The American Spectator

So, just what was that cat that President Obama said he will now try to skin a different way, with his preferred vehicle cap-and-trade having been, erm, driven into the ditch?

Here is what he originally admitted about cap-and-trade, which the House passed. This discussion occurred in the apparent context of how to mount his and his team’s big-ticket agenda items:

“The problem is, can you get the American people to say this is really important, and force their representatives to do the right thing. That requires mobilizing a citizenry…And climate change is a great example.”

You got it: this is the community organizer, refusing to allow a crisis to go to waste, but instead seeking to use it to do what he’s trying to do. And now he knows the answer is you cannot make us do this. So he has to find another way.

But his knowing objective was:

“Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”

Actually, all energy prices would be so affected. Which of course causes problems for those things that might be made, finished or transported here. Meaning everything else, too.

“Because I’m capping greenhouse gases, coal-powered plants, you know, natural ga — you name, it, whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was — they will have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money, they will pass that money [sic] on to the consumer.”

That’s right. It’s a staggeringly large tax, which he acknowledged will be borne by consumers. This reflects two signs of economic literacy: the purpose and operation of cap-and-trade, and that businesses pass taxes on to consumers. Until they can’t, of course, then they move.

Oh, speaking of this being a tax, he added:

“This will also raise billions of dollars”.

How many billions? Hundreds of billions. That is what Al Gore called a “wrenching transformation of society”.

Remember: this was the objective. There is no other objective of the agenda than increasing the cost of energy sources that work. And there is no escaping that this also accurately describes a mandate that you use the things that do not work, but that politicians (a smaller number today than on Monday) have decided must be the ones you use. As they decided you could only use vastly more expensive light bulbs. As “energy czar” Carol Browner says you can’t be left with control  even of your own theromostat.

Remember: the sole other answer for “what is the purpose of capntade?” is “reduce emissions”. Right. And how, precisely? Right: just like all otehr schemes, by causing the prices of energy to necessarily skyrocket. And, “bankrupt” coal. And others, “whatever the industry”. Which is apparently just and proper use of the state’s powers in Obamaland.

But not in America. Keep your eyes peeled for these new ways to skin the cat: backdoor executive actions, EPA’s ‘endangerment’ proceedings (now before the courts), re-branding the agenda (after a Stan Greenberg poll told them to) as ‘clean energy’ and ‘green jobs’ (meaning massive new debt. Yeah. That should help).