April 27, 2010

Now we know why Arlen Specter supports cap and trade legislation
by Bill Levinson

Our vote has been Arlen Specter’s to lose ever since we moved to Pennsylvania in 1993. We have since then voted for him three times; once in 1998 and twice in 2004 (against Pat Toomey in the primary, and against Million Mom March poster boy Joe Hoeffel in the November election). We are not happy that Pat Toomey effectively drove him out of the Republican Party and, had he stood with the people of Pennsylvania against ObamaCare and cap and trade, he would have our vote this November. He instead chose to relieve himself on our head and tell us it is raining, first by telling us what kind of health insurance we need and have to buy, and then by supporting the transfer of money from working Pennsylvanians to Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, and other fat cat climate profiteers on Wall Street. OpenSecrets.org shows that Arlen Specter has chosen to dance the cap and trade with the climate profiteers who bought him as opposed to representing the interests of the Pennsylvanians who elected him. Pat Toomey therefore has our vote this November.

The purpose of so-called climate legislation, as stated not by right-wing talk radio but by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), is to create a lucrative trading market for carbon credits. Gillibrand named Goldman Sachs (which also bundled money for her campaign), J.P. Morgan Chase, the Green Exchange, and the New York Stock exchange as entities that stand to make enormous profits from trading in carbon credits at the expense of the American people as a whole. In Senator Gillibrand’s own words,

An infrastructure is already beginning to form, as entities like the New York Stock Exchange, J.P. Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and the new Green Exchange are developing carbon trading platforms or expanding their environmental trading desks. There are nearly 100 funds already focused on green investments.

This might be nice for Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, and the other climate profiteers but it is not so good for working Americans who will have to pay more for necessities that range from electricity and home heating oil to gasoline for everyday commuting needs, nor is it good for high-wage manufacturing workers whose jobs will be outsourced to China or other countries with cheap energy.

The simplest way for energy-intensive manufacturers, which include chemical companies, aluminum producers, and steel mills, is to move their smokestacks, all the carbon dioxide from those smokestacks, and the high-wage jobs underneath those smokestacks offshore. Aluminum manufacture is particularly energy-intensive, and aluminum plants have failed despite having access to bauxite (aluminum ore) but not cheap energy. California’s dysfunctional energy policies resulted in aluminum plants shutting down and reselling energy, for which they had contracts for relatively cheap prices, on the power grid.

Cap and trade will create the same dysfunctional effects on a national scale while it destroys manufacturing jobs by the hundreds of thousands, all so Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan Chase can make even more money and pay their top executives far more in a single year than what most working people earn in their entire lives. Senator Arlen Specter is squarely on board with this agenda, and this comes as no surprise noting that he has received almost $52,000 in bundled contributions and PAC money from Goldman Sachs (so far). He has also gotten about $60,000 in bundled contributions from U.S. Climate Action Partnership member Exelon, thus making it very clear where his loyalties lie.

It is also to be noted that Arlen Specter’s master Barack Obama accepted almost a million dollars in bundled contributions from Goldman Sachs’ employees, and more than another half million from those of J.P. Morgan Chase. If he succeeds in imposing cap and trade on the American economy, those executives will certainly get more than their money’s worth from government-mandated trading in carbon indulgences (similar to the medieval indulgence racket) at the expense of ordinary Americans. This November is the time to retire Arlen Specter and all other supporters of cap and trade to make sure this does not happen.

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Our pro-Israel readers should also take note of this article. Arlen Specter’s master is doing his best to damage relations with our allies, ranging from Israel to the United Kingdom, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. Most recently, Obama’s Secretary of State offered to “mediate” between the UK and Argentina over the “question” of ownership of the Falkland Islands, thus inviting Argentina to renew the fraudulent claims that led to the war of 1982. The last thing we need in the U.S. Senate is individuals who might vote to ratify any treaties or other foreign policy decisions this buffoon might make, or sign off on his appointment of more Ruth Bader Ginsbergs (Ginsberg voted to allow municipalities to collude with developers to take private property for non-public purposes in the Kelo decision) to the U.S. Supreme Court.