us, of course, will bear the cost of this colossal misallocation of capital from the productive sector of the economy to the merely politically-favored, but capital-sucking, sector.

Al Gore arranges “meetings” for the managers of these startup companies with those in Washington in a position to help them, in exchange for “campaign contributions” (read, “bribes”).

Is there still any question about the motivation behind the tea parties?