“A study last year from The Heritage Foundation predicted CO2 regulations could cost up to 800,000 jobs per year in some years. Even in a ‘good’ year, our economy would lose more than half a million jobs every year from 2015 through 2026. (These are net job losses, by the way. The Heritage estimate takes into account all the ‘green’ jobs the government is supposedly going to create, and still shows hundreds of thousands of lost jobs each year.) 

“Manufacturing would be hit especially hard. As many as 3 million people could end up unemployed. That’s because business owners, faced with a massive carbon tax, would pack up and move their plants to China, India or some other location where the government doesn’t impose exorbitant costs. 

“Congress hasn’t helped matters with its latest attempt at ‘cap and trade’ legislation. Expect significantly higher energy costs if the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, which recently passed the House, becomes law.”

“Since the Reagan era, some conservatives have hoped to shrink government by ‘starving the beast.’ Refuse to raise taxes, they figured, and eventually spending would have to fall.

“It's beginning to look as though the new team may have a similar strategy, in reverse: Increase spending, and eventually taxes will have to be raised.”