John Kerry: If You Enjoyed This Year’s Recession, Just Wait for Cap and Trade
Nicolas Loris /
Senators Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.) introduced draft legislation of a cap and trade bill with slightly more stringent near-term carbon reduction targets and Kerry’s message was simple: The recession worked so well to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, let’s keep it going. Senators from both sides of the aisle expressed concerns about the target but Kerry argued since the recession gave us a head start on greenhouse gas reduction, we can kill the economy some more.
Let me emphasize something very strongly as we begin this discussion. The United States has already this year alone achieved a 6 percent reduction in emissions simply because of the downturn in the economy, so we are effectively saying we need to go another 14 percent.”
In other words, 10 percent unemployment is the new norm. It took a solid year for the United States to reach 10 percent unemployment through the financial meltdown and the housing crisis, let’s keep it there, or make it worse, with cap and trade. Why not be even more aggressive? If the trade off is a 6 percent reduction in emissions for a 3.5 percent reduction in unemployment in one year alone, we could get to a 20 percent reduction in carbon dioxide by October 2011 and push the unemployment rate to 18 percent. Look on the bright side; we’d still be below Spain’s 19.3 percent.