A winning plan exists for conservatives in Texas who want to protect hard-working, tax-paying Americans from disastrous climate change policies.
Seeing Republicans like U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas embrace the climate change cult is disconcerting, especially considering the economically devastating results of these policies for the men and women often forgotten in these schemes. We see the results wherever these policies are implemented, be it Canadians suffering higher gas prices and a 2 percent increase in inflation, or Australians’ electricity bills exploding—in one case, they rose 85 percent higher in one year in the state of Victoria. And all of this for no effect on the environment at all.
It’s especially worrying to see local governments here drinking the climate Kool-Aid, and with results similar to when Georgetown residents saw their energy bills rising because of a greater reliance on renewable energy.
Some think it’s inevitable that such policies will become mainstream and cannot be stopped—that is in no way true. Using the environment as a Trojan horse for expanding government through higher taxes and regulation, leading to higher costs of living, can backfire politically. Just look at Australia and Canada.
After Australia enacted its carbon tax in 2012, arch-conservative Tony Abbott led the nation’s mainstream conservative party in a crusade to axe it, winning an enormous majority for his party in 2013 and becoming prime minister. Shortly after, he fulfilled his promise in spite of having to deal with a hostile Senate.
In Canada, conservative leaders like Doug Ford in Ontario’s 2017 election and Jason Kenney in Alberta’s 2019 election have been waging similar wars against carbon taxes, resulting in their parties winning huge majorities. Federal Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer has also declared he will axe the national carbon tax in the October election. So far, recent polling indicates voters will be replacing Trudeau with Scheer as their prime minister.
And last month, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison pulled off a miracle when he led his party to victory against the leftist Labor Party—an election Morrison and his party were supposed to lose.
How did these conservatives manage to defeat the Left in their respective countries? Look more closely at Australia’s recent election.
The Labor Party listed climate change as their number one issue, whereas Morrison focused on the economy and the plight of the forgotten man: the one who must pay taxes and is working hard to have a fair go in life.
Abbott ran on a similar theme in 2013, as did Canada’s Ford and Kenney in their elections. Scheer is doing the same in the run-up to the Canadian Federal Election. All have focused on the pain taxpayers were feeling because of catastrophic climate change policies, and how their alternative policies will bring relief and a brighter tomorrow.
The U.K. government found that their carbon taxes did nothing to help the environment and had to be paused to stop the pain for taxpayers. What’s more, these oppressive climate change policies are practically pointless, thanks to China and India’s ever-increasing pollution, while drastically raising Americans’ cost of living.
Conservatives in Texas, and across the U.S., must point this out and paint a clear contrast between the wallet busting, and ineffective, climate change policies of the left, and the positive and prosperous policies we offer.
Our message should be, as one conservative put it, “I fail to see how we make the Earth cleaner by making the poor poorer.”
