“On average, employment is lower by 1,105,000 jobs,” the study found. “In some years cap and trade reduces employment by nearly 2.5 million jobs.”

It’s ironic that, just a few months ago, lawmakers raced to pass a so-called stimulus package that would supposedly pull the country out of its first deep recession in two decades. Yet today they’re trying to pass a bill that would destroy jobs, year-in and year-out, for decades. Waxman-Markey is like a self-imposed, rolling recession.

The Heritage analysis also found that Waxman-Markey would make the national debt -- already piling up around our children and grandchildren -- even worse. The bill would increase the national debt 26 percent by 2035. That’s an additional $29,150 per person, or $116,600 for a family of four, over what the debt would be without the bill.

Some might say this would all be worth it if the bill slows down global warming. According to climatologists, though, the bill would do virtually nothing to cool the planet. Even if they’re completely effective, the bill’s measures would lower global temperatures by only a few hundredths of one degree by 2050 and no more than two-tenths of a degree by the end of the century. Good luck measuring that difference.

Lawmakers may hope to win praise from future generations by taking what they consider to be a brave stance against global warming. But if they succeed in destroying our economy to fight that specter, they’ll deserve only scorn.

The United States can’t afford to try to cool the planet by icing our economy.