Both Ways Now

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com 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