Taxing to the last breath

The year 2009 may well be the most expensive year in history, both in a financial and constitutional sense, and it might get even worse. The cap-and-trade bill will be debated in the Senate soon, talk of another stimulus is flying around, and Barbara Boxer and others are ratcheting up the rhetoric so as to make us believe that if we don't commit to giving all remaining money and freedom to Washington now, we'll be dead before dinner.

Some are trying to make the case that only another stimulus will save the economy, which is a little like asking the captain of the Titanic to hit another iceberg in the hopes it will plug up the holes made by the first one. The very idea of a second Obama stimulus is sheer madness, which is exactly what makes it a very real possibility. And to top it off an administration that has been called "Gilligan's Island without the professor" is in control of General Motors – but you can read all about that in next month's issue of Czar & Driver magazine.

There should be nothing more disconcerting to Americans than seeing a bunch of politicians in a hurry. The president, Senate Democrats and a few falsely labeled "Republicans" rushed through the stimulus package like Trent Lott scurrying through South Central at dusk. Now, to cover the enormous "stimulus" outlay that, by design, does nothing but increase the size and reach of the government, they must reload the coffers by trying to tax you for each time you toast bread or exhale ("pay as you blow"?) via carbon and energy taxes.

The quest of carbon-based life to spend every last penny on earth to get rid of carbon will turn out to be either the most costly suicide ever, or the most expensive scam of all time. Frankly, I'm not thrilled with either option, but I have a pretty good idea which it is.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg, because cap and trade is going global. President Obama met with other G8 leaders in Rome to figure out ways to control Earth's temperature using nothing but the remaining contents of your paycheck. Impressive. I'll bet even MacGyver couldn't do that!

I have to admit, creating a fear of naturally occurring phenomena like the weather and temperature to achieve power while providing a justification to steal both money and freedom is medieval, but conceptually brilliant and a time-honored tradition among people seeking a way to take advantage of the ignorant.

World governments, under the tutelage of Al Gore, are taking a page from Christopher Columbus and telling uneducated natives (and/or those who received a government education) during an eclipse, "Give us your trinkets and corn, and we'll bring the sun back." The G8 participants are pretending that they, via expensive economy-busting regulations, have any ability to control the temperature, and if we (and most importantly our wallets) follow them, we'll be safe.

The fact is that if the average temperature fluctuates at all in either direction, as it always does over time, we're going to pay for it with money and freedom. "Climate change" is the ultimate fascist movement – and yet Al Gore has the gall to liken the "struggle against global warming" to the fight against the Nazis? If Al Gore is Winston Churchill, then Archie Bunker is Martin Luther King Jr.

On the upside, if Obama continues to get his wish list fulfilled, the U.S. will no longer be among the eight richest countries in the world, so he won't be invited back to agree on any more devastatingly arrogant schemes. The U.S. may then be replaced on the G8 by Al Gore, who within a couple of years will be the wealthiest nation-sized object on the planet.

In perhaps the least surprising – but funniest – comment in the past couple of weeks, Obama endorser and alleged Republican Colin Powell actually expressed surprise at the lack of fiscal responsibility coming from the Obama administration. This was a little like watching somebody who lobbied to bring the circus to town wondering where all the clowns came from.

The good news is that Bernard Madoff's former office space is vacant, so if the government decides to move in, this should be one area where they can save a little bit of taxpayer money because it's already plumbed for hot and cold running Ponzi.