The so-called Climate Change Bill is currently working its way through Congress having just passed the House by a small margin and now it is off to the Senate for their consideration. Once again, we have another bill that was passed in the House that was not read in its 1500 page entirety including amendments. This is a bill that will issue a cap on carbon emissions by forcing the purchasing of carbon permits which will slowly decrease over the coming years. The idea being sold to the public is the purported intention of creating millions of green energy jobs and combating global warming in the process. Congress is willing to push forward on this issue regardless of any unconvinced opinions that remain or its associated cost. The names that are being used to reference this proposed legislation are the Climate Change Bill, Cap and Trade, or the Energy Bill, but it has become very clear that there is no desire to accept the true descriptive nature of this bill which is a tax on American citizens. It is a tax we will all pay every time we use any form of energy centered on carbon, and it will likely shroud itself by being embedded in the price of any energy consumed, thus it will not be seen individually as a separate charge. Additionally, we will have to pay the higher incremental cost of less efficient alternative energy provided that can not be produced or delivered as economically as carbon-based energy. Either way, it will be more money out of the wallets of Americans because the Government will be receiving money from this plan, hence it stands to reason that citizens will be paying that money however direct or indirect it may be.

The ridiculous part of this are the very biased views being presented in this dispute with both sides wanting to paint it in their favor. The Democrats want to paint it as a creator of green jobs and climate enhancement which both sound appealing at this time, particularly the job creation part to combat unemployment. The Republicans see it in much simpler form as a huge tax increase at the worst possible time that will cost jobs instead of creating them. As expected they are both partially correct, if you throw endless sums of money at a project it is likely to create some amount of jobs, but it is also very much a tax. The basic definition of a tax is simply a fee levied by a Government on a product, income, or activity. If such fee is levied on personal or corporate income, then it is a direct tax, if levied of the price of a good or service, then it is an indirect tax. Simple enough, without any doubt this certainly qualifies as a tax, an indirect tax to be specific. However, what is not known is whether this will create more “green jobs” than what it eliminates throughout the economy due to the tax that will be levied. The real question we should ask ourselves as Americans is our willingness to pay hundreds of billions of dollars, maybe a trillion over time, in taxes to possibly create some incremental jobs and to combat global warming that may turn out to be as fictitious as global cooling was in the 1970’s. Plus, will any real reduction in carbon emissions prove statistically significant considering the massive cost associated to travel down this rabbit hole? This is the crux of the issue when you eliminate all the posturing, but do not believe the rhetoric stating that this will not be a tax extracted from each of us during a very challenging time in our economy. A tax it will be, so all that is left to be determined is do we think it is worth it?