Sarah Palin has an op-ed in The Washington Post on cap-and-trade which, as many other bloggers have already noted, manages to avoid any actual discussion of global warming and climate change. It is hardly worth commenting on the weakness of her argument (especially as it is pretty much the standard line from the right). There is additional controversy here with regards to guessing who actually wrote it. Ezra Klein believes she had a ghost writer:
It’s probably a bit kind to say that Sarah Palin “wrote” this. There are no words in all capital letters. There are no sports metaphors. There is nothing at all like “*((Gotta put First Things First))*.” The stylistic and grammatical tics on display in last week’s speech are totally absent. Sarah Palin signed her name to this. Or at least let someone else do so.
Jonathan Chait sees this as true Palin:
The op-ed was clearly written by Palin herself. It has that 9th grade, five paragraph essay style along with random bits of right-wing jargon sprinkled throughout in appropriate contexts. It is best read if you imagine that some of the lines were written to be delivered with winks…
You betcha!
“manages to avoid any actual discussion of global warming and climate change.”
Well I think she others avoid bringing up global warming and climate change because the cap and trade regulations are going to do zip to combat global warming and climate change unless you penalize other countries who don’t go along with it, i.e., an early draft of Waxman-Markey already contained triggers that gave the president the choice to introduce carbon tariffs if jobs and industry “leak” overseas to countries that don’t constrain emissions so dramatically.
While the language is not finalized, some kind of carbon tariffs triggers will have to be there or the bill will be useless — this is the issue left-wing bloggers would like to avoid talking about.
Does anyone seriously believe the US government will pull that trigger if it is aimed at China? You know — the China that can bring our government to its knees now by simply not showing up at the next Treasury bond sale.
China is already heading the U.S. off at the pass over this:
“China’s central government reiterated its opposition to carbon tariff policies and said they could provoke a trade war, ratcheting up the rhetoric as lawmakers in the U.S. consider legislation to reduce greenhouse gases.
A statement Friday on the Web site of China’s Ministry of Commerce cited proposals in some nations to level tariffs on imports from countries that don’t limit greenhouse gases. Such policies violate World Trade Organization rules and are “not timely” ahead of global climate change talks later this year, spokesman Yao Jian said in the statement.
China has consistently advocated that the international community faces climate change together, but some developed countries have advocated using carbon tariffs against imports,” Mr. Yao said. “This violates basic WTO rules. It only pretends to protect the environment, but really it protects trade.”
And ah, shifting to economic concerns back home, how are the stimulus bill and the bailouts working out?
Well on the unemployment front, not much yet:
The average length of unemployment is higher than it’s been since government began tracking the data in 1948.
On the deficit front, however, they’ve had GREAT effect:
Federal budget deficit rises by $94.3 billion in June, pushing the total shortfall for the current fiscal year to $1.09 trillion.
Yup, we’re now 1 trillion in the hole.
Palin the energy wizard is lecturing Obama, what a joke. There is an interesting related post at http://iamsoannoyed.com/?page_id=588