Thanks.
For nothing.
Rep John Dingell today admitted that cap-and-trade really is an energy tax. Unfortunately, he did so in the context of telling a lie:
Contrary to Representative Dingell’s comments, quite a few people realized that cap-and-trade is a tax. And then so did quite a few people more. And then some more. And more. And more. And more. In fact, this realization is quite common among those individuals who do not have a vested emotional or, frankly, moral need to believe the absurd and contemptuous lie made by the current administration about how it wasn’t going to raise taxes on either the poor or middle class.
It is a depressingly common quality of the so-called “Blue Dogs” and/or “moderate Democrats” in Congress that they will so stubbornly refuse to admit to any sort of personal responsibility for their actions, even in the face of a personal apocalypse. Having decided that their personal positions and committee rankings were more important than their principles, they have shown an amazing ability to rationalize away every instance where their party has successfully forced them to choose the former over the latter. Put another way: there were lots of people who knew this all along, Dingell. You should know this: after all, you helped destroy their ability to influence the relevant policy positions. But now you want to pretend that it’s all really a sudden disaster, because that way you and your colleagues don’t have to be cowards who won’t stand up to your own caucus.
Not going to happen.
Moe Lane
PS: I read this little list that you and yours are begging to incorporate into Waxman-Markey. You do realize that Waxman doesn’t give a tinker’s dam what you people think or want, right? Because, really: what were you planning to do if he ignores you?
Vote Republican?
Crossposted to RedState.
There are many points to taxation but the Laffer Curve (we’ve consistently shown that we are to the right of the peak, have we not? Every time taxes have been lowered, the result is more revenue, no?) but the one most often overlooked is that everything is the business of the government.
You’re going to buy something? That’s their business. Sell something? That’s their business. Barter something? That’s their business. Have a kid? Have a drive? Have a smoke? That is their business.
When everything you do is at the leave of the government, rather than there existing a list of things that the government gets to say “quit it!” to, then… well. It might be time for a Constitutional Convention.
To put it mildly.