Conservative Principles Now

The wheels have been falling off the global warming bandwagon well before Climategate and the recent hole-poking of the much trumpeted Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) report. In a national survey last January by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, global warming ranked 20th out of 20 as far as top priorities for 2009. Only 30% of Americans felt global warming should be a top priority while 85% rated the economy as a top priority. It’s 2010 and not much has changed except that global warming is even less of a priority:

Dealing with global warming ranks at the bottom of the public’s list of priorities; just 28% consider this a top priority, the lowest measure for any issue tested in the survey. Since 2007, when the item was first included on the priorities list, dealing with global warming has consistently ranked at or near the bottom. Even so, the percentage that now says addressing global warming should be a top priority has fallen 10 points from 2007, when 38% considered it a top priority.”

The economy and jobs rank numbers one and two, respectively. To paraphrase Heritage Senior Policy Analyst Ben Lieberman, why would Congress attempt to address number 20 with a cap and trade system at the expense of numbers 1 and 2? The Boxer-Kerry Senate cap and trade bill would reduce economic activity (GDP) by $9.9 trillion from 2012-2035. Job losses would exceed 2.5 million by 2031. And cap and trade wouldn’t even tackle number 20 as it would have a negligible effect on the global temperature.

Although it’s highly unlikely President Obama would sign into law a cap and trade bill this year, there is a good chance an energy bill will reach his desk. Energy ranks 11th on America’s 2010 priority list — falling from 6th a year ago. Gasoline prices continue to rise as global demand increases but Americans are still living in a recessionary environment. Congress’s push for renewable energy mandates will only result in pricier energy. Instead, Congress should send clear market signals to the energy industry and peel back unnecessary regulations that prevent drilling for oil, building new nuclear plants and construction of renewable energy sources.

Putting in place an unwavering regulatory environment will do more for the economy, jobs and energy than Congressional planning to tackle these issues. It was economist Milton Friedman who said, “If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.” The same could be said for energy.

This week’s election of conservative Sen.-elect Scott Brown (Republican) in a very blue Massachusetts has sent shock waves throughout the White House and congressional leadership. In the last few days, the media has filed countless articles about Democratic members dropping their demands to ramrod a massive overhaul on the health care sector and instead start over with smaller components.

That’s because despite some political analysis that stated otherwise, the Massachusetts senate vote was in part a referendum on ObamaCare. Politico reported this week that exit polls circulated by Republican polling firm Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates “found that 52 percent of Massachusetts voters said they opposed [President Barack Obama’s] health care push, and 42 percent said they voted to for Brown to stop reform.”

But this isn’t the first time the American public has come out against ObamaCare. Public opinion polls for the past year from Gallup, Zogby International and even the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press have shown a steady drop in support, and corresponding rise in opposition, to health care reform legislation that would bloat Washington’s powers over the private health care sector.

Kaiser Health News reporter Mary Agnes Carey has pinpointed some of the factors in ObamaCare that caused the greatest concern among a major voting group — Americans with job-based insurance who liked their coverage.

Some of the things that didn’t strike well with the public:

• Proposed cuts to the popular Medicare Advantage, in which one in four seniors are enrolled in the private-based health plans.
• Promises from Obama that a health care overhaul would cut health care costs. Subsequent reports from the Congressional Budget Office, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and other agencies would show that reform would bend the cost curve upward.
• A planned barrage of new taxes considered on everything from health insurance premiums and tanning beds to medical devices and cosmetic surgeries.
• Backroom deal-making that cut sweetheart deals for congressional members over Medicaid funding and other health care perks.

Add to all of these issues a complete lack of transparency in the last few weeks of the health care negotiations, which President Obama and others policymakers promised at the start of their reform efforts. When you add all of these issues — along with citizens’ protests at the Capitol and across America against government’s growth and greater spending — it’s no surprise that that voters would show their displeasure in the polls.

The real question now is if Congress will stop trying to overhaul one-sixth of the American economy and start over with real reform efforts that could garner genuine bipartisan support?