The story begins in April, 2009, when the “League of Conservation Voters” began a $750K campaign to slam Rep. Roy Blunt for his vote against the “Cap and Trade” (or “Cap and Tax”) bill, who repeatedly refers to it by its euphemistic official smokescreen/name: “American Clean Energy & Security Act,” in an attempt to convince Missourians that Blunt is somehow trying to deny jobs in Missouri.  The LCV claims that this vote is somehow a sign that Blunt is beholden to “Big Oil”.   But it is actually a sign that Rep. Blunt is closely aligned with Missourians who oppose big government schemes that raise our taxes.

What is curious about the LCV campaign is that it is being shown around the entire state, rather than just in Rep. Blunt’s district, despite claims from the LCV that this is simply an effort to inform Blunt’s constituents of his position and “hold him responsible”.  If that be the case, then why show the ad in St. Louis, which is many miles from Blunt’s district?  The truth is obvious – the LCV campaign and the subsequent hit campaign from the VoteVets group are anti-Blunt Senate campaign ads bankrolled by Robin Carnahan supporters. 24thState.com documents the situation quite nicely.

And now it appears that Ms. Carnahan has decided to put it out in the open and forget about hiding her connections to the League of Conservation Voters.  Last Thursday night, Carnahan traveled to the Left Coast to attend a Seattle fundraiser sponsored by none other than the LCV.  (According to news accounts, a whopping fifty donors attended the event.)

Where was Roy Blunt while Carnahan was cavorting with radical eco-commies?  He was traveling throughout the state on a bus tour having actual conversations with actual Missourians, just as he’s been doing for months now.  During that time, Robin Carnahan has done everything possible to disappear and avoid questions about her positions on issues that Missourians care about.  She has to resort to fundraising in the liberal Northwest because she realizes that Missourians are smart enough to recognize the fiction behind Cap-and-Tax and so-called “green jobs”.

Blunt’s vote against Cap-and-Trade is exactly what we would expect from a conservative who supports small government and lower taxes.  The Heritage Foundation analyzed the economic impact of the bill and said:

Most problematic is the CBO’s complete omission of the economic damage resulting from restricted energy use. As footnote 3 on page 4 of the CBO analysis reads, “The resource cost does not indicate the potential decrease in gross domestic product (GDP) that could result from the cap. The reduction in GDP would also include indirect general equilibrium effects, such as changes in the labor supply resulting from reductions in real wages and potential reductions in the productivity of capital and labor.” In The Heritage Foundation’s analysis of the Waxman-Markey climate change legislation, the GDP hit in 2020 was $161 billion (2009 dollars). For a family of four, that translates into $1,870–a pretty big chunk of change that the CBO is ignoring.

The CBO’s claims of $175/family are ludicrous, and Roy Blunt realizes this.  The Wall St. Journal describes the “Cap-and-Trade Fiction” well:

The reality is that cost estimates for climate legislation are as unreliable as the models predicting climate change. What comes out of the computer is a function of what politicians type in. A better indicator might be what other countries are already experiencing. Britain’s Taxpayer Alliance estimates the average family there is paying nearly $1,300 a year in green taxes for carbon-cutting programs in effect only a few years.

Americans should know that those Members who vote for this climate bill are voting for what is likely to be the biggest tax in American history. Even Democrats can’t repeal that reality.

I have criticized Robin Carnahan in the past for being AWOL on voicing her positions on issues.  I pointed out how eventually her radical leftist positions would be outed and polls would begin to show that her ideology would not be well-received by Missourians.  Sure enough, recent Rasmussen polling data shows Carnahan falling behind Blunt in the 2010 Senate race.

The truth about Robin “I Love Big Taxes” Carnahan is emerging, and Missouri doesn’t like it.