Wednesday, November 12, 2014
From: Gary L. Bauer
Obama’s Priorities
It was announced today to much fanfare that President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping have reached an agreement to dramatically reduce carbon emissions. Really? Carbon emissions? That speaks volumes about Obama’s priorities.
The president goes to China at a time when the Chinese are waging a massive cyber-warfare campaign against us and our leading companies. We learned just this week that the Post Office was hacked and Chinese state agencies top the list of suspects.
It was only a year ago that China’s communist media outlets were bragging about plans for a nuclear strike that could kill 12 million Americans. Moreover, China’s military leadership has concluded that it is capable of “bloodlessly deterring U.S. intervention” should it move against Taiwan.
To prove the point, the Chinese unveiled a new stealth fighter this week, which they built by stealing our technology. The test flight — with America’s president in the country — was a clear example of China flexing its military muscles.
Yet in the midst of all these national security threats, Obama elevates carbon emissions and climate change to the top of his list.
Emissions & Economic Growth
This deal has tremendous potential ramifications for our future prosperity. According to CNN, “the United States would cut . . . carbon emissions by 26-28% before the year 2025. China would peak its carbon emissions by 2030.” In other words, we cut our emissions for ten years, while China does next to nothing for 15 years.
The Washington Post adds, “Whether Obama’s target can be set now and achieved technologically . . . remains unknown.” There is one way it can be achieved.
U.S. carbon emissions were cut from 2007 to 2012. Why? The Great Recession.
Climate researcher Pierre Friedlingstein of the University of Exeter told USA Today, “There is a close link between the world’s gross domestic product and emissions of carbon dioxide. The emissions decrease . . . was directly related to the economic crisis.”
In 2011, one British newspaper published a story on reduced carbon emissions with this headline: “Significant Reduction In UK Emissions Attributed To Recession.” Princeton Professor Eric Larson wrote in 2012, “Recent declines in carbon emissions are the result of a combination of factors. . . .The recession, however, appears to be the most significant factor in the decline.”
Do you get it, friends? The fastest way to reduce carbon emissions is to severely limit economic growth.
Republican leaders were quick to respond to today’s announcement. Speaker Boehner blasted the agreement as “yet another sign that the president intends to double down on his job-crushing policies.”
Senator Mitch McConnell said, “This unrealistic plan . . . would ensure higher utility rates and far fewer jobs.”
Liberal Arrogance
Five years ago, MIT economist Jonathan Gruber was the left’s go-to man on healthcare reform. In fact, he’s often credited with being the “architect of Obamacare.” Now liberals just wish Gruber would go away. He’s said too much.
Late last week the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case challenging the legality of Obamacare’s taxpayer-funded insurance subsidy scheme. In violation of the plain language of the law, the Obama Administration has been issuing subsidies to everyone in the federal healthcare exchange. But the law clearly states that subsidies would only be available individuals in state-based exchanges.
Liberals dismissed this challenge, insisting that its legal reasoning was bizarre. But this summer video emerged of Dr. Gruber saying precisely what the critics were contending.
Now another video has emerged of Dr. Gruber describing how the congressional Democrats set out to deceive the American people. He says:
“This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure [the Congressional Budget Office] did not score the mandate as taxes. . . . if you had a law which explicitly said that healthy people pay [more] and sick people get money, it would not have passed. Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the ‘stupidity of the American voter’ or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass.”
As Charles Krauthammer put it, “What we’re hearing now is the true voice of liberal arrogance. . . .They believe that the voters are stupid, as he said. And they believe that . . . they have to lead the masses to the promised land and they can only do it by deception.”
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