We are entering the 2nd official day of Bachmann watch. What did Bachmann do today? She couldn't possibly top her past week of bizarre comments and senseless legislation. Well, it just keeps getting better and better I'm afraid. This time she is misrepresenting a study that had already been publicly refuted on costs of Obama's cap and trade proposal.
Today she said that Obama's cap and trade emissions reduction program would cost the American citizen an average of more than $3,100 a year and possibly even $4,000 a year.
Remember Bachmann said
I haven't purposely been trying to be inflammatory. I'm trying to just explain to the American people what's happening here in Washington, D.C.
Yeah we are daily pissing on your head and telling you it's raining
Any way you look at it, it's low- and middle-income Americans who will pay dearly for this. According to an analysis by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the average American household could expect its yearly energy bill to increase by $3,128 per year. Using an analysis by Peter Orszag, President Obama's budget director, that number would be closer to $4,000.
In fact, low- and middle-income Americans right here in the Midwest will pay a disproportionately high cost for this policy. A recent analysis by staff at the House Ways and Means Committee found that under a cap-and-trade proposal, the annual increase in electricity costs per capita would be far higher for Midwesterners than in most other regions. Costs would be raised the most for those who get their energy from coal-fired utilities, which are more dominant in the Midwest than in the Northeast or Pacific Northwest, essentially meaning that Minnesotans will be paying for New Yorkers' energy.
However, the author of the MIT Study being referred, John Reilly, already blasted House Minority Leader Rep John Boehner of Ohiofor misrepresenting this study.
It has come to my attention that an analysis we conducted examining proposals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Report No., 146, Assessment of U.S. Cap-and-Trade Proposals, has been misrepresented in recent press releases distributed by the National Republican Congressional Committee. The press release claims our report estimates an average cost per
family of a carbon cap and trade program that would meet targets now being discussed in Congress to be over $3,000, but that is nearly 10 times the correct estimate which is
approximately $340.
Oh but she doesn't misrepresent only the MIT study but she blatantly makes up some figures about Obama's study.
A report issued by the Congressional Budget Office, of which Orszag was director until he was tapped for his new post, estimated that low-income families would see their bills increase by $680 annually. But since Obama’s cap-and-trade scheme, as outlined in his budget proposal, would give these families an $800 rebate, they’d actually come out ahead.
Of course this is not the first time that Bachmann has opened her mouth and spouted out wrong figures. She seems to do this more than she gets it right. This is the same person who says she "wants to explain to the public what is happening in Washington D.C.".
Is that right Michele? Well why don't you explain how you are deliberately making up figures and distorting the cap and trade argument.
Tomorrow Bachmann is having two forums on this cap and trade proposal with Chris Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.. Horner is one of the leading advocates for the theory that global warming is a myth.
Let's hope that he gets some of the questions about the true cost to the American citizen. We are making an effort to get rid of Bachmann in 2010 with
contributions to the MN-06 Dem nominee fund . Help us if you can