A few selections from the Politico's Arena debate today:

This bill needs to die in the Senate. The immediate focus of our government needs to be on our economy first and foremost. This President and the Democrats agenda seems to be, we have been out of power so long, let’s then exercise as much as we can as quick as we can because we don’t know how long it will last. A unilateral Cap and Trade Bill will hurt our economy even further than it is today. (Bradley Blakeman)

Move over Smoot-Hawley. We now have the Waxman-Markey bill that will go down in history as the greatest self-inflicted economic disaster ever imposed by Congress. Waxman-Markey is a travesty of a sham of legislation that does very little to address energy requirements or encourage freedom from our nation’s dependence on foreign oil. Crucial issues like the need to combine thoughtful conservation with the need to build additional nuclear plants and responsibly develop our own fossils fuels were avoided. Instead, we have a 1300+ page monstrosity that creates new governmental intrusions into the kinds of lightbulbs Americans are able to use and the temperature of hot tubs. (Lurita Doan)

Any argument on behalf of Waxman-Markey that rests heavily on "jobs created," as Mindy Lubber's does, ought to be dismissed out of hand, for it reveals a throw weight effort to obscure the bill's larger failing: that it does not accomplish its own objectives, which is to efficiently internalize the global warming externalities and reduce dependence on foreign oil. Moving sand piles creates jobs and forced labor creates activity; in environmental and economic terms, Waxman- Markey's offers only the same facade of accomplishment and produces little net value added. (Steve Steckler)

New heavily subsidized green jobs replace much less subsidized jobs in coal and oil. Taxes on producers slow growth. Subsidies to consumers strengthen consumer spending including spending on imports. (Allan Meltzer)

Waxman-Markey is a complex and costly initiative that will kill small business jobs and competitiveness. Small, energy-intensive firms will take an economic beating. (Karen Kerrigan)