Michael Jones "A nobel laureate should know better than to forgo skepticism to make a lazy accusation." I agree, but apparently Al Gore does not. To repeat what I've alluded to before, I will assume for the sake of argument that AGW is proven beyond doubt. The C&T bill is STILL a very bad one, with enormous economic costs with no serious impact on AGW. This line about "setting an example" for the Chinese and Indians is very faulty logic. It's a hope, and nothing else. AGW will continue at a rapid pace with or without this C&T business. As the saying goes, nations have interests, not friends. And if using carbon-based energy is going to further those nations that is what they are going to do UNTIL a viable, cheap alternative is found. Solar and wind aren't goint to be enough. Now, I've said nothing even questionable about AGW, but still criticize this bill. I assume this does not make me a "denier" or moron or any other derogatory term except in the eyes of Dr. Krugman. If the debate has sunk that low...whereby to question the bill is the same as calling AGW a hoax then there is no debate at all. I must say however that history has never been on the side of those quashing dissent.

Tully “A nobel laureate should know better than to forgo skepticism to make a lazy accusation.” Well, yeah, but this is Paul Krugman we're talking about. A man who has never let his own knowledge of economics interfere with his political rants, even when his rants directly contradicted his own econ texts.

Tully And, um, I believe you mean anthropogenic, not anthropomorphic.

David The "expunging sin through legislation" is a tried and tested method of destroying rational discussion of legislation on just about any controversial issue. A very large number of useless or counterproductive laws were enacted following this sort of maneouver from the supporters of the bills concerned. If you don't support our legislation then you don't care about the poor/children/small animals etc, etc, etc.

Doomed Well in the case of this bill its the Democrats IRAQ. I hope it passes the senate with the GOP voting NO..NO...and NO. In 2010 there will be about 50 less democrats in the house. In 2012 we will be looking for a new President. Just think this bill is setting the stage to elect Sarah Palin as your new president. Way to go Dems.

Kevin H The problem seems to me that the against camp seems to fall eventually into two lines of reasoning. First, 'this is the wrong way to do it' and 'the costs are too big'. The first is more or less false, and the second devolves into an argument about the reality of AGW. First, the 'this is the wrong way to do it' line of thinking. There are three main ways people have figured out to curb unwanted behavior. Regulate, tax, and some hybrid (cap and trade). Direct regulation if fraught with unintended consequences, and I doubt many opposing the bill would seriously consider this an option. Taxation also has significant problems. A direct tax of a set dollar ammount doesn't index to inflation, so must constantly be readjusted. Also, the amount to witch the tax will curb the behavior has to be guessed at based on past supply and demand curve, which can be unreliable. A % tax solves some of those problems, but can exaggerate natural price fluctuations in ways which don't premote a stable economy. Cap and trade seems to be the the most reasonable alternative. In a sense it is a market derived tax. You set the final ammount of the unwanted behavior ahead of time, and the market derives a the price the tax would have to be in order to meet that output. This also has the added benefit of actually reducing the volatility of the cost of the good/behavior. To explain the difference between % tax and cap&trade on price volatility, imagine for a second that the world oil supply suddenly drops to 50% of what it was. Demand will stay the same, so price will skyrocket. The % taxation will mirror that spike in price, making oil even more expensive. However, with cap and trade, if supply were to suddenly drop, while market price would still increase, the potential for the market to exceed the cap would actually decrease. This reduced pressure of contraining output would drop the price of a credit. While the overall price would still increase in most situations, it should increase less than a purely market driven situation. So of the available option to us, a pure cap and trade system is probably the best solution. I should note that there are aspects of the legislation which could have all sorts of secondary effects. The most obvious is the plan to hand out free credits to different industries. Depending on the particulars of that program which I don't fully understand, you could essentially be subsidizing some industries at the cost of others, favoring certain businesses within an industry over others, or favoring small business over large ones. All of which, ideally would be kept separate from this bill, but having a bit of pork mixed in seems to be an unfortunate consequence of ANY action by our congress. The second, 'the costs are too high' rational makes a large assumption, that the costs of not enacting the legislation will be less. To validate that assumption, you have to put a $ ammount on both the costs of the legislation, and the costs of doing nothing. Both sides can play games here, but hopefully we move the debate forward a little bit. Should we include costs simply to the US, or to the entire world? Which model of climate change damage do we pick to base our cost projections on? So, at it's heart, the 'costs are too high' debate is a debate about whether AGW is real, and it's magnitude. It's not necessarily a bad argument, but it's one that doesn't play well when you look at current public opinion polls.

Doomed People. There are two groups that are using the Global warming debate to drive their agenda. Those who believe that global warming is a dire event and if not stopped it will imminently cause the demise of our world. Those who are using the Global warming debate to punish America with excessive taxation in order to raise capital for their social programs, wealth redistribution and social reorganization of America for the good of the people. Cap and Trade is about the second group while pretending to address the concerns of the first group. I do not care if Global warming is or is not happening. There are much better ways to reduce global warming then Cap and Trade. CAP AND TRADE is NOTHING more then a government TAX. Corporations do not pay taxes. Period. You and I do and EVERYTHING is made with energy. Everything. Nothing will escape an escalation in prices due to this bill.

John My Republican Congressman says Cap and Trade will be good for America. And, he caught the Green River Killer. Did you catch the Green River Killer? No, no you didn’t. You can hear his interview here. http://www.mynorthwest.com/?nid=194&sid=184941 Dave Reichert SPEAKS: says Cap and Trade will be good for America He argued that the expense would not be what the Heartland Institute, Heritage Foundation, and Wall Street Journal were predicting. He argued that it would cost around $.48 per day and that we would have better national security, more nuclear, coal and refining capabilities, and a cleaner environment with the bill. He argued that the conservative arguments against were mistaken, and that Washington specifically would be better off even though the bill was imperfect. And, he caught the Green River Killer. Yeah, it took him a couple of decades, but better late than never. I hear Fox was thinking about making the Series 24 about Reichert. But instead of showing 24 hours in a day they would have to make each episode a year.

Interested

Kevin H : The problem seems to me that the against camp seems to fall eventually into two lines of reasoning. First, ‘this is the wrong way to do it’ and ‘the costs are too big’. The first is more or less false, and the second devolves into an argument about the reality of AGW. First, the ‘this is the wrong way to do it’ line of thinking. There are three main ways people have figured out to curb unwanted behavior. Regulate, tax, and some hybrid (cap and trade). Direct regulation if fraught with unintended consequences, and I doubt many opposing the bill would seriously consider this an option. Taxation also has significant problems. A direct tax of a set dollar ammount doesn’t index to inflation, so must constantly be readjusted. Also, the amount to witch the tax will curb the behavior has to be guessed at based on past supply and demand curve, which can be unreliable. A % tax solves some of those problems, but can exaggerate natural price fluctuations in ways which don’t premote a stable economy. Cap and trade seems to be the the most reasonable alternative. In a sense it is a market derived tax. You set the final ammount of the unwanted behavior ahead of time, and the market derives a the price the tax would have to be in order to meet that output. This also has the added benefit of actually reducing the volatility of the cost of the good/behavior. To explain the difference between % tax and cap&trade on price volatility, imagine for a second that the world oil supply suddenly drops to 50% of what it was. Demand will stay the same, so price will skyrocket. The % taxation will mirror that spike in price, making oil even more expensive. However, with cap and trade, if supply were to suddenly drop, while market price would still increase, the potential for the market to exceed the cap would actually decrease. This reduced pressure of contraining output would drop the price of a credit. While the overall price would still increase in most situations, it should increase less than a purely market driven situation. So of the available option to us, a pure cap and trade system is probably the best solution. I should note that there are aspects of the legislation which could have all sorts of secondary effects. The most obvious is the plan to hand out free credits to different industries. Depending on the particulars of that program which I don’t fully understand, you could essentially be subsidizing some industries at the cost of others, favoring certain businesses within an industry over others, or favoring small business over large ones. All of which, ideally would be kept separate from this bill, but having a bit of pork mixed in seems to be an unfortunate consequence of ANY action by our congress. The second, ‘the costs are too high’ rational makes a large assumption, that the costs of not enacting the legislation will be less. To validate that assumption, you have to put a $ ammount on both the costs of the legislation, and the costs of doing nothing. Both sides can play games here, but hopefully we move the debate forward a little bit. Should we include costs simply to the US, or to the entire world? Which model of climate change damage do we pick to base our cost projections on? So, at it’s heart, the ‘costs are too high’ debate is a debate about whether AGW is real, and it’s magnitude. It’s not necessarily a bad argument, but it’s one that doesn’t play well when you look at current public opinion polls.

to consider the first part wrong you would have to conclude that it there is a problem - and as such cannot decide the true or false of it while dismissing the 2nd part. Cap and trade is still a tax. Just like pay go is tax & spend. Just by a different name.

Interested Either way - we can be sure this Lefty congress has our best interests at heart. They're working hard at it!

Hundreds of lawmakers traveled overseas in 2008 at a cost of about $13 million. That's a 50% jump since Democrats took control of Congress two years ago. The cost of so-called congressional delegations, known among lawmakers as "codels," has risen nearly 70% since 2005, when an influence-peddling scandal led to a ban on travel funded by lobbyists, according to the data.

....

Lawmakers frequently bring along spouses on congressional trips. If they take commercial flights, they have to buy tickets for spouses. If they fly on government planes -- as they usually do -- their spouses can fly free.

With this Congress we either pay for their spouse - or their mistress.

Often, lawmakers combine trips to war zones with visits to more tranquil spots. In February, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a delegation of Democratic lawmakers to visit U.S. troops in Afghanistan for a day. Before landing in Kabul, the eight lawmakers and their entourage of spouses and aides spent eight days in Italy, spending $57,697 on hotels and meals.

It's good to see they are trying to Stimulate the US Economy for the hard working Americans that voted them in.

Doomed Scientific models show that earth can only support 8.3 billion people with current technology. We are at 6.7 billion and rising and guess what....in less then 100 years its expected we will reach that 8.3 billion people... Amazingly at the exact same time that the Global warming experts predict that global warming will destroy the planet. There is a crisis coming but the only way to truly avert it is a massive sterilization program or just let it run its course and go back to the way things used to be..... Only the strong survive. Its natures way of weeding out the weak, sissies and those who just dont have the "want to" to survive. That ultimately is where we are headed and the sissies among us....you know the global warming crowd....are "afraid" they dont have the ability to survive if there is no one to take care of them. Cradle to grave mentality. My recomendation........become a Republican, buy a gun and start taking karate lessons. Be a real man.....not a "gurly man." That way when the new world order takes place and the Republicans bring kegs of beer and the wild pig to the camp fire you will be rewarded with a brew and a steak instead of told to go wash the clothes with the wimmin.

Interested

Colin Powell, one of President Obama's most prominent Republican supporters, expressed concern Friday that the president's ambitious blitz of costly initiatives may be enlarging the size of government and the federal debt too much.

can hear that resounding CRACK

Doomed Legislate and regulate. Its the Democratic way. SUPER NANNY STATERS they are. You will like what they say is necessary!!! It is after all the fascist way.