Republicans have been screaming blue murder for months about the cost of the cap-and-trade provision of the Waxman-Markey climate change bill. It’s going to cost us $1,600 each! No, that’s wrong: it’s going to cost us $3,100 each! Head for the hills!
So Rep. Dave Camp, the ranking Republican on the House Ways and Means committee, asked the Congressional Budget Office for a verdict. And guess what? The net cost turned out to be — at most — $175 per household by the year 2020. That’s less than $70 per person:
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the net annual economywide cost of the cap-and-trade program in 2020 would be $22 billion — or about $175 per household. That figure […] does not include the economic benefits and other benefits of the reduction in GHG emissions and the associated slowing of climate change….Overall net costs would average 0.2 percent of households’ after-tax income.
Low income households would fare even better. The CBO’s table of net costs is below.
