Ha!

So, enjoying my post-work beer, while Sparrowbane perches on my lap and attempts to nibble my fingers, and I see that the RINOs who supported Cap and Trade are being variously referred to as the Crazy 8--as I said in my previous post--and the "Cap and Traitors", or just the "Cap and Tr8ers."

I also read enough references to the Smoot-Hawley Tariff acts--formally the Tariff Act of 1930--that I went to Wikipedia to study up on the issue.

The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (sometimes known as the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act; officially the Tariff Act of 1930)^[1] was an act signed into law on June 17, 1930, that raised U.S. tariffs on over 20,000 imported goods to record levels. In the United States 1,028 economists signed a petition against this legislation, and after it was passed, many countries retaliated with their own increased tariffs on U.S. goods, and American exports and imports were reduced by more than half. ^[2]

Many economists, historians, and government officials have determined that the act was a contributing factor to the severity of the Great Depression.^[3]

There are, of course, all kinds of controversies about just how severe the impact of Smoot-Hawley really was, most nations actually seem to have had higher tariffs that the US did at the time... On the other hand, some speculate that even the debate regarding Smoot-Hawley caused the stock market crash of 1929, causing the whole thing.

I don't know about any of that.

What I do know is that the estimates of what Cap and Trade is going to do to utility bills* start at doubling them. Great timing. If Obama wants to be remembered as the Herbert Hoover of the 21st Century, that's fine by me, but it sure isn't going to be a pleasant few years.


*Assuming the Senate passes it, too.