Workers have been earning higher wages in the last few years, but inflation has consumed those gains. Many Americans feel like they are on a treadmill and cannot progress toward their goals, including saving for retirement or buying a new house. If Congressional Democrats get their way and pass their multitrillion-dollar spending bill, we're going to see the inflation beast become even more ravenous.
Speaker of the House Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Schumer's colossal and excessive spending and regulation bill will make it more difficult for American workers to thrive. Provision after provision in the bill would either directly or indirectly increase inflation by increasing the cost of energy use, while also raising taxes.
Democrats could force the early closing of coal plants that still have years of productivity. When we close coal plants early, it costs electric users money and causes electric rates to go up, because we must pay off the costs of building the coal plant and the clean coal technology added just a few short years ago.
While still paying for a closed coal plant, American taxpayers would also fund thousands of wind towers and thousands of square miles of solar panels. In addition, we would have to build more natural gas plants for when the sun isn't shining, or the wind isn't blowing.
This forced premature closing of coal plants and the building of new electrical power sources aren't going to make one iota of difference to the climate. Communist China emits more pollution than the United States, all of Europe, India and Russia combined. China burned almost 4 billion tons of coal in 2020, half the global total.
It is ruinous to make Americans pay more for their electricity when the largest emitter in the world is doing little to combat climate change. Ironically, the communist Chinese government will likely profit off our efforts to go green because many of the world's batteries and solar panels are made in China.
If Congressional Democrats succeed in replacing coal plants with renewable energy sources, we will become more like Europe, which is experiencing a dramatic energy crunch caused by virtually windless conditions. This energy crunch is making energy even more expensive than it is here.
Germany's electric rates, said to be the highest in the world, are triple what some of our less green states pay. Germans pay so much because of their heavy investments in wind and solar. In spite of Germany's heavy investment in renewables, coal provided more energy than wind in the first half of 2021.
Additionally, Democrats want to subsidize electric cars that are not affordable to all. Despite all the hype and subsidies, electric cars are only 1-2% of the cars on our roads.
Democratic leadership also wants to raise business taxes, which will be passed on to consumers. When a grocery store that operates on a 1-2% margin must pay more taxes and more for the electricity they use, prices will go up.
Democrats seem to want to put their heads in the sand and ignore rapidly rising prices. Increasing the cost of energy will make inflation worse because energy is used to do virtually everything. Not only do we have to pay more of our own money for our energy, but we also must pay more for our groceries, houses and cars.
Attacking affordable energy while inflation runs rampant seems, at best, delusional and, at worst, intentionally destructive. Democrats need to stop playing political games with American's electric bill and instead focus on reigning in inflation and getting the economy running again.
Frank Lasee is a former Wisconsin state senator and former member of Governor Scott Walker’s administration. This was first published by Real Clear Energy.
