And let’s not forget McCain’s fingerprints on this:
Senator Inhofe Exposes Costly Global Warming ‘Solutions’ [of the Lieberman-McCain bill ]
October 26, 2007
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=de8b6989-802a-23ad-4788-fb4fa9b0217a
[...]
“...The estimated costs to comply with carbon legislative proposals in the U.S. would also be unreasonable. The NCEP approach would do nothing to lessen global warming even according to the alarmists, but according to EIA, it would still cost more than 118,000 American jobs simply to make a symbolic gesture.
And according to an MIT study, the Sanders-Boxer bill would cost energy sector consumers an amount equal to $4,500 per American family of four. The same study found the Lieberman-McCain bill would cost consumers $3,500 per family of four. Similarly, EIA found that it would have cost 1.3 million jobs. A new EPA analysis shows the Lieberman - McCain bill would cost up to half a trillion dollars by 2030 and $1.3 trillion by 2050.
Now environmentalists will tell you that’s okay. Dan Lashof of the Natural Resources Defense Council says that EPA’s analysis of the Lieberman-McCain bill show “it is affordable.” Although EPA finds that fuel will increase by 22 percent, he calls fuel impacts “pretty modest” - Now activists inside the Beltway may think big jumps in gas prices are no big deal, but I doubt the people living in the real America would agree.
THE POOR BEAR THE BIGGEST COSTS
What few Americans realize is that the impact of these policies would not be evenly distributed. The Congressional Budget Office recently looked at the approach taken by most global warming proposals in Congress - known as cap and trade - that would place a cap on carbon emissions, allocate how much everyone could emit, and then let them trade those emissions. Let me quote from the CBO report:
“Regardless of how the allowances were distributed, most of the cost of meeting a cap on CO2 emissions would be borne by consumers, who would face persistently higher prices for products such as electricity and gasoline. Those price increases would be regressive in that poorer households would bear a larger burden relative to their income than wealthier households would.”
Think about that. Even relatively modest bills would put enormous burdens on the poor.
The poor already face energy costs much higher as a percentage of their income than wealthier Americans. While most Americans spend about 4 percent of their monthly budget on heating their homes or other energy needs, the poorest fifth of Americans spend 19 percent of their budget on energy. Why would we adopt policies which disproportionately force the poor and working class to shoulder the heaviest burdens through even higher energy costs?”
McCain almost seems to have lost on purpose.
He was the worst candidate the GOP could have possibly run in 2008.
He did not want to win the election. He only wanted to beat the Republicans he was running (against) in the primary.
“Them”.