Rep. Louie “InterContinental Shelf” Gohmert (R-TX) has bashed an MIT economist for daring to say Republicans are “just wrong” about his work on clean energy policy. Dr. John Reilly, a co-author of the 2007 “Assessment of U.S. Cap-and-Trade Proposals,” has criticized the repeated misuse of his work to fabricate a “$3100 lightswitch tax” for setting global warming standards with a cap-and-trade system as “misleading,” “unrealistic,” and “silly.” In an interview with the right-wing outlet CNS News, Gohmert, a two-term representative from the Dallas area, attacked Reilly’s sanity:
Anyone who thinks you can pay $3,100 to the federal government and thinks you can get that money back completely in services — like I said — he may go to M-I-T but he is an N-U-T.
Gohmert’s uncontrolled emission is consistent with the behavior of his fellow conservatives, willfully refusing to admit they’ve been caught in a lie. Every time Reilly attempts to explain the error of their ways, starting over a month ago, the GOP and the right-wing machine redouble their efforts. The Republicans for Environmental Protection, a group of conservative conservationists, have offered one possible explanation why so many leading Republicans, from House whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) to Budget Committee ranking minority member Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH), keep on lying:
Few except special interests and politicians who do their bidding would argue that limiting emissions that put human health and the environment at risk puts a burdensome “tax” on American families and businesses.
In a remarkable coincidence, a pollution front group, the American Energy Alliance, is running radio ads targeting swing Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, repeating the MIT lie:
The AEA ads erroneously state that draft legislation proposed by Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.) “could cost our family’s [sic] more than $3,100 per year in new taxes.”
,As a commenter pointed out, Gohmert is from Tyler, a Dallas suburb, not the city of Dallas proper.