Over $525 billion created from Obama’s new climate change cap and trade program will be dedicated to paying for the tax credit. The extensive carbon capping program would directly lead to an increase in energy prices of more than $500 per family. When you factor in the increased cost of goods manufactured with more expensive energy, the average family could see a cost increase of more than $1000.

Most of the time the government give and take game isn’t so patently obvious. Here we have a direct example of how hollow any tax reduction from this administration is. Providing a mediocre tax credit that doesn’t grow with inflation will not offset the increase in cost every time you turn on the lights and every time you buy a manufactured product.

President Obama has decided to bring the U.S. Census Bureau under White House jurisdiction, a move that incensed House Republicans, who fired off a blistering letter to him Thursday, calling it “outrageous and unprecedented” and a “blatant partisan and political maneuver.”

CongressDaily AM (subscription required)

This was pretty much the only upside of Gregg at Commerce, that he would be able to hold back Democratic efforts to radically change the census and mess with Congressional redistricting. Basically, Democrats for many years have wanted to turn the census into a survey. A census is a counting of every single person in the United States. A survey involves guesswork, we use them all the time and they have their purposes. The idea of a census is to remove any guesswork and make sure that you actually count every single person.

Democrats feel that the census “misses” minorities and the homeless meaning that traditionally Democratic areas are not properly counted. Instead of trying to figure out a way to better count such populations, Democrats want to include statistical survey results, taking the census out of the constitutionally required census.

Gregg still has some power as he hasn’t been confirmed or officially relinquished his seat. If Obama really wants Gregg to be his Republican cover man, then he should keep the very limited powers of the Commerce Secretary in tact. Call Gregg and tell him to stop letting Darth Obama “alter the deal”: (202) 224-3324.

It’s starting to become “common knowledge” that the House under the old Democrats was a legislative utopia. Dingell states, “The place worked.” Well of course it worked, if you were a big-government Democrat. Could it be that what Dingell is really missing is the stranglehold on power Democrats (and Dingell in particular) once had?

Nancy Pelosi spent a lot of time in 2006 talking about regular order and restoring the rights of the minority party. Now she’s gotten so heavy-handed that members of her own party are banding together to ask her to dial it down. Dingell and the Blue Dogs have a voice in how the House is run and it happens at the beginning of every Congress when the Speaker is elected. After being reelected, Pelosi immediately moved to strengthen her rule and not one Blue Dog voted against giving her more power to silence the minority.

[T]he land area dedicated to renewable energy (“Renewistan”) would occupy a space about the size of Australia to keep the carbon dioxide level at 450 ppm.  To get to Hanson’s (sic) goal of 350 ppm of carbon dioxide, fossil fuel burning would have to be cut to ZERO, which means another 3 terawatts would have to come from renewables, expanding the size of Renewistan further by 26 percent.

The blog post devles further into the math but effectively you are putting solar panels, windmills, and geothermal plants in pretty much every place they could possibly fit. Considering how much land is currently protected habitat (or within sight of Sen. Kennedy’s summer home) this does’t seem at all feasible. So what would all of this cost:

Griffeth said it’s not like the Manhattan Project, it’s like the whole of World War II, only with all the antagonists on the same side this time.  It’s damn near impossible, but it is necessary.  And the world has to decide to do it.

You could probably write a book about how inapt this analogy is. I guess he’s imagining the mandatory conscription of millions of men all financed with tens of trillions of dollars of new debt. This is probably the sort of thing that drives Bjorn Lomborg mad. Even if you believe all the bad things about global warming are going to happen, why not deal with the effects on an ad hoc basis? A city is sinking–move the people to higher ground or build levees. There’s drought in one area of the world–ship them food from areas where global warming has a net positive effect (longer growing periods in Canada, Russia, and Northern Europe.)

Instead we are supposed to totally revamp the world’s economy to finance massive infrastructure changes–and we have to do it immediately or we’re all toast. With trillion dollar deficits lasting for at least the next few years we have to ask where the financing is going to come from? The Chinese are already skittish about buying up more American debt and there is now serious discussion about bankruptcy in the UK.

So after hearing this grim prognosis for the problem of climate change, wouldn’t most people want to discuss sensible alternatives to building Renewistan? Not the attendees of this lecture: “Griffith’s audience was strangely exhilerated by the prospect.”

The question remains, however, don’t we already have Undersecretaries and Assistant Secretaries for these regions? What of our ambassadors to these nations? The media never asks the hard questions about where the czars fit into the scheme of our modern bureaucracies. Instead of throwing another person into the mix why are we not retooling our bureaucracies to meet these crises?

The appointment of a new czar is an essentially media phenomenon. Since the Washington Post and New York Times never report on the appointment of Undersecretaries, the only way to get their attention is to create a brand new position. The federal government is not Apple, we don’t need a government that is constantly announcing the launch of an exciting new product. (Holbrooke 3G! George Mitchell, now in 21 exciting colors!)

Holbrooke and Mitchell are now tasked with “coordinating across all levels of government” but what sort of official power do they really have and will the entrenched bureaucracy work with them? Realistically, these accomplished individuals would be tasked with retooling the State Department to perform these tasks without a special envoy. The job of fomenting peace in the world is not going to end when we tie up the loose ends in these two regions. In fact, it is highly unlikely that anything of note will be accompished before the special envoys move on to their next gig (“Thank you Karachi! It’s been a great farewell tour!”). We need permanent structures to accomplish these goals, not celebrities that float in, muck around, then drift back into “retirement.”

I humbly ask this in the name of the one who changed my life – Yeshua, Isa, Jesus, [Spanish pronunciation], Jesus – who taught us to pray:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

Considering all the criticism of his selection, Warren could have watered things down and tried to avoid any further controversy. Instead he practiced his obligation to the Great Commission: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” Warren was not going to let those in attendance forget that he is a Christian minister with a message of salvation through Jesus Christ.

Nice to hear that some of those celebrating from the Cathedral of the Press (the Newseum) hissed at the beginning of the prayer. Nothing like kicking off the new era of bipartisanship and inclusiveness by denigrating the invocation. I’m certain that the hissing ensured that God would not hear the prayer of the hateful Rick Warren.