I don’t know, psychologically, what it is that compels a man like Barack Obama to systematically throw under the bus every person who helps him. But he has done it again.

This will have devastating reprecussions for the House Democrats. Having pushed as hard as they could to get Cap and Trade passed in the House, the United States Senate has blocked consideration of the legislation until, at best, next year.

In a just released memo from the White House that was actually prepared months ago, turns out the White House knows cap and trade will amount to a massive tax increase on middle class families.

The Obama administration has privately concluded that a cap and trade law would cost American taxpayers up to $200 billion a year, the equivalent of hiking personal income taxes by about 15 percent.

A previously unreleased analysis prepared by the U.S. Department of Treasury says the total in new taxes would be between $100 billion to $200 billion a year. At the upper end of the administration’s estimate, the cost per American household would be an extra $1,761 a year.

A second memorandum, which was prepared for Obama’s transition team after the November election, says this about climate change policies: “Economic costs will likely be on the order of 1 percent of GDP, making them equal in scale to all existing environmental regulation.”

Barack Obama has known since November of last year just how devastating his cap and trade legislation would be and he didn’t bother telling Congress.

But what is more troubling is that he knew how much harm to the economy cap and trade would do in a recessionary period and he still chose to pursue the policy.

What does that tell you? The man, facing a devastated economy, chose to pursue a policy he knew would hurt it even more.

Whoever is President of the United States is not dumb. You cannot be dumb and win the Presidency. But you can be malicious and you can lack good judgment. I am beginning to think Barack Obama has both characteristics.