The 2010 Obama budget reveals the major tax hike that Pelosi, Reid, and Obama are counting on to fund the outrageous bailout and stimulus spending that is propelling federal spending to record levels-27.7 percent of GDP in 2009, an all-time record other than the four peak years of World War II.
The tax hike is a broad-based energy tax that will wallop every American who fills a gas tank, pays an electric bill, or buys any product that has to be grown, shipped, or manufactured.
The mechanism is cap-and-trade, which is like a tax on coal, oil, and natural gas but instead of being set at a specific amount, the total level of use is capped and companies are forced to pay the government for emissions permits-which Wall Street wizards at companies like AIG and Goldman Sachs can in turn trade on sophisticated exchanges and derivative markets.
White House Budget Director Peter Orzcag admitted that decreasing carbon emissions imposes costs on the economy, and “much of those costs will be passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices for energy and energy-intensive goods.”
