Friday, March 6, 2009

Arrows, daggers, whatever it takes

A little while ago, this:

Browner appointment is "an arrow aimed at the heart of the American economy"

Now, this:

Cap-and-trade plan will sink Michigan

President Barack Obama's proposed cap-and-trade system on greenhouse gas emissions is a giant economic dagger aimed at the nation's heartland -- particularly Michigan. It is a multibillion-dollar tax hike on everything that Michigan does, including making things, driving cars and burning coal.…

The goal, according to the president's budget outline, is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide to 14 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.

Doing so will drive up the cost of nearly everything and will amount to a major tax increase for American consumers.
But Gaia will be happy.

3 comments:

blake said...

Wasn't one of the more egregious claims the President made that he was going to somehow revitalize the rust belt?

I'm guessing these guys will continue to vote Democrat, despite being destroyed by Obama's policies.

Hector Owen said...

It's a puzzlement. Thomas Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas, with its contemptuous theme that people who vote for values rather than to enrich themselves from the public treasury are clearly messed up, <sarcasm>must have emanated from a mirror world</sarcasm>.

Marxist theory says that people are economic units, and should always rationally vote in their own economic interest. But Marxist theory also confines people in their classes (so 19th Century!) and does not recognize that some of those economic units might not want to remain proletarians for their entire lives.

I'm trying to address your point here, but seem to have gone off-track. What I'm getting at is that habitual Democrat voters will go on voting that way out of habit as much as anything, without considering their own best interests.

Or in the cities that still have powerful machines, the question might be whether to vote for the alderman who got your brother-in-law his job with the city, even if that alderman was going to raise your taxes. Would you rather pay some extra in the taxes, or have the unemployed brother-in-law back on the couch for who knows how long? Some extra looks good from that perspective. Especially considering what the wife has to say about the brother-in-law on the couch.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=
That was a long way to get around to saying, yes, even, or especially, the ones most most damaged by Democrat policies, will continue to vote that way. As long as the Dems can continue to sell class warfare, and the green-eyed monster Envy, some will take the poison bait.

blake said...

I noticed that in Gamorrah, that the guy with the honest work--helping the political mover and shaker that disposed of toxic waste ended up relegated to that job because his father had no connections for the better (less corrupt?) job he wanted to get him.

But the toxic waste disposal was basically about connecting the Camorrah mob with "legitimate" government.

And so it goes. Always, without fail, in every civilization known to man. It's rough out there for an optimist.