I don't take Michael Goldfarb particularly seriously, but I thought this paragraph sums up his skewed worldview quite nicely:
Basically, cap and trade strikes me as the Iraq war of the Democratic domestic policy agenda. It's the overreach moment. It's a massive program that, unlike health care reform, no one is demanding, no one understands, and no one can explain. Cap and trade may be the only thing that can save the Republican party from eight years in the wilderness.
Yup, cap-and-trade is like the Iraq War, except that it won't waste billions of dollars, kill hundreds of thousands of people, or be unnecessary. Instead, it's going to reduce the deficit, cost very little per household even over the long term ($175 per household in ... 2020), encourage the development of alternative energy and green jobs, and be a major first step toward reducing the effects of climate change. Even though it is a complicated proposal, it's also relatively popular.
Regarding Goldfarb's prediction that cap-and-trade will save the GOP, observe that the average voter is not going to feel the effects of cap-and-trade the way they will a lot of other economic indicators, like unemployment, rising gas prices, etc. Republicans hoping to save their party from the wilderness would be better served by coming up with some kind of coherent critique of the Obama administration's economic policies rather than ginning up false hysteria over a difficult-to-understand regulatory scheme whose overreaching goal is broadly popular.
Another question: Does Goldfarb now think that the Iraq War is a massive program that no one demanded, no one understood, and no one could explain?
-- Tim Fernholz
