Paying Higher Taxes Doesn’t Change the Weather [OPINION]

There is a plan in motion to charge fossil fuel consumers more if they happen to live in New England.

The proponents of the Transportation and Climate Initiative want to decrease the use of fossil fuel by the people who live in the states of Maine, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. They want higher taxes to stop what they consider man-made global climate change.

According to The Yankee Institute for Public Policy Studies based in Connecticut, the plan is designed to raise the cost of fossil fuel use to the point that it causes some folks too much financial pain and forces them to reduce their individual usage:

"The TCI plan would essentially raise the cost of gasoline by imposing an emissions cap and forcing gasoline distributors to purchase carbon allowances at auction. Although the exact price increase will vary from state to state, a similar program in California increased the cost of gasoline by 12 cents per gallon and diesel by nearly 14 cents per gallon, according to a report by the California Energy Commission.

TCI would then continually lower the cap year-over-year, forcing gasoline distributors to purchase more allowances and potentially increasing the cost of gasoline further."

If this plan is put into place, it will have a severe impact on people who can least afford the additional costs. The people commonly known as the "working poor" will feel the bite of the new tax. Wealthy people will absorb the cost of the new tax and continue with their freedom to drive a private automobile unabated. People who can't afford the higher taxes to drive will be forced to give up their private automobiles.

The additional tax money, we are told, will be used to improve and increase public transportation. People who can't afford the higher taxes will now have to schedule their life according to the schedules of public buses and trains. The hours of time that will be wasted at bus stops and train stations, not to mention the general misery of riding on public transportation, is incalculable.

But it is all worth it because the working poor is obviously destroying the planet with their daily freedom to go to work, the supermarket, and an occasional trip to the beach or the mall in a private automobile on their own schedule.

If man-made global climate change was that big of a concern for New England, would former President Obama have just spent over 10 million of his own dollars on an estate on the island of Martha's Vineyard?

The former president has access to the best science and climate data available. He just bought a house directly on the ocean. Do you think he is worried about global warming causing the oceans to overtake the coasts?

Do you think he and his family will be taking a private jet or public transportation to their new home?

I am glad the Obama family can afford an oceanfront island estate in the waters off the coast of Massachusetts and a private jet to get there whenever they want to. I would just like the less wealthy neighbors of the former president to be able to drive their cars to work.

Chris McCarthy is the host of The Chris McCarthy Show on 1420 WBSM New Bedford. He can be heard weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon. Contact him at chris.mccarthy@townsquaremedia.com and follow him on Twitter @Chris_topher_Mc. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.