The House just passed the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade carbon emissions control act. If it passes the Senate, expect the president — the bill’s pusher-in-chief — to sign it at first opportunity.

I have not read the bill, so I should not comment on it at length. But then, neither has any congressman read the now 1000-pages-and-plus wonder. So they should not have passed it.

We are supposed to believe it is a good bill because we must trust the congressional assistants who wrote it. If anything is a testament to “the power of belief” it's the enthusiasm for a bill that has not been read, much less understood.

One thing is certain: The cap-and-trade program will increase the cost of energy in the United States. It is essentially a big, fat tax increase on businesses and consumers . . . in the face of which, businesses and consumers will decrease activity, depressing the economy.

The White House and congressional leaders say the bill will create new “green” jobs. But increasing the cost of doing business does not spur employment in general. It will likely increase pressure to build plants and factories outside the U.S., and even the specific jobs created by such mandates tend to come at the expense of other jobs.

The most astute commentary on the bill, so far, rests on a comparison between today's darkening days and the darker days of the Great Depression, when that day's Congress and president rushed through the Smoot-Hawley Tariff . . . thereby digging the depression deeper, marching America into a scary, institution-threatening poverty that only ended in the aftermath of World War II.

Back in 1930, general political wisdom had it that protectionism protected the whole economy. There was scant evidence for this. From Adam Smith on, the studied understanding of protectionism was that it helped some (generally richer) people at the expense of other (generally poorer) folks.

But protectionism did make a plausible surface sense, like the minimum wage does to so many, today. And remember, in those days of yore, economists had not yet been bought off by the lure of state power and the allure of political prestige, so, almost to a man, they opposed the bill.

Then and now, politicians hate listening to economists when it comes to resisting the in-crowd wisdom. Skepticism about protectionism? How un-American! Lincoln was for trade restrictions and the protective tariff! How dare you oppose Lincoln?

Just so, Democrats, today, think it bad form to be skeptical of Al Gore’s trendy hysteria. Besides, he does have an awful lot of scientists on his side.

Indeed, the president and his new guard love to talk of “science” as if the pronouncements of scientists were utterly immune from political pressure and economic enticement. The fact that those scientists are generally paid for with tax-supported research grants doesn’t faze today's political leaders. And yet how many of the president's men — or the current Congress — would buy the science supported by tobacco companies? How many would hesitate to dismiss science paid for by oil companies?

The double standard regarding the misapplication of science still leans to favor those who like to do “great things” in government, leaning the other way from those who proceed cautiously regarding intrusive regulation, taxation, and prohibitions. Continued...