BY JOSHUA M. SMITH
Lions’ Pride Online Editor

Good news! Obama is going to “cut taxes for 95 percent of working families!” That means me!

But, as seems always the case in politics, the bad news is hidden behind the rhetoric—visible only to those willing to think beyond stage one.

Yes, Obama’s “tax cuts” will mean I’ll keep an extra $13 or so a month of my take-home pay. (Just imagine how much I’ll be able to stimulate the economy with 13 bucks!) However, Obama’s “cap & trade” scheme will end up sucking up that $13 and much, much more over time.

What the heck is cap & trade anyway? Well, cap & trade is this great idea some environmentalist came up with to “help combat global warming.” It is a way of penalizing companies that “pollute” the air with “carbon emissions” (i.e. breathing) by requiring them to pay the government for “the right” to pollute. Great idea, right?

Well, let’s think about it. Suppose you own a coal-fired power plant. Under Obama’s proposed cap & trade program, you’ll finally be punished for your years of polluting the air. Justice will be served and the planet saved. Yay!

But, let’s suppose that you get your electricity from a coal-fired power plant (which, due to the government’s ban on nuclear power, somewhere around 50 percent of Americans do). Under Obama’s proposed cap & trade program, the company that provides you with electricity will be forced to pay huge amounts of money to the government just to stay in business.

(Now, I know you all are smart enough to figure out how that could be a bad thing for you, the consumer of electricity, but just for fun, I’ll spell it out for anyone who doesn’t.)

Here’s the rub: If the company who provides you with electricity is forced to pay more to make that electricity, it will also be forced to charge you more to buy it. How much more? I’m no economist, but I’m pretty sure it will cost more than $13 a month.

But let’s take it a little farther. Who else buys electricity? Just home owners? Of course not. Saint Leo University buys a ton of electricity to keep your dorm room comfortable and your laptop buzzing (not to mention all the energy it takes to keep Saint Ed’s room 165 a crisp 55 degrees at all times). Do you think that Saint Leo is just going to eat the extra cost of electricity?

If so, I have some pristine wetlands in the east Pasco County area to sell you.

Of course Saint Leo isn’t going to eat the cost. They, like every other business, will pass that overhead on to their costumers: you!

And when I say “every other business,” I mean every other business. Does McDonald’s use electricity? How about Walmart? Does Nordstrom’s use electricity? How about Chuck E. Cheese?

If I’m not mistaken, all of these businesses require electricity to operate. And, once Obama begins to save the planet, all of these businesses will have to charge you more for their goods and services.

This higher charge for goods and services represents an effective tax on consumers above and beyond the sales taxes we already pay. Small price to pay, some might say, for saving the planet. But consider the fact that this new tax on consumers will also be one of the most regressive, and I think we have more than enough reason to pause and, like 4 Non Blonds once did, say, ‘Hey! What’s going on?!”

A regressive tax is one that hits people on the bottom of the pay scale the worst. It’s one that hurts the working poor worse than it does the rich. You see, everybody has to buy food. However, the poor spend a greater percentage of their total income on food than the rich. People as rich as Barack Obama (Did you hear he just got a $500,000 advance on a children’s book he’s writing?) have no problem absorbing the extra costs cap & trade will mean for the goods and services they use.

For the hard-working people of Pasco County and everywhere else in America, however, it will mean a further tightening of their belts.

So, take that $13 a month you are getting (or will be getting) from Obama and have a blast! Be sure to spend it now before you have to use it just to make ends meet. When that $13 and much, much more starts slipping away as prices on consumer goods and electricity rise, you’ll be able to look back in silent satisfaction and think, “Yep. I helped stop global warming by supporting Obama’s regressive hidden tax on working families. I truly am the change we’ve been waiting for.”