One of the commonly acknowledged grave mistakes of the response to the Depression of 1929 was the Smoot Hawley Tarriff, which largely killed foreign trade in an effort to save domestic jobs. Not only did it make the depression worse it created many of the global economic conditions that led to World War II.

The insidious cap and trade legislation threatens to make the same mistake. Acknowledging that the bill will kill American jobs our vapid leaders’ response is to use trade restrictions to penalize countries that do not comply with our plan to control the weather . This can only make a bad economy much worse.

While President Obama has criticized American arrogance in the field of foreign affairs, what could be more arrogant than America, who has consumed and produced her way to the top of the economic pyramid, now seeking to deny the resources to poorer countries to grow their economies.

We should expect retaliatory tariffs that will hurt our exporters and as other countries develop their own middle class, they will be less and less dependent on American consumers. If other countries do not follow our cap and trade model our efforts will have practically no effect of climate temperatures.

Obama considered previous administrations arrogant for trying to impose political systems of freedom and democracy on other nations. He is even more arrogant for believing he can control global tempreatures, and then trying to force other nations to comply with a very uncertain and questionable program with trade restrictions. We will be the greater victims if this policy.

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