Liar's Poker: Cap-and-Tax

They are lying--and hope you're really, really stupid.

...the Congressional Budget Office did an analysis of what has come to be known as the Waxman-Markey bill. According to the CBO, the climate legislation would cost the average household only $175 a year by 2020. Edward Markey, Mr. Waxman's co-author, instantly set to crowing that the cost of upending the entire energy economy would be no more than a postage stamp a day.

(Which postage stamp? The one we used in 2005? 2006? 2009? But I digress...)

A closer look at the CBO analysis finds that it contains so many caveats as to render it useless.

Well, yah!

The CBO's analysis looks solely at the year 2020, before most of the tough restrictions kick in. As the cap is tightened and companies are stripped of initial opportunities to "offset" their emissions, the price of permits will skyrocket beyond the CBO estimate of $28 per ton of carbon.

Isn't 2020 about the same time that Social Security and Medicare collapse?

The biggest doozy in the CBO analysis was its extraordinary decision to look only at the day-to-day costs of operating a trading program, rather than the wider consequences energy restriction would have on the economy. The CBO acknowledges this in a footnote: "The resource cost does not indicate the potential decrease in gross domestic product (GDP) that could result from the cap."

Sorta like measuring the impact-crater of a missile while ignoring the effects of the nuclear bomb it delivered.

Under this more comprehensive scenario, [measured by the Heritage Foundation], Waxman-Markey would cost the economy $161 billion in 2020, which is $1,870 for a family of four. As the bill's restrictions kick in, that number rises to $6,800 for a family of four by 2035

That would be about--what? 5-10 years after the collapse of Social Security and Medicare?