Add together NASA since its inception, the cost of Hurricane Katrina and spending on the New Deal. Adjust for inflation. What do you get? Not quite the amount of money a cap and trade program would generate in energy taxes on consumers. The $1.9 trillion generated over eight years from a cap-and-trade bill would still be larger than the $1.5 trillion from NASA, the New Deal, and Hurricane Katrina.
Granted, this is comparing apples to oranges to lemons as NASA and the New Deal are government spending projects, Hurricane Katrina was general economic damage and “climate revenue” from a cap and trade is a tax, but it gives you an idea of how big this program really is. In fact, CNBC has a slide show of the biggest spending items in the federal government’s history and, after adjusting for inflation, only World War II ($3.6 trillion) is greater than the tax collection from capping carbon dioxide.
Keep in mind, this is an enormous energy tax for absolutely nothing in return, unless you consider lots of economic pain (higher prices, hundreds of thousands of jobs lost per year) with no environmental benefit a good investment of taxpayer money.
