If there is one thing that Democrats are notorious for other than feckless whining it is their love of taxing the hell out of the American people to fund a massive crony capitalist government. The average working Joe or Jane are constantly faced with seeing their purchasing power eroded by a government that engages in wealth confiscation to fund its continued expansion and the warfare-welfare state. Think of it as a giant blood-sucking tick that can never eat enough or a lawless gang of shakedown artists using their state-backed power to engage in legalized extortion of the sort that would get a commoner thrown into prison. So it should come as no surprise that a former top economic advisor to Emperor Barack Obama is calling for the implementation of a carbon tax now that oil prices are plummeting.
According to a prominent editorial in the Washington Post by Harvard elitist Lawrence Summers entitled “Oil’s swoon creates the opening for a carbon tax”:
The case for carbon taxes has long been compelling. With the recent steep fall in oil prices and associated declines in other energy prices, it has become overwhelming. There is room for debate about the size of the tax and about how the proceeds should be deployed. But there should be no doubt that, given the current zero tax rate on carbon, increased taxation would be desirable.
he core of the case for taxation is the recognition that those who use carbon-based fuels or products do not bear all the costs of their actions. Carbon emissions exacerbate global climate change. In many cases, they contribute to local pollution problems that harm human health. Getting fossil fuels out of the ground involves both accident risks and environmental challenges. And even with the substantial recent increases in U.S. oil production, we remain a net importer. Any increase in our consumption raises our dependence on Middle East producers.
All of us, when we drive our cars, heat our homes or use fossil fuels in more indirect ways, create these costs without paying for them. It follows that we overuse these fuels. Advocating a carbon tax is not some kind of argument for government planning; it is the logic of the market: That which is not paid for is overused. Even if the government had no need or use for revenue, it could make the economy function better by levying carbon taxes and rebating the money to taxpayers.
It’s great to hear a professional bullshit artist and flim-flam man like Summers making the case for this proposed tax by invoking the “logic of the market”. Remember, this is a guy whose belief in the markets was so strong that he was a key player in the fleecing of taxpayers with the TARP bailout of the too big to fail Wall Street banks. In a true capitalist market businesses that are badly run would be allowed to simply go bankrupt. In this case they would have been made to eat the costs of their bad bets and the CEOs and top managers would have lost their jobs. But to guys like Summers true capitalism is for schmucks and those with political influence are able to game the system and be bailed out by the government. We see how that worked out too with a massive stock market bubble that is on the verge of imploding now that oil derivatives bets are about to blow up. But that is why a provision to put taxpayers on the hook to cover bad derivative bets was slyly inserted into the “Cromnibus” monstrosity last month. And I wouldn't hold out hope for those rebates that Summers touts either, they will be somehow be redirected back into the pig feeding trough.
What is it with these ivory tower dwelling Ivy league assclowns? They are so detached from the daily reality that Americans are faced with in trying to pay the bills despite inflation, increasingly crappy jobs and wealth transfer schemes like Obamacare that they have no shame. Lardass Larry, a key figure in Obama’s putting the taxpayers on the hook to bail out politically connected Wall Street gamblers for their bad bets may have left the administration but is still a go to guy for spreading ideas – bad ones. Summers wraps his argument in the false cloaking of combating global climate change but a carbon tax is really the first step to the long desired cap and trade con game that will further enrich Larry Summers’ elitist buddies by stealing from the American people.
Whether the plunge in oil prices is the result of the Saudis trying to drive U.S. shale producers out of business, a negotiated deal between John “Skull and Bones” Kerry and the sheiks to punish Putin by blowing up Russia’s economy or just the market at work it is an opportunity. The longer that oil prices stay low the more that the Rahm Emanuel maxim of “never let a serious crisis go to waste” will become irresistible in the implementing of this heinous tax that will only enrich those who have the dough to buy political juice by the barrel.
It is possible that this is going to be one of those areas where the Republican leadership dream team of Boehner and McConnell can find common ground to cut a deal with Obama. In today’s America there is always a bipartisan consensus when it comes to sticking it to a battered and shrinking middle class.
That sound that you may already be hearing in the distance is the stomping of the carbon jackboot.
