With Al Gore no longer coming to Washington to rally support for Speaker Pelosi’s cap-and-tax bill, it was up to one of his support acts in the green industrial lobby, Barack Obama, to try to persuade reluctant Democrats to back the bill. Speaking at the White House just now, he said that this was a “jobs bill” that would cost the same as a “postage stamp a day.” Now, by my reckoning that means that he has secret plans to put the price of First Class Mail up to $3.40, because according to the best analysis out there, the bill will cost the average family $1241 a year. Moreover, high prices are what the president said he wanted (video evidence here).

As for jobs, look at that Heritage link and particularly Chart I. You’ll see that the effect in 2012 is almost 2,000,000 jobs lost. Over a million more are lost in each of 2013 and 2014, before the “green jobs” — those low-paying, temporary construction jobs the greenies rave about — come online. They never quite stop the effect being negative and then, once the brave new economy is in place, they go away and the job losses mount almost exponentially as industry relocates to China and India, who would never be so mind-bogglingly stupid as to impose such limits on themselves.

If you want more on this, there’s my article in the Washington Times today and this wonderful Top Ten list from the House Republicans:

1. Speaker Pelosi’s National Energy Tax Will Impose a National Energy Tax on Every Single American.
2. Speaker Pelosi’s National Energy Tax Will Cost American Jobs, Shipping Them Overseas to China & India.
3. Speaker Pelosi’s National Energy Tax Will Cause Electricity Bills to “Skyrocket.”
4. Speaker Pelosi’s National Energy Tax Will Hurt Family Farmers & Rural America
5. Speaker Pelosi’s National Energy Tax Will Not Improve the Environment
6. Speaker Pelosi’s National Energy Tax Will Cause Gasoline and Diesel Prices to Spike Further.
7. Speaker Pelosi’s National Energy Tax Will Be A Bureaucratic Nightmare.
8. Speaker Pelosi’s National Energy Tax Will Send Billions of US Taxpayer Dollars Overseas.
9. Speaker Pelosi’s National Energy Tax Will Raise Food Prices.
10. Speaker Pelosi’s National Energy Tax Will Set the Stage for Another Market Meltdown.

You can add to that 11. Speaker Pelosi’s National Energy Tax will cause a trade war with China and India.

As for the vote count on this bill, as the president said, it is on a knife edge. There are signs that some centrist Democrats are being persuaded by their constituents to resist the pressure from Speaker Pelosi and President Obama. Phil Kerpen of Americans for Prosperity is sending out regular updates on Twitter, and if you follow him you can get a list of those Democrats that need pressure. There are also rumors that some Republicans are saying they need to vote in favor or their re-election will be in jeopardy. This is, of course, dangerous twaddle, and you can remind your representative that you will remember how he or she votes by taking action as I suggested here.

Remember: It’s a tax!