Eric Cantor - "To say that the energy policy's going to create green jobs, that's great in theory, but I can tell you the cap-and-trade plan that's working its way through this House right now is going to result in a national energy tax imposing up to $3,000 per household every year."
PolitiFact.com "Truth-O-Meter" :
...any revenue raised by a cap-and-trade program amounts to a "light switch tax" on consumers, the House Republicans alleged.
To back up the claim, their staff pointed us to an M.I.T. report that says a similar a cap-and-trade proposal (the administration has not yet detailed their own version) would raise $366 billion per year. If you divide that by the 117 million households in the United States, you find it would cost each household $3,128, they said.
But is it that simple? Can you just assume consumers would be out $366 billion since that's how much the program would raise from fuel companies?
No.
"It's just wrong," said John Reilly, an energy, environmental and agricultural economist at M.I.T. and one of the authors of the report. "It's wrong in so many ways it's hard to begin."
Not only is it wrong, but he told the House Republicans it was wrong when they asked him.
"Someone from the House Republicans had called me (March 20) and asked about this," Reilly said. "I had explained why the estimate they had was probably incorrect and what they should do to correct it, but I think this wrong number was already floating around by that time."
It continues to float.
Or, to put it another way, "This is a deliberate lie." This time by Eric Cantor. Pathetic.
P.S. It's also a lie because "President Obama wants to use revenues from cap-and-trade to fund a tax cut for 95% of working families." See here for more on that.
