The stimulus bill was the legislative equivalent of the famous cantina scene from Star Wars, an eye-popping collection of the freakish and exotic, gathered for dubious purposes. The Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, known as ACES (the American Clean Energy and Security Act), is more like the third panel in Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights — a hellscape that disturbs the sleep of anybody who contemplates it carefully.
Two main things to understand about Waxman-Markey: First, it will not reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, at least not at any point in the near future. The inclusion of carbon offsets, which can be manufactured out of thin air and political imagination, will eliminate most of the demands that the legislation puts on industry, though in doing so it will manage to drive up the prices consumers pay for every product that requires energy for its manufacture — which is to say, for everything. Second, it represents a worse abuse of the public trust and purse than the stimulus and the bailouts put together. Waxman-Markey creates a permanent new regime in which environmental romanticism and corporate welfare are mixed together to form political poison. From comic bureaucratic power grabs (check out the section of the bill on candelabras) to the creation of new welfare programs for Democratic constituencies to, above all, massive giveaways for every financial, industrial, and political lobby imaginable, this bill would permanently deform American politics and economic life.
The House of Representatives, famously, did not read this bill before passing it, which is testament to either Nancy Pelosi’s managerial incompetency or her political wile, or possibly both. If you take the time to read the legislation, you’ll discover four major themes: special-interest giveaways, regulatory mandates unrelated to climate change, fanciful technological programs worthy of The Jetsons, and assorted left-wing wish fulfillment. We cannot cover every swirl and brushstroke of this masterpiece of misgovernance, but here’s a breakdown of its 50 most outrageous features.
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Re the no-till in this bill. Farmers in Canada have been using no-till for years. And most of them started to cut costs, via not summerfallowing several times/year. But, it has increased their costs for weed control products and spraying costs.
A solution in look for a problem. Government at its best.
That’s an incredible article… For some reason, I’m suddenly less sure about America’s future… and I thought they were in trouble before I read the article…
This seems treasonous.
I believe Snake Eyes is more appropriate that ACES.
I have to say this: there’s a pig somewhere who’s missing his nose.
If I know anything about Sarah Palin at all I know this. She is going to have a field day with the bill because she is probably one of the very few politicians in the country who has actually sat down and read it. More to the point she understands it.
And when she gets done exposing this “rape” of US taxes there won’t be a Democrat left standing. That appears to be a worthy goal in my view.