Support the Cap-and-Trade Tax Disclosure Act
Rep. Jason Chaffetz, one of the bright lights of the GOP in the House, has a terrific idea to let the sun shine in on the Democrats’ massive national energy tax proposal.
He’s looking for co-sponsors of a measure that would require full disclosure of the impact of “cap-and-trade” on ratepayers.
The details via the Republican Study Committee:
Rep. Jason Chaffetz is seeking original cosponsors for the Cap-and-Trade Tax Disclosure Act which will require utility companies to disclose and separately itemize the impact of cap-and-trade taxes on each customer’s utility bill. Sound tax policy requires that taxes should be visible to taxpayers and not buried in the cost of items we purchase. With this legislation, every utility customer – residential and business — will be able to identify the cost of cap-and-trade emissions that the utility is passing on to the customer. As regulated entities, utilities pass taxes on to customers, unlike unregulated companies that can also pass taxes on to shareholders and employees. The cap-and-trade tax is potentially the largest tax increase ever imposed. According to the Administration’s own budget document, the cost will be at least $646 billion over an eight-year period. No matter where you stand on the issue of cap and trade, both sides can agree that full disclosure and transparency are good public policy.
Call your rep and ask them to sign on (and make a special effort to contact the Democrats who have publicly criticized the national eco-tax): 202-224-3121.
Pssst, President Obama: This is what transparency looks like.
***
And this is what transparency looks like, thanks to Sen. Jim DeMint:
The US Senate has finally reversed its longstanding policy of restricting public access to raw data about how Senators vote, and is now posting XML of votes on Senate.gov.
This move follows a recent initiative, led by Senator DeMint, to request the Senate Rules Committee post the votes data.
While this issue may seem to be arising out of the blue, with recent coverage in the Politico, Senate votes XML have been brooched as a perennial roadblock. It would seem, however, that the number of people affected by the restriction grew to the point where they could no longer be ignored, and common sense prevailed.
Just as the recent rewriting of Web use restrictions has led to creative Internet use among Members of Congress, the new votes data should help fuel a renaissance of vote analysis and visualization. XML encourages advanced processing and analysis, making votes legible to both humans and computers, and giving us a new view on how Senators vote.
See what others have said
Note from Michelle: This section is for comments from michellemalkin.com's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that I agree with or endorse any particular comment just because I let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with my terms of use may lose his or her posting privilege.
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.
 |
Reminder: Global Warming Still Going to Cause Chocolate Shortage
February 11, 2012 02:31 PM by Doug Powers
22 Comments
Concrete Evidence Man is Causing Glacier Retreat
February 2, 2012 03:07 PM by Doug Powers
68 Comments
E-mail of the day: Media Matters coordinates with Capitol Hill “allies” on Keystone XL; Plus: 20,000 jobs “is not that many”
January 25, 2012 11:23 PM by Michelle Malkin
86 CommentsObama’s Green Robber Barons
January 25, 2012 09:13 AM by Michelle Malkin
89 Comments
Obama Admin. Rejects Keystone Pipeline; TransCanada Can Reapply After Finding Alternate Route; Updated
January 18, 2012 12:13 PM by Doug Powers
159 Comments
GM to Call Back Chevy Volts
January 5, 2012 08:59 PM by Doug Powers
71 CommentsNew Light Bulb Standards Enforced Via Honor System… for Now
December 30, 2011 12:48 PM by Doug Powers
67 Comments
Categories: Enviro-nitwits
Patterico
» Rick Santorum and the two playbooksRiehl World View
» Romney's Blood Is Blue, Not ConservativePundit & Pundette
» King Barack vs. the NonconformistsJustOneMinute
» Cat Blogging In A Harsh New LightGateway Pundit
» Top Leftist Blog: Obama Must Quash Religious Freedom to Save Earth From Global Warming
Maybe they could include the estimated impact on global temperature on everyone’s electricity bill too.
Global Warming Tax: $50.00
Estimated Reduction of Global Temerature: 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0001°F
It’s good to know that SOMEONE in the Repub party has a pulse. Go for it, Mr. Chaffetz!
This is the way to do it. Everyone should be infavor of this, no matter which side off the isle they are on.
This isn’t all that different from what would happen if we all had to stroke a check for our annual income taxes. Once people actually see how much they are spending, they are much more likely to demand reductions in government spending. (Yes lgm, both sides have been big spenders. We certainly agree on that.)
This man is GREAT! I googled his name and guess what?
“When Rep. Chaffetz is in Washington, D.C., away from his Utah home, he sleeps on a cot to save more than $1500 per month.”
Off subject anyone notice this.
Anyone put the similarities together of this Chrysler deal to Hitler?
HHHHHMMMMM! Hitler created Volkswagon and Mercedes now we have Obamageddon
creating (forcing) Fiat in our country.
Personally I think they are low baling the cost by a factor of 10. You won’t see $650 over 8 years, I think we’ll see it in the first year and every year afterwords.
Now there you go, spoiling all his fun! Of course, we know that the Repubs have been the biggest spenders, not the Dems. Besides, it’s all Bush’s fault!
How pathetic it must be to live such a retarded life that you must constantly live in the past, because you can’t honestly afford to look at the present.
***
The direct costs to the consumer and to businesses can be calculated by the Congressional Business Office.
***
The indirect costs in damage to our economy when it competes with foreign economies will be harder to calculate.
***
The damage to the American people in the new U.S.S.A. will be apparent when the much higher costs and higher unemployment numbers become apparent to all in a few years.
***
Hope and Change you can (‘t) believe in!
***
John Bibb
***
What’s the betting that the One will declare this:
1. A distraction.
2. A false choice between doing something for the environment or doing nothing.
FULL DISCLOSURE??? What a BRILLIANT IDEA!!! Chances of it happening??? VERY, VERY slim, to none… As a country of LEMMINGS, ignorance is BLISS… If this country paid all it’s TAXES together on April 15th, do you think they would do it without PROTEST??? My favorite question at TAX TIME is a beaut… I always had the LEMMING I worked with who would say, “Hey I did my taxes yesterday, I’m getting back 4,000 BUCKS”!!! Then my question… “How much did you PAY”??? The answer was always the same… “I don’t know, but I’m getting back 4,000 BUCKS!!! CAP and TRADE is nothing more then a MONEY GENERATOR, based on VOODOO TECHNOLOGY, and will bankrupt the MIDDLE CLASS in this COUNTRY!!!
I know I may have spoiled his fun, but it was better for all of us to head off the tit-for-tat before it even begins.
And you’re dead on right: in the present the left has eclipsed anything the repubs have done in the past. The trolls may want to consider that before crying about Booooosh. (But they won’t. Sad.)
I had the pleasure to vote for Jason…and he has not let us down. We in the 3rd District in Utah are very, very proud of Jason.
By the way, he keeps us all up on everything using facebook…..none of the aids running interference for him. He does his own posting and linking….
25$/Ton CO2 tax converts directly to 0.25$/gallon of automotive gas – using published government conversion information.
25$/ton rate is the minimum anyone is talking about. This is the rate we could all pay for our driving footprint, without including the production, refining, and transportation CO2 upstream of our gasoline purchase.
The downside to this is that people will think that their electric rate increase is their only cost for cap & trade. They will also be paying for more costly goods and services from businesses that are also paying the fees but can’t or don’t disclose the fee’s impact on what they sell.
In Massachusetts some gas stations have stickers on the pumps breaking down the result of the gas tax increase that is being proposed. Thy are from some gas station association.
No only if other business would do the same, say supermarkets, post signs showing the break don of food costs next to the shelf tag.
Ingredients…$x.xx
Labor………$x.xx
Taxes………$x.xx
GW tax……..$X.xx
Total cost….$x.xx
Maybe even moonbats would get that.
No, moonbats would only be mad at the item that said “company profit”.
Isn’t the basic question will Cap & Trade actually work to reduce global warming? As there is growing evidence that the earth is entering a cooling period, if this gets passed, the global warming alarmists will claim credit.
Last fall, Dr. James Hansen, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and one of the most extreme global warming alarmists, claimed October 2008 the hottest on record and implied we were all doomed. In less than 48 hours, the Institute had to reverse itself under a firestorm of scientific criticism. October 2008 was actually one of the coolest Octobers in the last 100 years.
With mounting scientific evidence the earth is entering a cooling period, look for the socialists to get increasingly desperate to pass this legislation.
As someone noted elsewhere, politicians are telling us that raising our taxes will allow us to control the weather. Uh huh.
Let’s also include the ‘impact’ on the wallets of Al gore, Maurice Strong, GE, et al…
Another thing that none of these eco-zealots seem to be concerned about is the fact that in all of the developing world, they are building coal-fired electrical generating plants at a record pace. Until China, India, or the rest of the developing world can produce electricity from another source at less than 3 cents per Kw hour, they are going to continue burning coal.
The United States made a huge mistake 30-odd years ago when it allowed the Three Mile Island nuclear incident to scare us away from nuclear power. I’m afraid we are making an even bigger mistake in trying to tax only ourselves into some other form of “clean” energy.
I still believe the states are going to need to band together to take on the runaway federal bureaucracy.
Initiatives like this are good but they are like hunting bear with slingshots. We need a constitutional showdown.
Showing everybody the truth on their votes may slow them down a little, but, it’ll still be full steam ahead, there’s a lot of history to rewrite!
Great point ned.
Me thinks it actually reads…$650 a year over 8 years…
Good guys like DeMint, Chaffetz, and Sessions are rare in congress/senate and don’t get the recognition they deserve as honest, moral, intelligent, fair, and hard-working legislatures. I think they are both despised and feared by many of their colleagues. Despised because they have ideas that are contrary to those of the corruptocrats. Feared because the corruptocrats can’t figure out what motivates them (where’s the payback for honesty and fairness?).
I would have to ask why a utility wouldn’t just itemize it anyway? I just started working for a utility and I know we itemize “transport fees” “recovery fees” etc…. Unless someone is trying to force utilities to hide the cap and trade costs…
Excellent nusspoint. The payback, of course, is a clear conscience in this life and a “Well done, my good and faithful servant.” in the next one.
Ok – I think my idea was stolen!! Not that I mind since it is a great idea.
I posted this very idea to RedState on April 20th which was after I e-mail the idea to my GOP Rep. John Boozman (R-AR). His office liked the idea so much they actually called me last Friday.
Manufacturers should do this for ALL products — give an estimate of the proportion of the purchase price that goes to hidden taxes.
Voluntarily, of course.
According to the proposers of the national sales tax (which would replace income taxes, not add to them), that figure is somewhere btween 23% and 30%.
I agree, if it were visible, people might vote differently when some leftist says we need to keep raising taxes.
Ok, so the government wants to tax CO2, before they do that I think the government needs to come up with an economic alternative to CO2. Then we can talk business.