Claim:
“Families and small businesses are struggling to get by, but the Democrats’ budget would raise taxes on every American who drives a car, flips on a light switch, or buys a product manufactured in the United States. In fact it would cost every family as much as $3,100 a year in additional energy costs through their ‘cap-and-trade’ energy tax, and will drive millions of good-paying American jobs overseas.”
— House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), from his “Leader Alert,” April 2, 2009.
Truth:
Groundhog day is February 2nd, not April 2nd, and April Fool’s was yesterday. So, we’re having a hard time understanding why the House Minority Leader would reuse the bogus $3,100 per household figure in describing the costs of a carbon cap.
He must not read the Truth Squad. Nor does it appear he reads his mail.
As we posted yesterday in a response to the National Republican Campaign Committee’s misuse of this same number — what PolitiFact called a “Pants on Fire” lie — John Reilly, the author the MIT study on which Rep. Boehner bases the $3,100 number, wrote him a letter yesterday [pdf] urging Republicans to stop misusing that figure.
Reilly wrote, “The [NRCC] press release claims our report estimates an average cost per family of a carbon cap and trade program that would meet targets now being discussed in Congress to be over $3,000, but that is nearly 10 times the correct estimate which is approximately $340. Since the issue of legislation to control greenhouse gases is now under consideration, I wanted to take an opportunity to clear up any misunderstanding created by this press release and to avoid further confusion.”
So, that’s $340, not $3100. Yet, Boehner seems to think he knows more about the MIT study than the actual author of the MIT study.
DeSmogBlog calls it a lie while Grist says he’s just off by 98%.
We prefer to think Boehner just got his months confused and believes today actually is Groundhog Day.