This is an opinion article

You should have been linked here through the new article: Treasury Department Releases Documents Estimating Cap and Trade to Cost $100 - $200 Billion Annually:  The Benefits Must Still Remain Redacted More specivic informationa and appropriate links are located in this article.  The following may not be totaly understood without first reading the above article:

The following is Jay Syrene's opinion on the CBS News figures associated with the FOIA released documents by the Treasury.

This opinion article is not menat to discount CBS News' numbers, but to provide an answer as to how they were arived at them.

The CBS News arived at its number of $1,761 per household by dividing the high end of the government's estimate of $200 billion by 113,571,843 households.  I was unable to find out where CBS got their number of households from, but it seems close enough to the figures in the 2000 census (105.5 million households) to call it accurate. 

A specific number like $1,761 is very percise.  It ws used by CBS News, in my opinion, to put the numbers $100 - $200 billion in perspective.  with all of these billions and trillions of dolars being thrown around these days and many people probably unaware that the US polulation stands at over 300 million it may have been just a way for for CBS to personalize the figure, to make it understandable for some one who doesn't know what a $200 billion hit to the economy means to them.  This is giving CBS News the benefit of teh doubt, but I'll explore this further.

A specif number as in $1,761 lends the figure credence.  It seems not to be an estimate, it seems extremely exact... therefore CBS News must be right, otherwise how did it get such an exact number. 

As for the figure of $200 billion being equivelant to a 15% increase in income tax:  CBS News took the $1.37 trillion the IRS recieved in income tax last year and figured that $200 billion was  %15 of that.

I am a huge opponent of cap and trade as well a carbon tax, I made that clear in this article and throughout this website.  I am also an enormous proponent of the truth so in the intrest of truth lets explore the numbers:

CBS News did not use the low or even middle ground, they based all of their numbers on the high end of the Treasuy Department numbers.  As a result scores of articles claim that the cap and trade bill will cost $1,761 per household, as if this is fact, as if the cap and trade bill will cost exactly $1,761 per household.  A truthful report would state that the cap and trade bill could cost between $1,761 and $881 according to a range in Treasury Department numbers. 

As much as I am oppose to this cap and trade bill I am equaly opposed to unfair reporting and I'll take this oportunity to point out how the media manipulates stories... I think it is a good chance seeming this is a story and a cause that I am behind.

OK, so CBS reports that the cap and trade will cost $1,761 per household and then every subsequent article I've read on the subject also states that the bill will cost $1,761 per household. When infact that fair reporting should state that the bill could cost up to $1,761.

Incidently I beliee the bill will cost far more than the $200 figure, especially when we take into account all of teh jobs taht will be lost to a cap and trade bill.

CBS News' other number, that the cap and tarde bill will admittedly amount to what is equivalent to a %15 increase in income tax.  Like I said they took the IRS tax revenue of 2008 and found that 200 billion is about %15.  The division is sound, its just that the tax base is disporoportionate so the math will be as well.  If our income tax was a flat tax the %15 mark would be accurate, but its not.  In addion the 15% figure is also the high end of teh spectrum. 

I find it ironic thath I can't find an article stateing the low end figures of $881 per household and a %7.5 increase in income tax.  It seems that there is very little true reporting and much parroting, even in online news articles. This is a big reason as to why I started this website.  As I stated I am against a carbon tax, infact I am vehimently against one, I think a passage of a carbon tax would be disasterous.  A carbon tax will be what fuels a global banking power and the New World Order.  CBS reported an equivelent to a %15 rise in income tax.  I would have no problem with the masses thinking the carbon tax or a cap and trade bill will be equal to a %100 increase in their income taxes.

Despit my debunking of the CBS numbers and more so the parroting of thos e numbers, I do think they will prove to be at teh low end of the cost of a carbon tax.  The loss of jobs and the consolidation of a one world baning power will have a far greater cost.

My cocern is that such dubious reporting on numbers will turn the public debate from wheather a cap and trade is WAY to costly or not into a debate on the numbers.  Lets stay focused.  Lets look at the these enourmous monitary cost combined with the ecomic costs and realize that carbon is a life force, not the source of global warming; how can it be the source of global warming the earth has been cooling these past few years.