Proponents of the Waxman-Markey (W-M) cap-and-trade bill assure us it will cost the average household less than a postage stamp a day. The Heritage Foundation's energy team — David Kreutzer, Ben Lieberman, Karen Campbell, William Beach, and Nicolas Loris — have rebutted this claim six four ways from Sunday (see here, here, here, and here).
Some postage stamps, of course, cost more than most people's homes. For example, this rather plain looking item, a two-pence stamp issued by the Mauritius post office in 1847, sells for $600,000 or more.
Now, nobody is saying that Waxman-Markey will cost the average household what it costs to buy a mansion, but the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) estimates that W-M could increase the purchase price of a new home by $1,371 to $6,387, and that this would have the effect of making 337,000 to 1.57 million households unable to qualify for a home mortage. Repeat after me: "Law of Unintended Consequences!"
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