Obama promised to end the military’s ban on gays, but his Administration has not done so. In fact, it recently kicked out a West Point graduate “who is fluent in Arabic and just returned from Iraq,” just because he’s gay. Never mind that there is a severe shortage of Arabic speakers and translators in the U.S. military. (Liberal gay groups seem to have given him a pass on this issue, perhaps because he has promised to push another bill they support — the federal hate-crimes bill — which would erode civil liberties).

This is just one in a long line of broken campaign promises by Obama, like his pledge to enact a “net spending cut,” his promise not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year, and his promise not to sign bills without first giving the public five days of notice.

The Congressional Budget Office says that Obama’s proposed budgets will explode the national debt through massive spending increases, increasing the already large deficits left behind by the Bush Administration from $4.4 trillion to $9.3 trillion. His record-setting budgets flagrantly violate his promise to propose a “net spending cut.”

Obama broke his campaign promise not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year by signing a regressive SCHIP excise tax increase, and by proposing a cap-and-trade energy tax that could charge up to $2 trillion, a massive cost that Obama himself has said will be passed “on to consumers,” as well as homeowners and motorists. (In 2008, Obama privately admitted to the San Francisco Chronicle that if he was elected, electricity bills would “skyrocket” under his Administration, but it didn’t report that).

Over and over again, Obama has broken his campaign promise to give the public five days of notice before signing bills into law, including his very first law, the trial-lawyer backed Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Obama also repeatedly made false claims about the Supreme Court decision that the Ledbetter law overruled, misstating the facts of that case and how long it gives employees to sue over pay discrimination.

Obama broke seven campaign promises dealing with transparency and clean government in signing the $800 billion stimulus package, much of whose contents were secret until shortly before Congress voted on it, and whose 1400 pages went unread by most Congressmen who voted on it.

Obama’s broken promises are part of a larger pattern of dishonesty. Obama claimed his $800 billion stimulus package was needed to avert “irreversible decline.” But the Congressional Budget Office concluded before and after its passage that the stimulus package will actually cut the size of the economy in the long run. Obama’s budgets don’t add up, either, piling up $9.3 trillion in red ink, according to the Congressional Budget Office, a staggering $2.3 trillion more than Obama claimed.

Americans for Prosperity recently announced it has been joined by three key allies in its call for the nation’s elected officials to commit – in writing – to oppose anti-global warming legislation that results in a net increase in revenue to the federal government.  This comes as House Energy and Commerce Committee Democrats meet today with President Obama, who is pressuring them to accept a plan that hides a massive tax hike.

Through the NoClimateTax.com Web site, thousands of activists from across America have asked members of Congress and state legislators to sign a written pledge committing them to oppose any efforts to use anti-global warming legislation as a vehicle to raise taxes.

“We’re excited to have CEI, NTU, and IFL on board this important effort,” said AFP Policy Director Phil Kerpen.  “With these key allies helping promote the pledge to their members and directly with elected officials, we hope that a majority in Congress will commit in writing to take tax hikes off the table during discussion of what is supposed to be an environmental bill.”

“The Competitive Enterprise Institute joins Americans for Prosperity in urging Members of Congress to sign the NoClimateTax.com pledge,” said Myron Ebell, CEI’s director of energy and global warming policy.  “Cap and trade would be a huge indirect tax on the American people and probably the biggest tax increase in history.  As President Obama rightly said, ‘electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.'”

“President Obama may be sincere in his desire to make the planet a healthier place to live,” said Institute for Liberty President Andrew Langer, “but his proposed budget is dishonest in that it uses popular fears about global climate change to drive the biggest tax increase in American history through the Congress. In fact, his proposed Cap and Trade system will actually make the world a less healthy place.”

“Cap-and-traders are peddling their plan as if they were in a fiscal vacuum, but taxpayers can’t ignore the giant sucking sound near their wallets,” National Taxpayers Union Vice President for Policy and Communications, Pete Sepp, said.  “In addition to threats of punitive tax hikes on domestic energy production, payrolls, and small businesses, more burdens are on the way if President Obama’s health care scheme is enacted. Policymakers must pledge to switch off this money-grabbing machine now, beginning with cap-and-trade.”

The full text of the pledge is:
“I, ___________________________, pledge to the taxpayers of the State of _________________ and to the American people that I will oppose any legislation relating to climate change that includes a net increase in federal government revenue.”

AFP has already sent the pledge to every member of Congress, Republican and Democrat.  Signatories thus far include House Republican Leader John Boehner, House Republican Whip Eric Cantor, GOP Conference Chairman Mike Pence, Republican Study Committee Chairman Tom Price, and Rep. Joe Barton, the ranking member of the House Energy & Commerce Committee.  No Congressional Democrats have yet signed the pledge.  In addition, over 100 state legislators, on a bi-partisan basis, have signed similar pledges and are moving resolutions through state legislative chambers urging Congress to forgo the tax increases that are part of the “Cap and Trade” scheme included in the President’s budget.

A regularly updated list of signers, including scans of the signed pledges and local press releases, is available on the web at www.NoClimateTax.com.

In the News

by William Yeatman on May 7, 2009

in Blog

Climate Tax Will Pollute Your Prosperity
Grover Norquist, Washington Times, 6 May 2009

The leaders of the Democratic Party, President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi are already trying to shift the blame for the sledgehammer blow they have aimed at Americans who work in manufacturing and those who use energy in heating or air conditioning their homes.

Blue Dogs Press Pelosi To Shelve Cap-and-Trade
Mike Soraghan, The Hill, 6 May 2009

Democratic centrists are pressing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to set aside a flagging climate change bill to focus on what they think is a more achievable goal: overhauling the nation’s healthcare system.

“An expedition team which set sail from Plymouth [England] on a 5,000-mile carbon-emission free trip to Greenland have been rescued by an oil tanker,” BBC News reports. The crew’s solar and wind powered vessel capsized three times in stormy weather (68 mph winds). So far, at least, nobody has blamed global warming for the bad weather.

The irony of an oil tanker rescuing anti-fossil fuel crusaders was of course not lost on the BBC. The moral of the story should be obvious. Environmentalism is a luxury made possible by the comparative wealth and safety of a civilization powered predominantly by coal, oil, and natural gas. Restricting and, ultimately, prohibiting fossil energy use is a recipe for disaster and death.

So, have any of the eco-sailors had a change of heart or even second thoughts about the alleged evils of fossil fuels? The BBC report does not say, which probably means none did.

Those of us who post to this blog and others in the global warming debunkification (okay, I made that word up) movement are used to being ignored — or (usually) politely being humored first, and then ignored — but this experience from last week I thought was worth noting in the blogosphere.

Last week the Heartland folks referred a reporter to me from a Midwestern weekly newspaper, who had some questions about a greenhouse gas inventory her county was compiling and where she could expect public policy to go next. I had no idea where her sentiments were on the issue, but I gave her straight feedback based upon examples I’d seen elsewhere. What she did with it after that was up to her, and I did not care much either way what she did, given my past experience with environmentalist journalists.

Turns out she sought to do a balanced article, but her editor would have none of it. I usually like to name names with things like this, but I assume the reporter wants to keep her job so I will refrain. This is what she emailed me:

Paul:
Thank you so much for your responses. I did a story, but my editor removed all references to debate about climate change, global warming or whatever they are calling it now. He didn’t tell me, which is unusual when removing such a huge chunk of  a story, but I just discovered it today after it didn’t appear in our print edition.

It is online, but is not as I wrote it. I’m so sorry. I will still try to get both sides of all issues out. That’s all I can do. Thank you, and again, I apologize.

The Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade (energy tax) bill aims to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 20% below 2005 levels by 2020, 42% below by 2030, and 83% below by 2050. The cumulative cost in reduced GDP would likely total trillions of dollars. How much bang would we get for the buck?

Today, on Masterresource.org, climate scientist Chip Knappenberger shows by the numbers that the Waxman-Markey bill “will have virtually no impact on the future course of the earth’s climate.”

To calculate the climatic effects of the bill, Chip uses the MAGICC* climate model developed by the National Center for Climate Research, and assumes a climate sensitivity of 3°C (in other words, a doubling of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations above pre-industrial levels is assumed to produce 3°C of warming).

MAGICC reveals that an 83% reduction in U.S. emissions “will only produce a global temperature ’savings’ during the next 50 years of about 0.05ºC.”  Translating a bit, the temperature reduction is nine hundredths of one degree Fahrenheit, or two years of avoided warming.

* Model for the Assessment of Greenhouse-gas Induced Climate Change

In the News

by William Yeatman on May 6, 2009

in Blog

Gallup: Al Gore Is Failing
Paul Bedard, U.S. News and World Report, 5 May 2009

He admits that “it’s counterintuitive,” but Gallup Poll Editor Frank Newport says he sees no evidence that Al Gore’s campaign against global warming is winning. “It’s just not caught on,” says Newport. “They have failed.” Or, more bluntly: “Any measure that we look at shows Al Gore’s losing at the moment. The public is just not that concerned.” What the public is worried about: the economy. Newport says the economy trumps the environment right now, a strong indicator that President Obama’s bid to put a cap-and-trade pollution regime into operation isn’t likely to be politically popular.

Award Winning Boat Anchors
Paul Chesser, American Spectator, 6 May 2009

Irony is so much sweeter when its victims have slathered their false assertions with syrupy  arrogance and  mocking mix-ins.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1cOLI2n2Ec 285 234]

Two years ago, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius (D) refused to permit the construction of two coal-fired power plants in the southwestern part of the State because she is alarmed by global warming. Her constituents clearly disagreed with her decision-the State Legislature has passed four bills to overturn Sebelius and allow the coal plants. Each time, however, the Governor vetoed the will of the people, most recently this week. President Barack Obama chose Sebelius to become the Secretary of Human Health and Services, and she was confirmed by the United States Senate a week ago. Sebelius’s successor, Lt. Gov. Mark Parkinson, had said that he will veto any bill that allows the construction of the plants, but in a stunning reversal, he has decided to allow the construction of one 895 megawatt plant, according to the Kansas City Star.

Rent-seeking–the whoring after market-rigging rules and subsidies–is a true addiction, an appetite that grows with feeding. For the ethanol lobby, it’s not enough that government props up their product with Soviet-style production quota, protective tariffs, a 45-cent-per-gallon blenders tax credit, R&D handouts, and other support. Like the Johnny Rocco character portrayed by Edward G. Robinson in the Bogart and Becall classic Key Largo, the ethanol lobby always wants “more.”

And there are always well-meaning politicians happy to oblige. Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) and Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) have introduced bipartisan legislation (HR 1476, S. 835) requiring each automaker to ensure that at least 50% of the vehicles it manufactures or sells are flex-fuel by 2012 and at least 80% by 2015. A flex-fuel vehicle is one that can run on either regular gasoline or E-85 (a blend containing 85% ethanol), or anything in between.

Supporters acknowledge that flex-fuel technology will add about $100 to the purchase price of a new car. But, they claim, this expense will be more than offset by the reduction in fuel costs. That’s an interesting theory. However, according to www.fueleconomy.gov, a Web site jointly administered by DOE and EPA, it costs hundreds of dollars more annually to fill up a flex-fuel vehicle with E-85 than with regular gasoline. No wonder so few people buy flex fuel vehicles!

When will mandatists learn? If the combination of flex-fuel vehicles and E-85 is such a great bargain, consumers will demand them, and profit-seeking companies will produce and deliver them for sale, all without regulatory coercion. Alternatively, if the flex-fuel/E-85 package is not a good buy, no amount of government meddling can make it so.

For further discussion, see my post today on www.Masterresource.org.