And since that's not getting the job of bringing us ten dollar per gallon pump prices done, President Solyndra is opting for a more direct approach:
Barack Obama wants oil companies to pay a $10 tax for every barrel of oil to help fund investments in "clean" [i.e. no] transportation.
Obama will formalize the proposal Tuesday when he releases his final budget request to Congress. The $10-per-barrel fee is expected to be dead-on-arrival among Republicans who control Congress and oppose new taxes and Obama's energy policies.
Still, the White House hopes the proposal will drive a debate about the need to get energy producers to help fund efforts to fight climate change.
That is to say, steal more money from already impoverished American consumers, already mired in unemployment and economic misery, who need and want cheap gas to fuel their cars and heat and power their homes, and for whom the current low oil prices are a blessing, in order to force them to pay for yet more exorbitant, unwanted, inefficient, impractical, "green" boondoggles like traffic reduction, high-speed rail, cutting carbon dioxide emissions within regional transportation systems, and self-driving electric cars. Another, even more hamfisted, jackbooted attempt to force us out of our cars and into public transit and onto bicycles and hippety-hops, and make every American city look like Hanoi and Saigon.
Thanks, Barry, but bleep you. Which is the preemptive, collective response from the majority party on Capitol Hill:
Congressional Republicans vowed Thursday to kill Barack Obama's plan to add a $10-per-barrel tax on oil production to pay for "green" transportation projects, with House Speaker Paul Ryan calling it "dead on arrival" and "an election-year distraction."
"[Barack Obama] expects hard-working consumers to pay for his out-of-touch climate agenda," the Wisconsin Republican said. "A $10 tax for every barrel of oil produced would raise energy prices — hurting poor Americans the most.
"This announcement proves that Barack Obama is still on a mission to destroy a major backbone of the U.S. economy," Ryan said. "[Obama] should be proposing policies to grow our economy instead of sacrificing it to appease [communist] climate [extrem]ists."
Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton said Obama's plan "would be laughable if it didn't illustrate just how much he's lost touch with reality over the last seven years.
"While his plan might be applauded by environmentalists and big-city liberals, it would be a nightmare for working families," the senator said. "This proposal would effectively double the gas tax — at a time when Arkansas families are enjoying more affordable gas prices.
"Worse, that tax would unfairly target people in rural states like ours who use more gasoline."...
House Majority Whip Steve Scalise also repeated the "dead-on-arrival" pledge.
"From day one of Barack Obama's administration, he has waged open warfare on American energy — and his radical policies have cost jobs while increasing costs on hard-working families," the Louisiana Republican said. "Washington spending is already too high, and the best way to create more jobs and get our economy back on track is by cutting taxes and controlling spending."
Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said the tax would "extinguish" the only job-growth sector in the American economy.
"One of the only bright spots in Barack Obama's anemic economy has been the jobs created by the oil and natural gas production industry, which has grown despite his policies," he said. "It is no surprise his [communist] leadership and petty partisanship would try to extinguish that economic contributor as well.
"Frankly, I'm unsure why [Obama] bothers to continue to send a budget to Congress," Inhofe continued. "He never submits one that balances — and even his own party members have not only voted against it but voted against it unanimously.
"America is ready for a new president."
Unfortunately, it's clear that Ryan and Cotton and Scalise and Inhofe still don't realize what is happening here. For all that we're obsessing over the 2016 election, the fact of the matter is that that is all, ultimately, a distraction. America is not going to get a new president, because the current one isn't going anywhere. Just as his $10 a barrel oil tax isn't just a proposal he's including in his budget, but a notification of his next round of Executive Orders/memoranda/whatever the hell he's calling them now - imperial decrees, diktats, etc. This effective doubling of the gas tax WILL be imposed, WILL be forced on us, WILL be shoved down our throats, no matter what Congress thinks of it. They, and we, are powerless to resist. The One is simply bestowing the gratuitously taunting courtesy of rubbing it in our faces in advance.
But don't worry, my friends, I'm sure that Congress, and/or the States, and/or the imperiled energy industry, will have their futile, time-wasting lawsuits against it on their launching pads, all ready to go.
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