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Thursday, September 17, 2009

The Obama Administration’s Cost Estimates on Climate Change Legislation

The Obama administration has news on its cap-and-trade regulatory scheme that it does not want the American people to know.

CBS News correspondent Declan McCullagh serves up some worrisome, though anything but surprising, cost estimates from the Obama administration. For example:

• “The Obama administration has privately concluded that a cap and trade law would cost American taxpayers up to $200 billion a year, the equivalent of hiking personal income taxes by about 15 percent.”

• “A previously unreleased analysis prepared by the U.S. Department of Treasury says the total in new taxes would be between $100 billion to $200 billion a year. At the upper end of the administration's estimate, the cost per American household would be an extra $1,761 a year.”

• “A second memorandum, which was prepared for Obama's transition team after the November election, says this about climate change policies: ‘Economic costs will likely be on the order of 1 percent of GDP, making them equal in scale to all existing environmental regulation.’”

McCullagh also reported that the information was obtained under a FOIA request by the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Kudos to CEI.

Raymond J. Keating
Chief Economist
Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council

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