Ugly might be getting some growth hormone…
Obama signaled that he would prioritize his beliefs about the climate in his second inaugural speech, so no one should be surprised by his decision to gamble his dwindling supply of political capital on an issue that is liable to hurt rather than help the economy. The president will, of course, argue that his green plan is good for the economy in the long run and tout his belief that more regulations will help transform the country and create jobs in industries that provide alternatives to the burning of fossil fuels. But the country has already been down this road in the first term as Obama’s stimulus boondoggle provided cash for Solyndra and other “green” corporations that proved to be cash cows for the president’s major contributors but a disaster to the taxpayers that were fleeced to bolster companies that couldn’t stand on their own.
The administration’s defense of this decision to bypass Congress will be to claim that the legislative branch has failed to act. But there is a reason why both Republicans and Democrats have been reluctant to implement the sort of Christmas tree of regulations that will be presented tomorrow: it is likely to hurt an already skittish economy. The high-minded gloss of idealism and gloom and doom predictions about our future that fuel the president’s climate push will be used by liberals to dismiss objections about the impact on the economy of this project. But Obama and his cheerleaders in the liberal media—who have been urging him to usurp power in this manner to further the global warming agenda for years—the danger that adding on new layers of federal regulations to an industry already sinking under the weight of government rules is real.
It should also be noted that given the anger on Capitol Hill and among the electorate about a trio of scandals that center on abuse of government power, the notion that the president would seek to govern on his own in this manner is curious. One would think the administration would be wary of feeding suspicions about extra-constitutional usurpation of power right now. But, like worries about the economy, concerns about the Constitution are always going to run second to ideology in the Obama White House.
Bingo. Obama doesn’t care because he is a dangerous ideologue. There is also the fact that he probably doesn’t think his political capital is dwindling because he is a weak, thin-skinned leader who surrounds himself with nothing but slobbering yes-men.
His priorities are not those of a serious world leader in troubled times, they’re those of a child who woke up one day wanting something and decided to act out in any way he could until he got it.
Four more years.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member