From Friday’s “All-Stars.”
On the Waxman-Markey bill:
Look, this bill is so bad it’s almost indescribable. It starts with what we heard Eric Cantor say. In principle, it’s a carbon tax. And to do it — which is probably the largest tax in American history — and to do it in the middle of a recession is quite insane.
But secondly, even if you accept that we have to do a carbon tax because there is an emergency in the climate, even so, what we have — the bill that we have today is an abomination — 1,200 pages, as you said, with a 300-page amendment dumped on people this afternoon today.
And it involves so many concessions to constituencies, to coal companies in states, to all kinds of favorite constituencies, that it’s a mess, and it undermines the idea of a cap and trade, a system in which the market will regulate carbon emissions.
As a result, in the final analysis, it gives money and carbon credits to utility companies on the condition that it does not raise rates on people’s electricity.
But if that is the case, then it undermines the entire argument in favor of this, which is to induce the reduction in the use of energy. If there are no rises in rates, there’s no incentive to reduce emissions, and the whole purpose of the bill is undermined.
On Iran:
You know, we Americans have a sentimental idea that in the end justice and truth will win out. Well, it happened here and it has in our own history, but it doesn’t happen around the world.
And the idea that this freedom movement cannot be suppressed with bullets and snipers and beatings — it can, and it’s succeeding. The opposition is marginalized.
And the real issue is Mousavi. Where is he, and will he speak up? And will he be a Yeltsin who will stands on a tank and declare essentially a revolution? I doubt it.