Cap and Trade legislation... are you following it?

By Steve Collier, Colorado Springs

CNSNews.com is reporting on Republicans opposition to any cap-and-trade legislation in its current form, where companies are are given a "cap" for as much carbon footprint as they are allowed to make, but they can "trade" carbon vouchers from the government for a fee. Now, do you think for a second businesses will say "well, we should really take care of paying for the trade, so we won't push the cost to the consumer." If you believe this, there truly is no coming back for you from la-la land.

It's difficult to get exact numbers on this, because cap-and-trade is nothing but a text book arithmetic math problem that has never been implemented, so people on both sides of the aisle truly have no idea what the costs will eventually be. But there is one piece of fact that will always remain: if the government is involved and thought it could squeeze more money out of something, it probably will try.

Republicans say cap-and-trade will increase the tax burden on people by almost $3,100 a year. Democrats say it's much less, with the possibility of it being no cost at all. This is all based off a report from M-I-T.

My take on cap-and-trade? While it's important to think of natural resources and our country's beauty and preserving it all, especially living in Colorado, we must also remember this: do we put American companies, workers and jobs on the line for cap-and-trade? Compared to other advanced industrial nations out there (China, India), they do not have type of cap-and-trade system in place, nor are they considering such action. Until nations across the globe agree to the same legislation, I am not in favor in giving India or China a leg up and America be the only one out there doing this. Let me put it another way... no industry, no jobs, no stable America. But at least the polar bears will live.

Makes sense, right? Here's the CNS story.