Energy Independence- A Winning Issue for Republicans

GOP lieutenant governor candidate Patrick Muldoon has hit a real nerve with his frontal assault on Barack Obama’s massive new “global warming tax.” Remember last summer, with gas prices at $4 and climbing, and analysts predicting that gasoline would soon hit $12 a gallon? Well, now Obama proposes to enact massive new taxes on any form of energy that uses fossil fuel. If you think your heating bill is high now, if you think it's expensive to fill up your car now, wait till you see what Obama’s new "global warming tax" will do to you.

Here's a quick sample of some of the costs the Heritage Foundation has discovered in the Obama plan. This bill would:

• Reduce aggregate gross domestic product (GDP) by $7.4 trillion,
• Destroy 844,000 jobs on average, with peak years seeing unemployment rise by over 1,900,000 jobs,
• Raise electricity rates 90 percent after adjusting for inflation,
• Raise inflation-adjusted gasoline prices by 74 percent,
• Raise residential natural gas prices by 55 percent,
• Raise an average family's annual energy bill by $1,500, and
  
• Increase inflation-adjusted federal debt by 29 percent, or $33,400 additional federal debt per person, again after adjusting for20inflation.

Muldoon is right. We cannot achieve energy independence by taxing to death the engine that drives our American capitalist system .

Lest we fool ourselves into thinking that all Republicans are alike on this issue, remember that it was just last year that Virginia Senator John Warner cosponsored, with Joe Lieberman, a mirror image of the Obama “global warming tax.” Just a couple of weeks ago, Warner costarred with Al Gore in the sham global warming hearings before Congress, demanding passage of the new Obama tax.

The Republican Party must lead the way back to energy independence. The John Warner “compromise” path offers no future. We must explore our own vast God-given resources in this country. We cannot afford to be held hostage to Middle Eastern dictators who hate us, or to further deepen this recession by stifling the American economy to combat global warming, even as the globe's temperature begins to fall!

Muldoon is right. We cannot solar power and wind power our way into the future. If Republicans do not begin to stand up and boldly proclaim the differences between us and Obama, this nation will lose both its wealth and its freedom.
Pat Muldoon was the first candidate to sign Americans for Prosperity's pledge to oppose any energy bill that would increase our taxes. His willingness to confront the critical issues of our time, and to propose solid conservative solutions rather than watered down imitations of Democratic policies, helps to point the way back toward a Republican majority again. Congressional Republicans would do well to heed his advice.