Indiana Says 'No Thanks' to Cap and Trade

A nice article by Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels in the Wall Street Journal today.  Daniels addresses the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act that's making its way through Congress now.  This is the Cap-and-Trade bill.  Governor Daniels has an interesting take:

The largest scientific and economic questions are being addressed by others, so I will confine myself to reporting about how all this looks from the receiving end of the taxes, restrictions and mandates Congress is now proposing.

Quite simply, it looks like imperialism. This bill would impose enormous taxes and restrictions on free commerce by wealthy but faltering powers -- California, Massachusetts and New York -- seeking to exploit politically weaker colonies in order to prop up their own decaying economies. Because proceeds from their new taxes, levied mostly on us, will be spent on their social programs while negatively impacting our economy, we Hoosiers decline to submit meekly.

The Waxman-Markey legislation would more than double electricity bills in Indiana. Years of reform in taxation, regulation and infrastructure-building would be largely erased at a stroke. In recent years, Indiana has led the nation in capturing international investment, repatriating dollars spent on foreign goods or oil and employing Americans with them. Waxman-Markey seems designed to reverse that flow. "Closed: Gone to China" signs would cover Indiana's stores and factories.

Read the whole thing... I think he's right, imperialism is the best description for the empires of California, New York and other states who look to suck the wealth out of the midwest to fund their own economies which they've taxed into oblivion.