This message is brought to you by the leaders currently running the government.

Hello and thank you for your time. What we are about to say is very important. If you agree, simply nod your head and if you don’t, well, we will probably be able to tell that as well.

If you’re like most Americans, you probably have a monthly budget. However, we think that you can probably afford to spend more money if we have a idea that may or may not help the planet. Now you already look confused, but this cap-and-trade idea has worked in Euro…oh wait, it didn’t work there. Well Australia recently pas…oh, they didn’t, hhmm. Well, anyway, we still want ths cap and trade thing. So we’re going to bounce a few ideas off you to see how you react.

Remember, this is for the planet. How would you feel if you suddenly had to spend hundreds more a month on utilities? Oh really, that bad huh? Well what if it was about $1500 a year more? Ok, that didn’t go as planned. Moving on.

Let’s say you go to the gas station and you have to pay more to fill up, that’s not too bad right? You don’t like that either huh? Well, to be honest, you should stop driving so much anyway…(note to self, raise gas taxes and implement mileage tax – talk to Oberstar about this).

Well look, your utility bills are definitely going to go up, sorry, deal with it. And gas, yeah…expect that to be a lot more too.

I’ve got it, look around you, you’d be ok with some of these people not having jobs right? Let’s face it, manufacturing would probably die anyway so we’re just going to tax it to death. What? No, I don’t know how many, but how does 2 million jobs lost by 2035 sound. Ok, ok, ok, stop breaking things, you didn’t like that one either, we get it. 

Well listen, the unions tell us their private sector dues are down so they don’t really care about manufacturing, just like they don’t care about the auto industry. Their dues are coming from the increasing unionized government workforce and they give us lots of money, so there!! 

Alright, let’s just calm down. Look, it might not be your job lost. What’s that? Can we promise that? No, no, no, we definitely can’t promise that.

Ok, I see you’re upset, let’s just wait until this whole healthcare things blows over and then we’ll talk about the cumulative gross domestic product (GDP) losses that will be $9.4 trillion between 2012 and 2035; and the single-year GDP losses that will reach $400 billion by 2025 and will ultimately exceed $700 billion; and the net job losses that will approach 1.9 million in 2012 and could approach 2.5 million by 2035 and how the manufacturing  sector loses 1.4 million jobs in 2035.

We’re also going to have to chat about the annual cost of emissions permits to energy users that will be at least $100 billion by 2012 and could exceed $390 billion by 2035; and that a typical family of four will pay, on average, an additional $829 each year for energy-based utility costs; and how gasoline prices will rise by 58 percent ($1.38 more per gallon) and average household electric rates will increase by 90 percent.

If you don’t want to wait and want to have this conversation now, call your Senator and tell them to oppose the national energy tax known as cap-and-trade. Click here to find your Senator and give them a ring, I’m sure they’ll be glad to hear from you.

Data taken from The Heritage Foundation – http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/cda0904.cfm