Waxman-Markey: Porkulus Redux

Eternity Road has a post up by the Curmudgeon entitled simply Waxman-Markey. The Curmudgeon is Francis W. Poretto's alter ego.

There's no question that this bill will radically increase the price of electricity, and of every fuel other than uranium. Indeed, several of its backers have admitted that much -- and have touted it as a feature rather than a bug. The bill amounts to the largest and longest protracted tax measure in the history of the world. Just as bad is this: given the Obama Administration's hostility to expanded exploration for coal, oil, and natural gas, the supply of all the fuels that power American society is likely to decrease.

If this bill isn't somehow killed in the Senate, it will reduce America to a penurious, has-been power, whose citizens will swelter in the summer and shiver in the winter while paying a fortune for the privilege.

I have read estimates that electricity costs may increase by 90%, never mind transportation fuels. Summers get hot here. The day time high temperatures have ranged up to 100 degrees of late, with humidity to match. I remember Ohio winters when the day time high temperature did not get above zero. If your income is, say $20,000, does it become a struggle whether to cool the home or put food on the table? Can you afford to drive to your job even?

Let's look at energy independence, so beloved by the left as a campaign slogan. This bill will mean we will explore for, and extract less fuel than we do now here at home, and thus we will be importing more of our energy under a cap and trade regime than we are now. If they think we are being blackmailed into unnecessary wars in the middle east now, what will they think when we are being blackmailed into wars in more places because we have to import more fuel from around the globe. All this while the country has abundant fuel sitting in the ground.

Then there is the question of whether you are truly being "represented" in the Congress, or are these relatively wealthy men and women (a Congressman makes $174,000 plus benefits any one of us would love to have) are just in it for themselves? If your Congressman had to live under the same rules as you do, do you think they would pass this sort of economic travesty?
I have not heard the figures, but I would imagine substantial numbers of people called the Congressional hotline to voice their opposition to this bill. Why weren't their concerns taken into account? What was so urgent about this bill, that it could not wait until after the July 4th holiday? Would one more day of delay have made a difference in the global temperature 100 years from now? Really? And we know the Congressman who voted for this bill could not have read or understood it. There we 300 pages of changes to the bill that were included by the Rules Committee at 3:00 am that morning. They did not even have a single completed copy of the bill before voting on it. Where's the outrage?

This is another Porkulus Bill, passed in a hurry, in the middle of the night, before Congressmen took off for July 4th so they wouldn't have to face the anger of the electorate.

I think I need take a page from Francis Poretto, and create an alter ego for these little rants.