Tea Party Movement Wrong In Opposing Cap-and-Trade

The Center supports the ideals of lower taxes, less government and more freedom, but we are baffled as to why the Tea Party Movement is opposing the market-oriented cap-and-trade concept. We believe that, if properly implemented, a cap-and-trade program will simultaneously work to reduce the danger of climate change and create a dynamic commodity market mechanism that will lead to innovative environmental capitalism. In our opinion, opposing appropriate cap-and-trade is equivalent to a movement opposing Bill Gates' development of the Windows operating system. The potential for carbon dioxide (CO2) reuse and manipulation is about as limitless as the innovations that came from the development of the internet.

Let us look at the Tea Party Movement objections. Freedom Works, which has become an umbrella for the Tea Party groups, lists "Top 10 Reasons To Oppose Cap-and-Trade:

1. It will raise energy costs
2. It doesn’t help the environment
3. It doesn’t work where it has been tried
4. It will cost Americans jobs
5. It is in effect a hidden regressive tax
6. It sets a dangerous precedent
7. It prevents market forces from working for the environment
8. It threatens to put the U.S. at a competitive disadvantage with other countries
9. It opens the door to massive fraud and corruption
10. It threatens to bust the federal budget at a time when the United States can scarcely afford it

Freedom Works is wrong on every count. The Center supports the delivery of energy at reasonable prices. Utilizing energy efficiently will reduce the total costs of energy. American innovation will figure out how to significantly reduce emitting limitless amounts off greenhouse gases into a finite atmosphere. Cap-and-trade properly implemented will create a significant number of new jobs and entrepreneurs. The operation of a cap-and-trade market system would be no more regressive than our National Highway System (NHS) and would, like the NHS, enhance the flow of capitalism. We are as wary of extremist environmentalists as Tea Party members, but George W. Bush aggressively advocated cap-and-trade and we supported him in doing so. Cap-and-trade would actually creates a market that would work to protect the environment. Countries would work to duplicate America's successfully implement cap-and-trade program just as they have in other areas. Massive fraud and corruption are possible in any human endeavor. Cap-and-trade is no more succeptible to it than any other human endeavor. Properly implement, cap-and-trade will have no impact at all on the federal budget.