Bond releases report slamming cap & trade legislation

by | Oct 21, 2009

Senator Christopher “Kit” Bond (R-MO) is sounding the alarm about congressional cap and trade legislation, which is designed to cut carbon emissions, believing it is little more than a national gas tax on American farmers, workers, and truckers. Bond and fellow Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) have released a report, Climate Change Legislation: A $3.6 Trillion Gas Tax, HutchisonBondGasTaxReport, which claims the proposals will bring about these higher taxes.
 
 “You may not be taxed directly to the government,” said Senator Bond in his weekly radio conference call which followed the unveiling of the report. “But everything you buy that depends upon gas, diesel, or jet fuel is going to be more expensive.”Bond makes it clear this idea of taxed businesses passing along the burden to consumers comes from the head of the Congressional Budget Office.

“The Congressional Budget Office Director, Doug Elmendorf, appointed by the Democrats – a very honest man – and he testified before the Energy Committee that these cap and trade schemes will impose huge costs on the people they target directly when they hit those costs on businesses,” said Bond. “Businesses pass along those costs, dollar for dollar, to the people they serve.”

Speaking on behalf of farmers in Missouri and elsewhere in the Midwest, Bond expressed concern that farmers in this part of the country would take a much harder hit than those on the coasts.

“The burdens fall unevenly,” said Bond. “A farmer in the Midwest will pay 93 percent more for the taxes under cap and trade than farmers in the Northeast or on the Left Coast will pay.”

The U.S. House version of cap and trade legislation has passed that chamber. The Senate version still awaits legislative action, as opponents rally against it.

Download/Listen: Steve Walsh report (:60 MP3)



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