Flyover Country

From CNSNews.com:

The congressional Democrats’ cap-and-trade plan  to tax carbon emissions could cost every American family as much as $3,100 a year and is equivalent to a “declaration of war on the Midwest,”  Republican lawmakers told CNSNews.com this week.

But Democrats disputed the Republicans’ cost figure and said the plan can be accomplished without imposing a net cost on the American people.

In general, under cap and trade, the amount of carbon that energy producers emit is capped. They can exceed that cap through the purchase, i.e., “trade,” of carbon permits. The money for those permits would be collected by the government and presumably redistributed under a system still being crafted.

“The reality is the cap-and-trade legislation offered by the Democrats amounts to an economic declaration of war on the Midwest by liberals on Capitol Hill,” Chairman of the House Republican Conference Mike Pence (R-Ind.) told CNSNews.com.

Congressman Pence is one of the few leaders we have in Washington who is willing to stick his neck out there and actually lead.  Congressman Pence never wavers from his principles and is a true conservative.  If we were to ever run for President, I can’t think of anyone who I would vote for over him.  He is a true Fly Over Country hero!

This is nuts.

No, really..  absolutely nuts.

You would think that the vast majority of U.S. Congressmen have no clue about simple, basic economics.  I do have to give kudos to a handful of republican congressmen who stayed in the House after the democrat “leadership” closed up shop and turned the lights out on them.  (Which, ironically, is what eventually may happen to us if Congress doesn’t wise up!)  I’m especially proud of my congressman, Mike Pence (R-Ind), who was one of those who stayed to “debate”.  I’m very lucky to have a true conservative represent me in Washington.  There are very few of those left there.

So, according to politico.com, some of those representatives are going to continue their actions this week:

Continuing with their guerilla tactics from last week, House Republicans will be back on the floor Monday to talk gas prices, even though Congress is in recess, and they may stay there all week.

More than a dozen Republicans have already committed to make appearances, according to House GOP leadership aide, including National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Cole (Okla.).

Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) and Mike Pence (R-Ind.), who lead Friday’s five-hour talkathon after the House shut down for the August recess, are also expected to be there, according to this aide.

“In an urgent memo sent to GOP Members and staff Saturday (“A Call to Action on American Energy”), Republican Leader John Boehner (R-) and Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) hailed Friday’s action, and encouraged House Republicans to return to the Capitol beginning Monday morning to help keep the historic effort going,” said a press release just released by Minority Leader Boehner’s office.

I’m not sure if this is going to help or not, but at least it’s getting the message out there that something has to be done.  The problem is simple.  The solution is simple.  But sometimes it seems that the simplest of things is the most difficult for our nation’s lawmakers.

See.. there’s this simple thing called “Economics”.  Economics is not hard to understand.  Take any industry.  I mean any industry and one simple rule applies.  There are no exceptions and I challenge anyone reading this to come up with an exception that would be true without government interference.

Let’s take the ever famous “widget”, for example.  Let’s say that the ACME company sells this cool gadget they call The Widget.  The Widget is an extraordinary device that they sell for an extraordinary price, let’s say $10,000 each.  But people want this extraordinary device and they pay for it.  Thousands do.  ACME starts rolling in the dough.  Eventually, someone, let’s say the XOXO company, decides they want a slice of that Widget pie.  So after doing some research they decide they can save some money by using a new production technique and they can make the Widget cheaper and sell it for $9,000.  ACME doesn’t like this so they upgrade their facilities in order to compete with XOXO and cut their profit margin to sell their Widget for $8,500.

In the meantime, American Widget Company (AWC) has developed a completely new Widget that has advanced features that they sell for $8,000.  Not only is it less expensive, it’s better!  So AWC starts gaining market share left and right.  ACME and XOXO have no choice but to either slash prices or upgrade their Widgets or they will be out of business.

Yes, this is simplistic, but this is how the free market works.  Prices come down and products get better because of market influences and the government doesn’t have to do a thing, and it works in every industry!! There are no exceptions.   There may be some industries where it takes years for competition to evolve, but eventually it does.  Look at the telephone industry.  AT&T had a stranglehold on it until the government broke them up.  It was assumed that telephones would always be a “monopoly” type of industry, but today you have MANY options, some that don’t use a traditional land line at all like VoIP, cellular, and others.

This same free market magic would work with oil also.  The problem right now is that there are only a handful of places to get oil out of the ground and a handful of companies that drill for oil or refine it into products we can use.  The barriers to enter the market are too great, mostly due to government interference over environmental or other reasons.

If the oil industry were left to a more open and free market, entrepreneurs would find less expensive and more productive ways to get oil out of the ground, refine it into products we can use (like GAS!), and drive the price of energy down.

I recommend anyone who doesn’t understand these principles to read a book by Thomas Sowell called “Basic Economics”:

It’s not a bad read considering the subject.  It should be required reading for all members of Congress at a minimum.  Maybe if they understood simple economics, we wouldn’t be paying $4.00 a gallon for gas.

That’s just nuts!