By Bill Hammond Texas Association of Business
With the recent unveiling of his administrations $3.6 trillion budget proposal and a cap and trade" emissions tax plan President Barack Obama has tacitly declared war on Texas business and consumers.
At a time when our economy is shrinking Obamas call for dramatic tax hikes and anti-growth environmental legislation places consumers entrepreneurs and businesses in the crosshairs.
In a tumultuous global market that famed investor Warren Buffet has likened to an economic Pearl Harbor" President Obama has opportunistically used this period of vulnerability to ram radical anti-business legislation down the throats of American taxpayers at a breakneck pace.
A pillar of his budget which spends nearly $10 billion per day calls for the repeal of tax cuts and institution of tax hikes for couples making more than $250000.
Obama is trying to cast himself as Robin Hood with this stunning re-distribution of wealth. However behind the presidents populist rhetoric lies the fact that his class-warfare plan is in reality an assault on small-business owners and entrepreneurs who already pay the lions share of the American tax burden.
In the prism of this economic climate it is no doubt that Americans are outraged at bloated corporate salaries and the shady practices of Wall Street financiers. Yet this legislation casts a much broader net and ensnares the employers who help provide the jobs that are keeping countless families afloat during this global financial crisis. Obama is hamstringing the individuals who comprise the small-business community which provides more than 70 percent of Texas jobs.
In addition the energy sector one of the primary job creators in our state will suffer as a result of short-sighted attempts to regulate emissions standards.
Obama is seeking to declare carbon dioxide as a pollutant that endangers human health. To dovetail that proposal the new budget will institute a cap-and-trade" program that will sell greenhouse-gas emission permits to the energy and manufacturing industry. The projected cost to these job creators would be $79 billion by 2012.
One only has to look at the cap-and-trade" tax proposal to see where the money will come from to pay for the federal governments massive new budget. Cap-and-trade" compliance costs likely will be passed on to consumers via increased prices or higher utility rates.
According to House minority leader John Boehner: Cap-and-trade is code for increasing taxes killing American jobs and raising costs for consumers."
Were America to cease releasing any greenhouses gases today the effect would be infinitesimal as developing nations such as China and India continue to increase energy production and carbon emissions without consequence. In an era in which energy security is essential to our future the Obama wish list would price developers out of the market" and force these companies overseas" according to Congressman Gene Green (D-Houston).
If Obamas proposals were to become law Texas would shoulder an extraordinarily onerous burden. Our state is the energy capital of America and home to tens of thousands of small-business owners. This federal legislation would shrink our states ability to promote economic development drive some of our best employers overseas and leave Texas consumers to pay even higher costs.
Bankrolling Obamas liberal agenda on the back of our states economic future is simply too high a cost for Texas to bear.
Bill Hammond is president and CEO of the Texas Association of Business an organization representing more than 140000 small and large businesses and 200 chambers of commerce.
