Pot Calls Kettle Black: Waxman Scolds Gingrich For Using Cap-&-Trade "Scare Tactics"

On Friday, Newt said that the climate bill is trying to push through will "punish the American people" by creating higher energy costs and threatening jobs.

"This bill is an energy tax," Gingrich said. "An energy tax punishes senior citizens, it punishes rural Americans, if you use electricity it punishes you. This bill will increase your cost of living and may kill your job."

Henry Waxman chastises Newt Gingrich for trying to "scare" people into rejecting the massive cap and trade tax.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee that is writing the bill, shot back that Gingrich was resorting to "the old scare tactics" designed to undermine any congressional effort to address the problem.

"When American people hear the statements (Gingrich) have made today, they get scared, which I think is exactly what is intended," a visibly angry Waxman told Gingrich, a potential presidential contender in 2012 and a leading voice of the GOP.

Henry Waxman needs to practice what he preaches. When Waxman talks about minimizing the release of greenhouse gases, he, along with the Goracle, constantly warning that if we don't pass this bill quickly, we "irreversible" harm will come to the world. Gore has implied before that the global "warming" will "bring a screeching halt to human civilization and threaten the fabric of life everywhere on the Earth -- and this is within this century, if we don't change."

No, scare tactics there. Chicken Little was subtle compared to the Goracle.

While Waxman is a bit more subtle with his predictions, the underlying meaning is the same.

"The EPA announcement confirms what science has told us - global warming pollution poses a grave threat to the nation's public health and welfare.

"Grave threat"? He is trying to scare people into accepting the huge new energy taxes so that he can force companies to drastically change and emit less gases.

However, drastic, immediate change is always very costly. It can be two to three times more expensive than if they took a little more time to gradually change. In this economic climate, the massive extra costs it would take to comply would devastate most businesses.

Global warming isn't even a proven fact. Even though, they pretend that it is. Many scientists doubt or don't believe that climate change exists. Recent evidence shows that global cooling not warming is happening. Should we be mortgaging our future for a unproven theory?

Updated: Watching this video update, I noticed how obvious it is that Waxman is scared to let Gingrich talk. He won't let Newt get in a word in edgewise. Why?

"Fuzzy Math" Tells Waxman That Climate Bill Won't Harm Economy, Dingell: Cap-and-Trade Is a Big Tax

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) throws leaves reality claiming that cap and trade won't hurt the uneasy US economy:

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said Wednesday claims by critics that controlling greenhouse gases will undermine the economy ignore the financial benefits of shifting to cleaner energy that does not contribute to global warming.

Waxman, opening a hearing on climate legislation, said critics argue that there is a fundamental conflict between economic growth and clean energy. But he said "that is a false choice" and that the nation's economic future and clean energy -- in his words -- "are inextricably intertwined." Waxman's bill would cut emissions by 80 percent.

That just isn't true. Democrats have been running with John Reilly's claim from Politifact that the quote of $3128 price tag for each family for that the Republicans have been quoting is false. However, the expert that said that the GOP was "just wrong" has since debunked his own claim:

During a lengthy email exchange last week with THE WEEKLY STANDARD, MIT professor John Reilly admitted that his original estimate of cap and trade's cost was inaccurate. The annual cost would be "$800 per household", he wrote. "I made a boneheaded mistake in an excel spread sheet. I have sent a new letter to Republicans correcting my error (and to others)."

While $800 is significantly more than Reilly's original estimate of $215 (not to mention more than Obama's middle-class tax cut), it turns out that Reilly is still low-balling the cost of cap and trade by using some fuzzy logic. In reality, cap and trade could cost the average household more than $3,900 per year.

The Weekly Standard article above goes into great detail to explain their findings.

Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), former Energy Committe Chairman, even admitted today that cap and trade isn't just a tax, but it's also a big one. It'll drive the energy prices through the roof.

Economically Damaging Global Warming Congress Agenda Won’t Be Fast-Tracked Through Congress

Lawmaker: Global warming plan won't be in budget
By ANDREW TAYLOR
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- House Democrats won't advance President Obama's controversial global warming initiative under fast-track rules that could effectively cut Senate Republicans out of the debate, a top Democratic lawmaker said Tuesday.

The House will try to use special budget procedures to remake the health care system, Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt Jr., D-S.C., said Tuesday.

Such procedures are the only way to pass bills with a simple majority in the Senate. If they are used, Republicans would have a limited ability to influence the landmark legislation. The idea is continuing to meet resistance from Senate Democrats such as Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad of North Dakota.

The developments come on the eve of debate in the House and Senate budget committees as they take the first steps to pass Obama's $3.6 trillion budget plan for the fiscal year starting in October.

Under Congress' arcane procedures, the annual congressional budget resolution is a nonbinding measure that sets the terms for follow-up legislation, sometimes including a filibuster-proof measure called a reconciliation bill.

The congressional budget plan also determines how much money to use for defense programs and domestic programs whose budgets are set each year by Congress, and it sets out the fiscal priorities of the governing party in Congress.

The panels are proposing cuts in Obama's 11 percent increase for non-defense agency budgets and will not fully reflect his proposal to permanently curb the alternative minimum tax, a parallel tax system that threatens some 24 million tax filers with higher taxes. Without such steps, they would be unable to cut the deficit to manageable levels.

Obama's plan to combat global warming would impose higher energy costs on consumers and businesses through a so-called "cap-and-trade" system for auctioning permits to emit greenhouse gases

Democrats such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California had advocated passing the controversial cap-and-trade plan under a special bill that can speed through the Senate on a simple majority vote, instead of the 60 votes needed to move most other legislation. Democrats and their allies control 58 seats at present.

But many Democrats, even party loyalists such as Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, oppose the idea, as do many House moderates. Pelosi is being forced to abandon the idea in the face of so much opposition.

At issue is whether to advance controversial Obama initiatives under filibuster-proof rules in the Senate. Republicans say the maneuver would freeze them out of deliberations on such important topics, and Democrats like Conrad say it shouldn't be used for such complicated legislation. But the Democratic-dominated House wants to make sure Republicans don't hijack the legislation.

"Reconciliation is pretty well settled," Spratt said. "I think we'll have reconciliation (for) health care."

Also, neither budget assumes Obama's $250 billion set-aside for more bailouts of banks and other firms.

In the Senate, Conrad is proposing to cut Obama's $51 billion, 11 percent increase
for non-defense agency budgets to about 7 percent. That's a slightly smaller cut than he had earlier proposed.

But members of the appropriations panel say the cut is deceptively large since programs such as the decennial Census and the Federal Housing Administration need about $4 billion more each to stay on track. And emergency aid for Iraq and Afghanistan, which is proposed to cost $11 billion this year as an emergency expense, will be covered within next year's regular budget, further reducing what's available for non-defense programs like education.

On the alternative minimum tax, Spratt said the budget will not in later years incorporate Obama's assumption that the $30 billion-plus cost of fixing the AMT and instead assumes other revenues are raised to limit its reach. The AMT was enacted in 1969 to make sure wealthy people pay at least some tax but now threatens to cost 24 million tax filers with increases averaging $2,000 or so a year.

Republicans continued their assault on the budget for its unprecedented levels of spending and for its dramatic increases in the national debt.

"We believe genuinely that it puts us on the path over 10 years for a very different kind of country, one with less freedom, one with more government, one with this extraordinary debt, and one which our children will have a very difficult time affording," said Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.

© 2009 The Associated Press.

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My Thoughts
The Democrats must be feeling the heat. They are starting to buck some in their own constituency because of they are unpopular with most of America. They know that fast tracking something that is a huge change to the national agenda would be borderline unconstitutional and a big power play that would make the Democrats look like bullies.