Palin in WaPo: "The 'Cap And Tax' Dead End"

Sarah Palin lays out familiar objections to cap-and-trade.

There is no denying that as the world becomes more industrialized, we need to reform our energy policy and become less dependent on foreign energy sources. But the answer doesn't lie in making energy scarcer and more expensive! Those who understand the issue know we can meet our energy needs and environmental challenges without destroying America's economy.

Job losses are so certain under this new cap-and-tax plan that it includes a provision accommodating newly unemployed workers from the resulting dried-up energy sector, to the tune of $4.2 billion over eight years. So much for creating jobs.

In addition to immediately increasing unemployment in the energy sector, even more American jobs will be threatened by the rising cost of doing business under the cap-and-tax plan. For example, the cost of farming will certainly increase, driving down farm incomes while driving up grocery prices. The costs of manufacturing, warehousing and transportation will also increase.

The ironic beauty in this plan? Soon, even the most ardent liberal will understand supply-side economics.

A little of that good Sarah snark there. And to conclude:

We have an important choice to make. Do we want to control our energy supply and its environmental impact? Or, do we want to outsource it to China, Russia and Saudi Arabia? Make no mistake: President Obama's plan will result in the latter.

For so many reasons, we can't afford to kill responsible domestic energy production or clobber every American consumer with higher prices.

Can America produce more of its own energy through strategic investments that protect the environment, revive our economy and secure our nation?

Yes, we can. Just not with Barack Obama's energy cap-and-tax plan.

Nice. In this written piece, she is able to throttle the speed of her thinking, simplify her sentence structures, and supply her own punctuation, so that the usual media tricks of inaccurate transcription can't be applied. The WaPo comments are, for the most part, about what one would expect, mostly accusations that she did not write it herself. Here's a NY Times op-ed from last year, for comparison. No, I did not read all 3000+ comments, but 10 pages or so seems like a fair sample.

It's awfully good to see these sensible arguments presented in a major publication, from someone whose ability to command attention is so great.