No one expects consistency from Democratic politicians, but the Institute for Energy Research notes an egregious contradiction in President Obama’s FY 2011 budget:
[Obama’s budget] contained $36.5 billion in new taxes over ten years on the oil and gas industries, while heaping new billions in taxpayer support for politically-favored energies.
The White House budget request claims that, “Oil and gas subsidies are costly to the American taxpayer and do little to incentivize production or reduce energy prices.” In the first place, it is odd to hear the White House worrying about high energy prices, and also to hear it deny that tax policy gives incentive for production.
Both of these points flatly contradict the whole philosophy behind the White House’s favored cap-and-trade scheme, which is expressly designed to (a) raise the price of fossil-based energy and (b) reduce the incentives to use such energy sources. The White House can’t have it both ways: Do they want higher energy prices (cap-and-trade) or don’t they? And do they think government policies influence energy production, or don’t they? If they claim tax hikes on the oil and gas industries won’t have any incentive effects on production or jobs, then how can they claim that “green investments” will create jobs in the solar and wind industries?
The Democrats can’t answer these questions, of course. They just assume you’re too dumb to notice that their policies make no sense. Unless you assume that their whole point is to shower money on constituencies of the Democratic Party, in which case they are perfectly coherent.
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