Skinning The Carbon Cat With EPA

Standing amid the smoking ruins of Tuesday's defeat, President Obama indicates he's backing away from a cap-and-trade law. But as great as that news is, someone still needs to watch the backdoor. It's been said that a socialist thrown out the window will come back through the front door as an environmentalist. This reminds us of something we noticed in the president's day-after concession speech. Though acknowledging the cap-and-trade law is no longer a legislative priority, Obama also said he's not giving up on the idea of restricting Americans' output of carbon dioxide. "Cap-and-trade was just one way of skinning the cat," he said at Tuesday's news conference. "It was a means, not an end. I'm going to be looking for other means to address this problem." In moonwalking away from cap-and-trade, the president was simply admitting that, with a Republican-controlled House, the bill is going nowhere in the next two years. Unfortunately, Obama is still a believer, if not in man-made global warming, then in what he believes to be his right to meddle in private lives. If he can't supervise the clingers, enemies and the rest of bitter America through cap-and-trade, he'll settle for some other way to put limits on the masses. He suggested the EPA could beef up its police powers to rein in CO2 emissions. ama also implied that he could skin the cat through schemes that redistribute wealth into renewable energy programs. Though not as burdensome as a cap-and-trade law, government green energy initiatives tend to be black holes for taxpayers' money...more