Dems Urge Obama to Abandon Kneecap & Tax

Fearful of a backlash against the costly healthcare overhaul and bracing for huge losses in the 2010 elections, Democratic leaders are urging the Obama White House to abandon efforts to pass a cap-and-trade bill next year.

“I am communicating that in every way I know how,” Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., told Politico. She’s one of at least half a dozen Democrats who've told the White House or their own leaders that “it's time to jettison the centerpiece of their party's plan to curb global warming,” Politico reported.

“We need to deal with the phenomena of global warming, but I think it’s very difficult in the kind of economic circumstances we have right now,” said Indiana Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh, who called passage of any economy-wide cap and trade “unlikely.”

And Sen. Ben Nelson, who took a firm conservative stance against liberal tendencies in the Senate healthcare bill, said fixing the economy for out-of-work constituents, not the climate, should be paramount.


It's the biggest no brainer in the history of Earth. With China scuttling Copenhagen, a unilateral move to curtail our economy to stop global warming amounts to a transfer of jobs to China. Particularly at this time when the real unemployment rate approaches 25% when you add in those who have stopped looking, or as college grads saying "You want fries with that?" are vastly underemployed.