› California Recognizes Cap & Trade Impacts on Economy

Post Authored By Doug Mitchell, Founder of Operation Red State and Chief TechOps Officer – Funk For Congress Campaign

California has had their own cap and trade scheme since 2006.  The plan was to begin in 2012 and their goal would be to decrease carbon emissions back to 1990s levels by 2020.  The Wall Street Journal pointed out that at the time this bill was passed California had less than 5% unemployment and their economy was growing.  More importantly, the “green lobby” in California promised jobs as the result of this effort.

Fast forward to today.  California is nearly a bankrupt state and unemployment is at 12.5%.  That’s 12.5% of the most populous state in the country.  Now, the “green lobby’s” promise of jobs isn’t so promising.  Cap and trade hurts the economy, hands down.  It will boost energy costs and increase unemployment.  The news media loves talking about how many industries can and will be more profitable with a cap and trade system.  Well, that’s only because the US government will be subsidizing some their profits to make it happen.  It’s an artificial growth that’s not sustainable. Government should never be in the business of picking winners and losers.

Further, with unemployment increased from cap and trade, along with higher energy costs, the number of uninsured Americans will increase as well.

Cap and trade is not good for California and it’s not good for America.  If Californians are finally realizing that Cap and Trade will hurt them if they leave this scheme intact, it’s time the rest of America does to.  The funny thing about it is while Californians and the Washington inside the beltway crowd recognize the disaster that would come of Cap and Trade they are still willing to go forward with it once unemployment gets back down to 5.5%.  Typical, they see the error in their ways but they’ll go ahead and move forward with it once unemployment is low enough again.

It really comes down to this.  Cap and Trade is bad for America, it’s bad for Iowa and it’s bad for District Three.  We need to get radical environmental interests out of politics and bring rational logic back into the discussion.