The new radicals in Washington moved from geopolitical acquiescence and centralized economic planning to more familiar liberal ground today, rolling out their vision of excessive federal environmental regulation that will no doubt help further subjugate an already bent-over private sector.
Obama’s EPA has formally declared carbon dioxide and five other heat-trapping gases to be environmental menaces, which will clear the way for … wait for it … massive federal regulation.
In other words, don’t exhale … because it’s about to be illegal.
Buried at the bottom of the New York Times‘ story on this historic O-nouncement was this little nugget …
Roger Martella, general counsel at E.P.A. during the Bush administration, said the finding marks the official start of an era of controlling carbon emissions in the United States.
“The proposal, once finalized, will give E.P.A. far more responsibility than addressing climate change,” Mr. Martella said. “It effectively will assign E.P.A. broad authority over the use and control of energy, in turn authorizing it to regulate virtually every sector of the economy.”
Great.
Raise your hand if you think this is just what we needed to get our economy back on track.
You know, if we could figure out a way to harness Obama’s hot air, we could probably power our little Amerikan commune for several millenia.
Come to think of it … we may have actually already done that.
By Pat Hendrix April 17, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Holy crap, centralized economy? I missed it. When did that happen? I thought TARP passed during the last adminstration and that the banks still retained control with their boards intact.
Come on guys, you might be taken more seriously if you dabbled in reality on occasion.
By fitsnews April 17, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Pat-
Please. You’re not new to this site, are you just trying to be intellectually dishonest?
Last October during the TARP fight, we filleted Bush and Paulson on a daily basis, along with GOP Rep. Joe Wilson, Henry Brown, Gresham Barrett, Lindsey Graham and all the other RINOs that voted for it.
No one bashes these Republicrats harder than we do.
In other words, we dabble in reality a good bit.
-FITS
By roofus April 17, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Yep. America’s the Saudi Arabia of coal. Makes sense that a STATIST like Obama must first continue to destroy America economically until we are all bleating for the government, our only savior, to save us. By taxing coal and energy consumption to the max, Obama decimates even more our slagging economy.
Think about it, a tax on gas consumption is a targeted tax upon those who live in rural areas and in the suburbs: traditional Republican, tax-paying demographic regions.
Only a true socialist would raise our taxes even more during a time of such economic hardship. You think yer in pain now; just wait until gas is 5 dollars a gallon. The rest of the world is laughing.
Then again, the envirofascists are true cultists. It’s a relgion for them. Even though science informs us that this year has been the coldest in over a century of DOCUMENTED temperatures world-wide, evidence and facts don’t deter ignorant “environmentalists.”
Facts are stubborn things, indeed.
By Kathy April 18, 2009 at 8:12 am
I blame the media for most of our woes. If they reported that the new EPA measures would raise prices across the board for all consumers for such things as, oh say, food, the libs that are too stupid to look beyond their “yeah, go after the rich companies”, mentalities, might buck. I only wish that there was a way to go long in stupidity in the stock market.
By Pat Hendrix April 20, 2009 at 9:58 am
Intellectually dishonest. Kettle – pot and all that.
There is no centralized economy, just a repeat of the S&NL, Chrysler and Harley scenarios in the 1980s. We’ve seen this before – DURING THE REAGAN ADMINSTRATION – so stop pretending this is a dissent into a marxist state. Tax rates are not even close to the highest we’ve ever seen in the past 70 years. If the deficit, which is easily the most troublesome aspect of this situation and an inevitable cause of inflation, can be brought down, we should come out this mess in fair shape.
Ultimately the long-term deficit will not be decided by a one time stimulus package, it will be decided by reforms to entitlement programs. The Republicans had a chance to solve these sticky issues in the last years of the Clinton Administration and decided on blowjob hearing instead (Thanks Senator Graham, not everyone can be *cough* A-sexual) And just when you thought entitlement spending might be reformed in W’s first adminstration, we get an entirely new drug entitlement that does nothing but ensure the profits of insurance companies and big pharma. Opportunity missed, now it’s your turn to moan on the sidelines. And with your side talking about “marxism, facism, envirofacists (sigh) and the stupidity of the American public in general – with no substanative ideas beyond succession and lowering tax rates on the John Gaults (snicker) of the world – you can be assured of a minority status for many years.
An amazing scenario given the leadership of the Democratic Party.