From a San Francisco Chronicle interview on January 17, 2008 with then candidate Obama regarding the coal industry: Let me sort of describe my overall policy.
What I've said is that we would put a cap and trade system in place that is as aggressive, if not more aggressive, than anybody else's out there.
I was the first to call for a 100% auction on the cap and trade system, which means that every unit of carbon or greenhouse gases emitted would be charged to the polluter. That will create a market in which whatever technologies are out there that are being presented, whatever power plants that are being built, that they would have to meet the rigors of that market and the ratcheted down caps that are being placed, imposed every year.
So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted.
President Obama's first budget proposal includes $75 billion in tax revenues by 2012 from a cap-and-trade system that requires companies to buy credits if they exceed greenhouse gas limits. We don't have to guess which utilities this targets because POTUS told us last year: coal. This is part of his plan to bankrupt the coal industry.
The unintended (or intended?) consequence comes from the companies pass their costs to consumers principle: companies don't absorb costs, they pass them on to the consumer. How long will it be before the electric bills in areas where coal is the main provider of electricity are doubled or tripled? What is the consumer going to do? Switch power company providers? This isn't an option. These are monopolies. The consumer has no other choice.
Sadly, the administration feels that they can raise taxes and fees on companies and say that they're not hurting anyone. What you'll never see in the MSM is the observation that companies take these additional costs and pass them on to the consumer, you and me. So, when the administration raises taxes and imposes fees on business, they're really raising taxes and imposing fees on you and me, all of us, regardless of our income bracket. Don't look for that in the MSM.
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