With everyone focused on the health care debate, Democrats are hoping we’ll all forget about another of their many boondoggles thus far in the Obama Presidency; Cap and Trade (lovingly known as H.R. 2454 - “American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009″). This bill, like the Health Care bill(s) being bandied about just now on the Left, promises to deepen the deficit, increase taxes, eliminate jobs, and cost the taxpayers billions upon billions of dollars. Cap and Trade passed the House in late June by a slim margin (219-212), and (via Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air) is slated to be taken up in the Senate in September. The good news here is that passage is not YET a foregone conclusion.

As Erick pointed out a little while back, this bill is in trouble…in large part because the Democrats can’t seem to agree even amongst themselves. It’s also in trouble because, on the merits, it’s just a bad piece of legislation and people are starting to figure out why:

The hit to GDP is the real threat in this bill. The whole point of cap and trade is to hike the price of electricity and gas so that Americans will use less. These higher prices will show up not just in electricity bills or at the gas station but in every manufactured good, from food to cars. Consumers will cut back on spending, which in turn will cut back on production, which results in fewer jobs created or higher unemployment. Some companies will instead move their operations overseas, with the same result.

What is it about Democrats that make them choose to rule us by punishing us where it hurts us most in order to make us do what they think is “good for us”? We’re already 9 TRILLION dollars in the hole with 10 percent of us sitting this fiasco out, what MORE do they want from us?

Groups (similar to the Tea Parties and the “mobs”) are starting to form hoping they, too, can have their voices heard. Rallies are starting to be held across the country trying to get the message out about all the things wrong with this bill and its longer-term impact on America. As expected, however, counter-protesters (our fuzzy little friends, the global warming alarmists) are catching on that their brainchild might be in trouble, and are starting to fight back.

One can’t help but wonder how long it will take for someone ELSE to take abeating for exercising their free speech rights.

Our poor misguided friends on the left have begun mounting a smear campaign against the folks taking time off from work (if they even HAVE a job), or spending time away from their families, to join these rallies and express themselves. Led by that bastion of impartiality, the New York Times, the headlines scream “Oil Industry Backs Protests of Emissions Bill”, and we are expected to think this is BAD somehow. Astroturfing charges have begun to bubble to the surface as well, and this amuses me most of all. Amusing, mostly because the opposition to the opposition is doing exactly the very thing against which they rail, removing all remaining traces of credibility for their argument that we are being ’swindled out of the truth’ somehow.

As has been said elsewhere, it seems to be acceptable for ACORN to bus folks to voter registration drives or to the polls on election day because “people have a right to have their voices heard.” It seems acceptable, as well, for MoveOn folks to rummage up homeless people (Vets, preferably) to attend anti-war protests (the more unkempt and un-bathed, the better) because they, too, need to have their voices heard…but it is NOT acceptable for the Energy Industry to (in any way) join with, or provide support to, energy industry employees that choose to have THEIR voices heard in protest against something that will cost them their jobs and their livelihoods…and potentially put the companies they work for out of business - why WOULDN’T the Oil Industry want to have their Employees’ voices heard?

I’m sure this conundrum is easy enough for the more cynical among us to sort through.

We can only hope these newly-forming Citizen groups will be heard loudly and clearly enough, and soon enough, to put an end to this legislation before it’s too late.

The costs we are being asked to bear so we can prop up a dream from a man and his party hell-bent on achieving lofty goals…no expense spared…are more than this Country can bear. The problem here, of course, is that it isn’t THEIR money they mean to spend and waste, and they could give a flip about the negative effects of (and our protests against) these high-minded goals. Someone needs to pull in the reigns on this Administration and the Congress doing his bidding.

If not “we, the People”, then who?