[TomGuy]

while adhering to free-market principles

McCain's major solution is to implement a cap-and-trade program

==

Which is it? Free-market principles or implementation of cap-and-trade (i.e., regulations)?

==

Just weeks ago, McCain was advocating mandates. And saying all this green is not going to cost the taxpayers.

==

This is McCain (from This Week, February 17, 2008) [emphasis added]:

STEPHANOPOULOS: How about on the issue of climate change? Because you and Sen. [Joe] Lieberman [I-Conn.] have come out for a bill which would have mandatory reductions in greenhouse gases.

MCCAIN: Gradual reductions, yes.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But they are mandatory.

MCCAIN: Yes.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Are you sticking by that?

MCCAIN: What I mean by that is that it's cap-and-trade, that there will be incentives for people to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It's a free-market approach. The Europeans are using it now. We did it in the case of addressing acid rain -- look, if we do that, we stimulate green technologies. I have great faith in the American industry. General Electric, the world's largest corporation, has announced they're dedicated to green technologies. This will be profit-making business.

It won't cost the American taxpayer. It will make profits, because we'll move forward with the innovation and ability of American industry to address this issue.

No wonder McCain admits he doesn't know much about economics. Who does he think is going to pay for GE making all that profit, since he says it isn't the American taxpayer? Will President McCain just mandate that profits will henceforth grow on trees? Where is the profit from those mandated fluorescent bulbs coming from? Is McCain secretly suggesting he will set up a program to provide free fluorescent bulbs to the American people, since he says "It won't cost the American taxpayer"?

[Hint, JohnnyMc: Consumers. And a majority of consumers are also taxpayers. So, all that corporate profit will cost the taxpayers.]

[G.Mason]

Simply more B/S from the "straight talk express".

I'd like to see that socialist RINO get beaten in November.

Somehow it seems better to get it in the chest than stabbed in the back.

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

[MrB]

Any interference or pressure in the market by an outside force that pays no cost for the effects of that pressure

costs those in the system unnecessarily.

[DManA]

It is a travesty of the language and economics to call cap-and-trade a free market “solution” Half the people are in this market to make an easy buck. The other half are there because fascists like McCain have a gun to their temples. The only real "incentive" the government has is the implicit threat of violence.

[HoosierHawk]

No wonder McCain admits he doesn't know much about economics.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I fail to see how government-mandated reductions translates to free-market principles.

Thanks for the transcript.

[headstamp 2]

All these pols are in on the “cap and trade scam”, include McCain, and stand to make a ton of money.

Most of them couldn’t give a damn whether GW is happening or not or who it is caused by.

This will be the biggest boondoggle for the taxpayer ever by the elite political class on both sides of the aisle.

And they WILL get it passed. Too many elites stand to make a ton of money.

[calcowgirl]

Mandatory caps... yeah, that’s free-market, for ya. ROFL.

He will use “the purchasing power of the United States government” to increase “incentives.”

This is just another LIBERAL big-government solution to a non-problem that will cost TRILLIONS and destroy the economy at the same time.

Milton Friedman, he ain’t.