The New Mussolini

Back in the 20s Benito Mussolini pushed the idea that the best form of government was a benevolent dictatorship. As proof, he describes a citizen with a problem petitioning an elective democracy and getting only partisan bickering. The same citizen petitioning a dictator would get a solution producing the greatest benefit to the greatest number almost immediately.

On that basis, Benito ran for office on the platform that he would be Italy’s Dictator, solving problems without recourse to an endlessly bickering parliament. It was a strong appeal in a country where every city block had its own party, and it got him elected.

He was immensely popular with the press and the rest of the left, both in Italy and in the US, to the point that Studebaker even named their current model the Dictator, except in countries with governments that frowned on that sort of thing, where it was rebadged. Bypassing the parliament turned out to be quite easy mostly resulting in endless bickering with Benito’s Fascists in the majority.

90 years later Obama is proposing the same thing, without the title of dictator, which has fallen into some bit of disrepute over the years. For him, no tax is too large, and a huge, crippling energy tax will certainly fill the bill. This sort of thing has been proposed in the past, but some democrats, notably those from states where energy comes from coal, saw the folly of this and wouldn’t support it. See? Endless bickering.

The Obama solution for this is to have the EPA declare carbon dioxide to be a “dangerous pollutant”, which would impose heavy taxes and penalties on anyone producing it.

Mr. Grumet said that come January the Environmental Protection Agency "would initiate those rulemakings" that classify carbon as a dangerous pollutant under current clean air laws. That move would impose new regulation and taxes across the entire economy, something that is usually the purview of Congress. Mr. Grumet warned that "in the absence of Congressional action" 18 months after Mr. Obama's inauguration, the EPA would move ahead with its own unilateral carbon crackdown anyway.

This applies no matter how large or small the producer, thus not only Excell Energy, our local electricity producer would be hit with “pollution penalties”, and you know who winds up paying those. But you, Joe six-pac with your car, your power boat, your motorcycle, your lawn mower, your leaf blower, or gas grill, are now a producer of “dangerous pollutants” and the taxes will be levied against you, and against the polluters who sold you the hydrocarbons you used to produce them. You know who will be chipping in to pay the gas station’s share, now don’t you?

The EPA hasn't made a secret of how it would like to centrally plan the U.S. economy under the 1970 Clean Air Act. In a blueprint released in July, the agency didn't exactly say it'd collectivize the farms -- but pretty close, down to the "grass clippings."

Speaking of Excell Energy, if the power bills at US manufacturing plants get too high, the sensible thing to do is move the plant somewhere with lower energy costs, like China or Mexico. To compensate for this, the Dems propose extending unemployment benefits.

They think of everything.