Obama: Let's Cut Carbon (And Jobs)

The big news of the day is that President Obama’s proposal to target the energy industry for particular tax punishment will kill 150,000 jobs. As Ed Morrissey notes, that’s high-paying union jobs. American jobs. Uh oh.

For years, groups like the BlueGreen Alliance have been working to do a delicate dance that falsely shelters union jobs while punishing traditional energy sources. While their legislative victories have been rather quiet (see: amending The Lacey Act), they are still holding out hope for their greatest hits, which include cap and trade, green energy jobs, carbon tariffs.

Could the recent trend toward collusion by Blues (blue-collar union members, mis-represented by labor officials) and Greens (granola-crunching hippies or their politer PR counterparts) be facing a rocky time? Well, there is a split between over “black liquor” tax credits (the Steelworkers were fine with American protectionism but decidedly less so for similar Chinese policies). But while that’s an interesting hiccup, the political alliance is still generally intact and meaning trouble for America. And already, the UAW is signing up to do for “green jobs” what it did for Detroit jobs — so watch out!

The real issue is that now Obama is having to redistribute the economic pie and choosing between his key constituencies — a problem he would not face if he focused on growing the economy, rather than slicing it up and topping it with giant spoonfuls of debt.

Photo: flickr/aprilandrandy